Kay Redfield Jamison: A Journey Through Psychiatry

Kay Redfield Jamison is a teacher of Psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine. Professor Jamison was born on June 22, 1946 to her parents Dr. Marshall Verdine Jamison and Mary Dell Jamison. Her farther Dr. Marshall was in the Air force and because of this her family consisting of her mother, older brother and sister moved continuously throughout their life. They lived in Florida, Tokyo, Washington D. C and Puerto Rico. By the 5th grade she had attended four different elementary schools. Other than growing up in a military lifestyle Professor Jamison lived an enjoyable life. After High School all of Professor Jamison friends went to expensive colleges such as Harvard and Standford there for she wanted to go to the University of Chicago. After her farther was fired from his job she ended up attending at the University of California because it was the only appropriate choice due to money issues. She completed her master’s from the University of California in 1971 and then got her PhD in

1975. After teaching several years at UCLA she went to Johns Hopkins of Medicine where she was offered a job as Professor of Psychiatry where she still continues to teach. During her life Professor Jamison has been married three different times. Her first husband was Alain Andre Moreau an artist that she met during her graduate school years. She then divorced him and married Dr. Richard Wyatt in 1994, she stayed married to Dr. Wyatt until he passed away in 2002. It wasn’t until 2010 when she married a cardiologist that works at her school John Hopkins. Professor Jamison suffers from an awful mental illness known as Bipolar disorder or as she calls it manic depressive disorder. Jamison didn’t start having symptoms until she was 17 but waited till she was older to get treatment after she had a major breakdown when she was 27 years of age. It was her illness that helped her choose her career choice. She has won several awards and has published over a hundred academic articles. Jamison was also rewarded one o the “Best Doctors in the United States,” and was also chosen by Times Magazine as the “Hero of Medicine” (GoodTherapy, 2015.) One of her most popular and well known book was her biography called “The Unquiet Mind.” In this memoir she discusses the struggles that she went through with her disease. This book was published in the year of 1995 but still is very relevant to today’s time. Jamison’s memoir gives individuals a deeper look into what people with Bipolar disorder has to go through. Although we have came along way since Jamison was first diagnosed this book still lets us see how much someone can suffer and go through with these disease and helped the medical system.
In the memoir of The Unquiet Mind, Jamison starts explaining her normal, busy everyday military lifestyle that she grew up with. From going to different military schools, being the perfect A+ student, putting up with her intolerable older sister and being involved in athletics. She further explains her life with stories of her farther getting fired from his job because of his mental illness even before she finds out about hers to finding her first husband and getting her dream job. Moving from early childhood to being 17 she explains her first experience of her illness. With having a sense of high energy, being able to easily get through school but not being able to easily calm down. Soon after, she experienced her first episode of depression. Jamison had no desire to get out of bed or had no desire to try in school when that was once her passion. From this point on Jamison explains her life with her manic depression and getting through life on the medication lithium.
Jamison’s purpose of writing this memoir is to educate individuals about the illness. She wrote this by using it in away to come out in the open to her friends and family about her manic depression. Not only did she inform them about what she has quietly been struggling with for years, but it also allowed others to come out as well. When individuals hear manic depression they think about it is as a disease that you should be ashamed of. With Jamison’s book it opened up individual’s eyes to the illness so they weren’t so ignorant. It also allowed the public to understand what it’s like in the day in a life with someone who has manic depression, from medication effects to personal life issues.
Jaminson starts the book by telling about her and one of her colleagues running around the UCLA parking lot late at night after one of her manic depressed episodes. After her witty beginning she goes back to her childhood when her illness never once existed. Being the child of an air force pilot and meteorologist allowed he to live somewhat of a normal life other than traveling continuously. After many years of traveling her family finally ended up in Washington D.C. Jamison explains her teenage years as never getting along with her older sister who would rather party than go to school, being involved in school groups and staying popular among her peers, cheering for her high school, and being an honor roll student. After high school she enrolls into UCLA because that was the only place that her family could afford after her farther losing his job. After a few months of attending college she starts experiencing her first episodes. Jamison found herself not being able to sit down, having the energy to stay up all night and finish her homework with no problem. After thinking she enjoyed this crazy energy her friends then tell her that she needed to calm down that she was acting like the ever ready bunny. Jamison couldn’t understand what they were seeing because she loved having all this energy and being able to get things done. Following her high energy she then hits her low. Once having a passion about school finds herself not wanting to do anything. Not knowing what was going on she kept to herself and didn’t look for help. It wasn’t till she got a little older that she finally seeked help after her mood swings continued. That was then when she found out about her manic depression. After seeing a psychiatrist she was put on the medication lithium. Lithium is a drug that individuals with the illness take to make their moods easier to handle. After feeling somewhat better she started having the side effects of lithium such as, not being able to pay attention, not remembering simple tasks and having no motivation to work. This was when she stopped taking her lithium and things only got worse.
Following not taking her lithium consecutively Jamison started becoming death obsessed. All she could think about was how easier life would be if she wasn’t living. After living with these thoughts she decided to go through her plan with over dosing on her drug lithium. So one night she takes a very high dosage of lithium and waits for her life to pass. Her brother soon calls and he could tell something wasn’t right so he goes and checks on her and finds her passed out on her bed. Jamison spent few nights in the hospital until she was able to go back to work as a teacher at the University of California. Her colleagues helped her get through this tough time and helped her create the UCLA Affective Disorder Clinic to offer clinical rotation for third year psychiatrics. This program become successful within the college and things start level out as she starts taking her medication regularly.
Throughout the book tells about her encounter with different me who some actually become her husband. While they all seemed to understand her illness but none of them turned out to be successful marriages. Jamison focused on work and receiving her tenure and also found that lowering her dosage of lithium allowed her to manage her life better and had a lesser amount of side effects. While everything was going better Jamison still decides to take a year off and go to St. George’s Medical School in London. While she was there she found herself living life to the fullest unlike she did in America. After a year of finding herself more deeply she went back to California and lived her life the best she could even with her obstacles. At the end of Jamison’s memoir she discusses the hardships she has faced throughout her years will her illness. With the up’s that seem mesmerizing and with the downs which almost took her own life. She finds that with the right amount of lithium she can make life a little bit more tolerable and even sometimes enjoyable
I believe Professor Jamison did an amazing job while writing this memoir. It was not just beautifully written but it was able to make me feel as though I understood what she was feeling. She taught many things with her book, I’m very lucky to not have such a disease but then again I can still get through life even when it gets hard. I believe what she wanted to get through to the readers with the book was accomplished. She wanted readers to have a deeper understanding for the illness and that was exactly what she did. I understand now what they experience when their happy and what they feel when their depressed. In the review by Melody Meozzi, of the book The Unquiet Mind, she agrees with me when it comes to saying it was one of the most beautiful books I have ever read. She go further into saying that she delves into some of the most complex states of the disease, one that we found outright indescribable. She delves into some of the most complex states of the disease, ones that I have found outright indescribable (Meozzi, 2009).
In the field of Health Promotion I believe this book could be used many different ways.

If your working with clients who have this illness or another illness even diabetes they can read this book and realize what they are going through can be managed. Although we have up’s and down’s we are still thankful with what we have. As educators we can also read this book and understand what they may be going through especially with this disease. I don’t care if you’re the educator or if you’re the one getting educated this book is beneficial to everyone. I’m very glad I read it because it taught me so much more about this disease that I never knew existed. That is so important because you never know when you will work with someone who has bipolar disorder. With that being said I think it’s important as health promotion professionals that this book is read. To give us insight to this disease and how to handle or what to expect when working with someone with a mental

illness.