The Mind and the Moon
My Brother’s Story, the Science of Our Brains, and the Search for Our Psyches
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Narrated by:
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Daniel Bergner
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By:
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Daniel Bergner
About this listen
An important—and intimate—interrogation of how we treat mental illness and how we understand ourselves
In the early 1960s, JFK declared that science would take us to the moon. He also declared that science would make the “remote reaches of the mind accessible” and cure psychiatric illness with breakthrough medications. We were walking on the moon within the decade. But today, psychiatric cures continue to elude us—as does the mind itself. Why is it that we still don’t understand how the mind works? What is the difference between the mind and the brain? And given all that we still don’t know, how can we make insightful, transformative choices about our psychiatric conditions?
When Daniel Bergner’s younger brother was diagnosed as bipolar and put on a locked ward in the 1980s, psychiatry seemed to have achieved what JFK promised: a revolution of chemical solutions to treat mental illness. Yet as Bergner’s brother was deemed a dire risk for suicide and he and his family were told his disorder would be lifelong, he found himself taking heavy doses of medications with devastating side effects.
Now, in recounting his brother’s journey alongside the gripping, illuminating stories of Caroline, who is beset by the hallucinations of psychosis, and David, who is overtaken by depression, Bergner examines the evolution of how we treat our psyches. He reveals how the pharmaceutical industry has perpetuated our biological view of the mind and our drug-based assumptions about treatment—despite the shocking price paid by many patients and the problematic evidence of drug efficacy. And he takes us into the pioneering labs of today’s preeminent neuroscientists, sharing their remarkably candid reflections and fascinating new theories of treatment.
The Mind and the Moon raises profound questions about how we understand ourselves and the essential human divide between our brains and our minds. This is a book of thought-provoking reframings, delving into the science—and spirit—of our psyches. It is about vulnerability and personal dignity, the terrifying choices confronted by families and patients, and the prospect of alternatives. In The Mind and the Moon, Bergner beautifully explores how to seek a deeper engagement with ourselves and one another—and how to find a better path toward caring for our minds.
Supplemental enhancement PDF accompanies the audiobook.
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2022 Daniel Bergner (P)2022 HarperCollins PublishersListeners also enjoyed...
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Story
Professor of psychiatry Elyn R. Saks writes about her struggle with schizophrenia in this unflinching account of her mental illness. In The Center Cannot Hold, Saks draws readers into a nightmare world of medications, a misguided health-care system, and social stigmas. But she would not be defeated. With a strength and force of will that most can only imagine, Saks reclaimed her life and went on to achieve great success.
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Schizophrenia Inside Out
- By Pamela Harvey on 07-23-09
By: Elyn R. Saks
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Everything in Its Place
- First Loves and Last Tales
- By: Oliver Sacks
- Narrated by: Dan Woren
- Length: 8 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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From the best-selling author of Gratitude and On the Move, a final volume of essays that showcase Sacks's broad range of interests - from his passion for ferns, swimming, and horsetails, to his final case histories exploring schizophrenia, dementia, and Alzheimer's.
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Missing Sacks
- By Brandy on 12-02-19
By: Oliver Sacks
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Sybil Exposed
- The Extraordinary Story Behind the Famous Multiple Personality Case
- By: Debbie Nathan
- Narrated by: Marguerite Gavin
- Length: 9 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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Journalist Debbie Nathan reveals the true story behind the famous case of Sybil, the woman with sixteen different personalities.
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No definitive answer, just speculations all around
- By Amy A on 12-30-18
By: Debbie Nathan
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Danger to Self
- On the Front Line with an ER Psychiatrist
- By: Paul R. Linde
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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The psychiatric emergency room, a fast-paced combat zone with pressure to match, thrusts its medical providers into the outland of human experience where they must respond rapidly and decisively in spite of uncertainty and, very often, danger. In this lively first-person narrative, Paul R. Linde takes listeners behind the scenes at an urban psychiatric emergency room, with all its chaos and pathos, where we witness mental health professionals doing their best to alleviate suffering.
