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Product Description
Mental illness is a subject full of fears and misunderstandings. When faced with things we find difficult and distressing, most of us look away. Darryl Cunningham has both worked inside the psychiatric care system and suffered his own struggle with mental illness. Out of these experiences Darryl has created this book as an attempt to demystify such diverse illnesses as dementia, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia and depression. Psychiatric Tales opens the world of the acute psychiatric wards to show the very human struggles of the people within. People who could be our neighbours, siblings, parents, employers or even ourselves. At times harrowing, but always deeply humane, this graphic novel will open your eyes to the pain of sufferers, but also the hope of recovery found by many. The work is beautifully, simply handled, allowing the events and the emotions to speak for themselves; the tales themselves are immensely touching and affecting, taking the almost taboo subject of mental illness and shining a light on conditions which can and do affect many people. Cunningham doesn't soapbox to cry for more patience and understanding for sufferers, the stories do that themselves, neither does he pass any judgement on the people coping with various conditions he encounters. As the book progresses he also explores his own issues, including dealing with stress and depression in an equally honest, incredibly touching manner. A worthy addition to works such as David B's acclaimed Epileptic.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Normality is a light state of Dementia,
By
This review is from: Psychiatric Tales (Hardcover)
This is a very interesting "bande dessinée" on the subject of mental health. Strikingly designed and produced in dramatic white and black it explains (rather than reduces to simplicity) complex issues. Reading of the illnesses is handily supported by an illustration of the illness allowing the two to support and redefine each other. The author goes through a list of types of mental illness, his reaction to them (as a mental health assistant)and to his own problems with low self-esteem and depression. Although it uses the "cartoon" format (six panels to a page) it does not demean its subject but rather enlightens it. Because it is both personal and impersonal, general and specific, it has a remarkably rounded feel to it. I can remember the first time I grasped the modus operandi of the narcissist, suddenly strange behaviours became internally logical, this book does the same for so many other conditions. A delight.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A classic,
By
This review is from: Psychiatric Tales (Hardcover)
Psychiatric TalesDarryl Cunningham's book is a succinct and accessible account of mental health problems which effectively communicates the experience of disorders from professional and personal viewpoints. It demystifies and destigmatizes the conditions so many of us will experience at first or second hand, and is a masterpiece of the graphic book format. It deserves to be widely read by laymen and professionals alike and to be regarded as a classic. I recommend it unreservedly.
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Moving, powerful, accessible,
By Sarah McIntyre (London, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Psychiatric Tales (Hardcover)
I've been looking forward to this book for some time, and it's as impressive as I'd been hoping. In one sense, the book is a fascinating handbook, focusing on different kinds of mental illness in each chapter. These include dementia, self-harming, depression, anti-social personality disorder, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, suicide, and great figures in history who've suffered mental illnesses. But it also follows Darryl Cunningham's own journey, starting as a health care assistant and then training to become a mental health nurse until the strain of the course threw him into severe depression and he had to stop.But all the years of working as a carer gave him a deep insight into the lives of people suffering different conditions and provided him with real-life work anecdotes that makes him able to portray them as real people, not just clinical conditions. And it also makes the reader care about Cunningham as a health worker, realising the hard-core things these carers deal with, and the emotional beatings they go through. But the book's not a request for for us to pity the writer; his straightforward, almost dead-pan voice at times focuses us as readers on the universality of mental health problems, and emphasizes the need to be able to talk about these things in a way that doesn't stigmatise people for being ill, in the way we wouldn't if someone had, say, a broken leg. A deep sense of empathy is the thing that came through most clearly to me in this book, and the last chapter clinches it, when Cunningham allows us to see his own struggle with depression and the hope he gives to other people who suffer it. The artwork in this book reads very easily and clearly, and provides an excellent introduction to graphic novels for readers who are not very familiar with the medium. Cunningham's solid linework and shapes draw inspiration from a long tradition of woodcut illustrations, and his clever compositions give the story its great impact. This accessible book could become a classic text for people learning about mental illness, and would fit just as easily into a school library or doctor's office as in a comic book shop. The book raises a lot of important issues and would make an excellent assigned reading to start off discussions about different kinds of mental illness, the role and treatment of health carers, living with someone who suffers one or more of these illnesses and public perception of mental disorders. Or it may simply provide much-needed comfort to readers in discovering they are not alone in a world where they don't seem to fit in.
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