Dahlia Alkharrat Mrs. Advento AP Psychology August 24th 2014 The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: Review The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales, written by Oliver Sacks, is an informative book on neurological disorders with a humbling twist on the beauty of imperfection. Oliver Sacks has cleverly written many clinical and factual stories on his time being a neurologist. He divided the book into four sections: Losses, Excesses, Transports and the World of the Simple. Each of these stories are around 40 to 50 pages in length with a message towards the end concluding and adding on further notes about his studies. This story is interesting on many levels, but is also quite repetitive in some chapters. This review will cover the aspects of both the negatives …show more content…
and the positives I came across whilst reading. I do not know how to wrap my head around the most bizarre cases Dr. Sacks encountered as his time being a doctor.
From a guy who has mistaken his wife for a hat and a fire hydrant as a child to a guy who thought he was still fighting in the World War (when at the time he was being interviewed by Dr. Sacks; it was in a different year). Dr. Sacks goes through a multitude of clinical case studies, within four different categories of right brain disorders. Throughout the book, he is persistently engaging with the human condition, overwhelmingly sympathetic, intrigued and emotional. It is also striking to note how complex and tenuous our grasp of reality is, how many ways there are to lose it. As quoted by Oliver Sacks, “You have to begin to lose your memory, if only in bits and pieces, to realize that memory is what makes our lives. Life without memory is no life at all… Our memory is our coherence, our reason, our feeling, even our action. Without it, we are nothing — Luis Buñuel. Although I enjoyed it for the most part, some people may interpret this book on two different levels. The first one is a clinical level, with the many ‘foreign’ scientific terms and detailed description methods and diagnoses that Dr. Sacks usually concludes towards the end of each chapter. The other level is a more
anecdotal aspect, as stories about unique and peculiar characters. After reading a bit of the book, I felt distracted from the anecdotal aspect and focused more on the clinical, science and detailed perspective instead. I felt that it really took away from the amazing stories therein. I wanted to create this image or movie in my head for each chapter, but was constantly side tracked towards his ‘notes’ and unnecessarily long medical terms. Additionally, Dr. Sacks was somewhat narcissistic, and did not place the majority of the book’s focus on his clients as he did on himself, and his evaluation on their eccentricities. In general, I felt that the patients were more interesting than the way Dr. Sacks wrote about them. I sense that there could be much more to write about them, but as mentioned previously, that was not Dr. Sack’s intention. The first piece that I found particularly interesting, emotion-wise, was in the chapter called “Rebecca”, in which Dr. Sacks shows that a person of minimal intelligence is still a person with a sense of beauty and opinion. Dr. Sacks generously shows how Rebecca taught him the limitations of a clinical approach to diagnosis and treatment. Although the childish teenager did not have the mental capacity to "find her way around the block" or "open a door with a key," Rebecca had a poignant understanding of life superior to many adults. She loved her grandmother greatly and when she passed away, Rebecca expressed her feelings to Dr. Sacks, as quoted from the chapter, "I'm crying for me, not for her...She's gone to her Long Home." She added, lyrically, "I'm so cold. It is not outside, it's winter inside. Cold as death...She was a part of me. Part of me died with her" (Sacks 182). Rebecca continues to show Dr. Sacks that they, the neurologists, pay "far too much attention to the defects of patients and far too little to what is intact or preserved" (Sacks 183). “Never judge a person by their style, but by their substance”, is a quote I like to live by and describes this chapter in its entirety. Rebecca, having this medical disability, is judged by her inability to work around and figure things out independently, but as cheesy as it gets her substance or inside is what matters the most. Rebecca was tired of the meaningless classes, workshops, and odd jobs. "What I really love...is the theatre," she stated. Dr. Sacks states that the theatre "composed her and she became a complete person, poised, fluent, with style, in each role" (Sacks 185). I found this specific example interesting because it applies to somebody who wants to live morally and fairly, that really it is injustice to judge somebody by his or her appearance or his or her inability to do things correctly. Instead, this chapter taught me that there is a Rebecca within everybody. Although she was going through a hard time, she found her comfort and that is what she loves to do most—the theatre. The second piece that I enjoyed in this book was in chapter 8 titled, “Eyes Right!”. This chapter is about a woman named Mrs. S who suffered from a severe stroke, which disabled her ability to see items from the left side of her body. Examples that prove this severity, which were stated by Dr. Sacks in this chapter, are things like not eating from all sides of the plate and then complaining that she did not receive enough food. As well as, “putting on lipstick, and makeup the right half of her face, leaving the left half completely neglected” (Sacks 77).
These two essays are about two dissimilar disabilities. Nancy Mairs and David Sedaris act as examples of how an author’s writing can change the tone and meaning of a narrative. Mairs message was educational and encouraging as she explained her life with MS and how society sees her. Sedaris use of experience and memories portrays his life with obsessive-compulsive disorder; what he calls “tics”. These two writers take similar topics and pitch them in ways so the reader can see the illustration behind them.
In this paper I will detail the story, “Eyes Right!” by Dr. Oliver Sacks. This story comes from the book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales. Dr. Sacks explains the story of Mrs. S who has suffered a massive stroke. I will begin my paper by giving a summary of the story, including the brain systems and functions that were affected. Next I will address the impact of stroke on Mrs. S occupational performance. I will then provide affective responses from Dr. Sacks, Mrs. S, and myself. Finally, I will provide a conclusion of how this story added to my learning for OT school.