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Terrible narration
- By Leah on 12-16-12
By: Paul R. Linde
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Brotherhood
- Dharma, Destiny, and the American Dream
- By: Sanjiv Chopra, Deepak Chopra
- Narrated by: Deepak Chopra, Sanjiv Chopra
- Length: 12 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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The Chopra brothers were among the most eager and ambitious of the new generation. In the 1970s, they each emigrated to the United States to make a new life. Both faced tough obstacles: while Deepak encountered resistance from Western-trained doctors over what he called the mind-body connection, Sanjiv struggled to reconcile the beliefs of his birthplace with those of his new home. Eventually, each brother became convinced that America was the right place to build a life, and the Chopras went on to great achievements.
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How to Toot Your Horn
- By Kenneth on 07-01-13
By: Sanjiv Chopra, and others
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Brainstorm
- Detective Stories from the World of Neurology
- By: Suzanne O'Sullivan
- Narrated by: Christine Williams
- Length: 8 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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Brainstorm follows the stories of people whose medical diagnoses are so strange even their doctor struggles to know how to solve them. A man who sees cartoon characters running across the room; a girl whose world suddenly seems completely distorted, as though she were Alice in Wonderland; another who transforms into a ragdoll whenever she even thinks about moving. The brain is the most complex structure in the universe. Neurologists must puzzle out life-changing diagnoses from the tiniest of clues, the ultimate medical detective work.
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Not As Compelling...
- By Douglas on 11-08-18
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Truth Doesn't Have a Side
- My Alarming Discovery About the Danger of Contact Sports
- By: Dr. Bennet Omalu, Mark Tabb, Will Smith - foreword
- Narrated by: Ron Butler
- Length: 10 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
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One day in 2002 the 50-year old body of former Pittsburgh Steeler and hall of famer Mike Webster was laid on a cold table in front of pathologist Dr. Bennet Omalu. Webster's body looked to Omalu like the body of a much older man, and the circumstances of his behavior prior to his death were clouded in mystery. But when Omalu cut into Webster's brain, it appeared to be normal. Something didn't add up.
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Truly Enlightening
- By Marie on 01-31-20
By: Dr. Bennet Omalu, and others
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This Close to Happy
- A Reckoning with Depression
- By: Daphne Merkin
- Narrated by: Suzanne Toren
- Length: 9 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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This Close to Happy is the rare, vividly personal account of what it feels like to suffer from clinical depression, written from a woman's perspective and informed by an acute understanding of the implications of this disease over a lifetime. Taking off from essays on depression she has written for The New Yorker and The New York Times Magazine, Daphne Merkin casts her eye back to her beginnings to try to sort out the root causes of her affliction.
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I should be the last person to recommend this book
- By Mariaposa on 03-04-17
By: Daphne Merkin
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The Theater of War
- What Ancient Greek Tragedies Can Teach Us Today
- By: Bryan Doerries
- Narrated by: Adam Driver
- Length: 5 hrs and 49 mins
- Unabridged
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This compassionate, personal, and illuminating work of nonfiction draws on the author's celebrated work as a director of socially conscious theater to connect listeners with the power of an ancient artistic tradition. For years Bryan Doerries has been producing ancient tragedies for current and returned servicemen and women, addicts, tornado and hurricane victims, and a wide range of other at-risk people in society.
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Wow
- By Marisa on 11-09-15
By: Bryan Doerries
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The Boy Who Loved Too Much
- A True Story of Pathological Friendliness
- By: Jennifer Latson
- Narrated by: Heather Auden
- Length: 10 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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What would it be like to see everyone as a friend? Twelve-year-old Eli D'Angelo has a genetic disorder that obliterates social inhibitions, making him irrepressibly friendly, indiscriminately trusting, and unconditionally loving toward everyone he meets. It also makes him enormously vulnerable. Eli lacks the innate skepticism that will help his peers navigate adolescence more safely - and vastly more successfully.
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Williams Syndrome
- By Sharlotte on 09-20-19
By: Jennifer Latson
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Rise and Shine
- The Path to Life
- By: Simon Lewis
- Narrated by: Kelsey Grammer
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Crushed between a truck and a tree, Simon and his wife were both pronounced dead at the scene of a horrific car accident. Enduring a broken skull, jaw, arms, clavicle and pelvis, followed by a coma, Simon lives to tell his remarkable journey from tragedy to triumph.
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Amazing opportunities for healing!
- By Leah on 04-29-17
By: Simon Lewis
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When Breath Becomes Air
- By: Paul Kalanithi, Abraham Verghese - foreword
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra, Cassandra Campbell
- Length: 5 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated.