Losses, Excesses, Transports, and The World of the Simple are all four topics in the book “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Other Clinical Tales,” by Oliver Sacks. You might not understand what those mean or discuss until you realize who Oliver Sacks is. Oliver Sacks is a Neurologist who has had the chance to take upon these twenty-four case studies and share them in a book. The book is more focused on neurological functions, different forms of the mind, and hallucinations/visions. All of these are related to the first few chapters in our Psychology textbook (Chapters 2,3,6,8,10). Oliver Sacks gives us clear insight into the mind of those that perceive things much differently than most. It is a clear insight to what most of us are curious about but may not fully understand.
Walton, Sir John. Brain's Diseases of the Nervous System. Oxford University Press. New York, 1955, pp. 365.
Within Oliver Sacks, “To See and Not See”, the reader is introduced to Virgil, a blind man who gains the ability to see, but then decides to go back to being blind. Within this story Sacks considers Virgil fortunate due to him being able to go back to the life he once lived. This is contrasted by Dr. P, in “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat”, Sacks states that his condition is “tragic” (Sacks, “The Man Who Mistook His Wife for A Hat (13) due to the fact that his life will be forever altered by his condition. This thought process can be contributed to the ideas that: it is difficult to link physical objects and conceptualized meanings without prior experience, the cultures surrounding both individuals are different, and how they will carry on with their lives.
Oliver Sacks, MD, FRCP, was a neurologist and professor of neurology at NYU School of Medicine. He is also a best selling author, and is know by the New York Times as “the poet laureate of medicine.” He worked with music and music therapy and wrote Musicophilia: Tales of Music and The Brain (Knopf, 2007).
Mairs, Nancy. “On Being a Cripple.” Writer’s Presence: A Pool of Readings. 5th ed. Ed. Robert Atawan and Donald McQuade. Boston:Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2006. 183-193. Print
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat Written By: Dr. Oliver Sacks. Although the title suggests a comical book, Oliver Sacks presents an entirely different look at the mentally challenged/disturbed. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is a book that explains why a patient shows signs of loss, excesses, transport, and simplicity. Coincidentally, the book opens with its titling story, letting the reader explore the mind of an accomplished doctor who seems to have lost his true sight of life.
Susannah's book, Brain on Fire, is classified into three parts according to the progression of her mysterious illness, each part described certain moments of the illness in conjunction of her life. She had passed through severe symptoms and erratic behaviors followed by wrong diagnosis which indicated that there is something extraordinary. After hospitalization and massive investigations, Dr. Najjar had finally reached to the correct diagnosis before she received full course treatment as well as enrolling in cognitive and speech rehabilitations. Susannah classified her book into three part, crazy, the clock, and in search of lost time.
McCarthy, R., Warrington, E. (1990), Cognitive Neuropsychology: A Clinical Introduction. San Diego: Academic Press Ltd.
The film emphasizes on the power of our long-term memory and our episodic memories. Would we be happier if we forgot about traumatic past experiences? Or are our long-term memories so tangled up with emotions and sensations that our brain is unable to truly let go of long-term memories? The film also looks at the difference between explicit and implicit memories.
...tation test where a person were to read the story without the knowledge that the real author is also the narrator and a character, it would probably be read as a detailed work of fiction. Because readers have the knowledge that Oliver Sacks is in fact a neurologist, it changes the meanings in the text. This is how the real author is distinct from the implied author; the implied author is what the reader can deduce from the material presented in the text, without any knowledge of the real author’s context. The knowledge that Oliver Sacks is in reality a neurologist also positions readers to accept the narrator’s version of events because they would be inclined to accept the privileged and authoritative narrative voice. The techniques of point of view, subjective narration and characterisation therefore position readers to accept the meanings presented in the text.
“The Vow” is a movie that encases the turmoil and hardship associated with retrograde amnesia and the classic symptoms and steps associated with recovering and potentially regaining lost memory. Taking into account the information gained through multiple sources; such as, lecture of Mental Health, medical databases, and the personal experiences of Krickett Carpenter, the Vow provides both an accurate and inaccurate depiction of retrograde amnesia.
According to Sternberg (1999), memory is the extraction of past experiences for information to be used in the present. The retrieval of memory is essential in every aspect of daily life, whether it is for academics, work or social purposes. However, many often take memory for granted and assume that it can be relied on because of how realistic it appears in the mind. This form of memory is also known as flashbulb memory. (Brown and Kulik, 1977). The question of whether our memory is reliably accurate has been shown to have implications in providing precise details of past events. (The British Psychological Association, 2011). In this essay, I would put forth arguments that human memory, in fact, is not completely reliable in providing accurate depictions of our past experiences. Evidence can be seen in the following two studies that support these arguments by examining episodic memory in humans. The first study is by Loftus and Pickrell (1995) who found that memory can be modified by suggestions. The second study is by Naveh-Benjamin and Craik (1995) who found that there is a predisposition for memory to decline with increasing age.
Before long, however, he faced patients whose disorders made no neurological sense. For example, a patient may have lost all feeling in one of their hands, but there is no sensory nerve that would numb their entire hand and nothing else when damaged. Freud’s search for a cause for such disorders set his mind running in a direction destined to change human self-understanding. He believed that some neurological disorders could have psychological causes. By observing patients with these disorders, Freud was led to his discovery of the unconscious (Myers & Dewall, pg# 573, 2015). Furthermore, he theorized that the lost feeling in the individual’s hand might have been caused by a fear of touching their