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Phenomenal book!
- By A. Potter on 01-16-16
By: Paul Kalanithi, and others
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Advice for Future Corpses (and Those Who Love Them)
- A Practical Perspective on Death and Dying
- By: Sallie Tisdale
- Narrated by: Gabra Zackman
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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You get ready to die the way you get ready for a trip. Start by realizing you don't know the way. Listen to a few travel guides. Study the language, look at maps, gather equipment. Let yourself imagine what it will be like. Pack your bags. This book is one of those travel guides - a guide to preparing for your own death and the deaths of people close to you. The fact of death is hard to believe. Sallie Tisdale explores our fears and all the ways death and talking about death make us uncomfortable - but she also explores its intimacies and joys.
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I thought I had more time...
- By Alyssa on 09-09-19
By: Sallie Tisdale
What listeners say about The Mind and the Moon
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- BD
- 07-17-22
Must-read for healthcare professionals/students
I’m a nursing student and appreciate the overview of the historical trajectory of mental healthcare and new ideas about how to better care for people as individuals and protect their autonomy. If you want to be a good advocate and signposter for your patients with mental health struggles and want to learn to think more critically about this area of healthcare, i highly recommend this audiobook. The writing is great, seems well-researched, and author has a pleasant reading voice.
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14 people found this helpful
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- Jc
- 10-22-23
Very interesting but POLITICAL
I very much enjoyed listening to this book. It was well written and researched on a very sad and difficult subject. The CON is that I’m sick to death of authors pounding the readers with their political takes. This is the 3rd book from Audible that I have read this month with soapbox preaching. I’m not buying a book on politics, leave it out or advertise for what it is.
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2 people found this helpful
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- LK
- 08-01-22
Exquisitely Written & Told
Well researched but written in narrative form, Daniel Bergner walks us with gentle confidence through the world of those who suffer from torments of the mind, heart, and soul. I read 30-40 books per year—many of them excellent. But this one is both outstanding and special. The love he feels for his brother is subtly and covertly woven into his story, but felt strongly all the same. So glad he also chose to read this book to us.
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16 people found this helpful
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- Damian Konopka
- 10-27-23
Thinking differently about mental illness
This book truly stands out among the dozens and dozens of mental health reads I’ve made. The author is a moving narrator who has made me think a little differently about my mental illness and the path I’m on.
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- Daniel Diffin
- 10-23-23
Excellent overview of mental illness and the psycho- pharmaceutical industry
A very compelling story, very well written. As a physician, who entered medical school intending to become a psychiatrist, the book illuminated my reasons for both initially choosing that profession, and deciding to abandon it. The stories of greed around the pharmaceutical industry are very disturbing. of course there are counterbalancing arguments to be made, but that is not this author’s intention.
One bit of advice about the narration. The author is not a professional narrator, and it shows. He doesn’t do a bad job, but the pacing is painfully slow. Try listening at 1.2 or 1.25 speed, and the narration becomes much more engaging.
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1 person found this helpful
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- LT
- 11-07-23
An Outstanding Book!
The author does an amazing job of explaining the lives of people who struggle with mental illness. This is not the regular overview of various psychiatric illnesses, but an in-depth look at how people cope, live, survive, love, win and fail. Hearing about someone doing something when they are off their meds is not uncommon. This book gives great insight as to why people go off of their meds. It talks about options, healing, and support. Thank you for a great read!!!
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 05-24-22
Interesting perspective
I listened to this one every chance I had and finished it in a couple days. Interesting perspective and it read like fiction. It made me rethink some of the things I thought I knew and will definitely help me be more empathetic going forward.
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15 people found this helpful
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- Me
- 09-05-23
wonderfully written and narrated
Thank you so much for sharing your stories! I feel so much less alone, and stigma decreases.
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6 people found this helpful
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- M. Morgan
- 09-06-22
Narration
This is an excellent book if you can get past the narrator’s mispronunciation of didn’t. Didn’t is a two syllable word but it is pronounced as “dint” which I found extremely irritating. The same holds true for couldn’t, shouldn’t, and wouldn’t.
Perhaps this book would have been better if read.
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24 people found this helpful
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- Carol F McCreary
- 10-24-23
A truly engaging history of psychiatry!
Bergner's storytelling through interviews with individuals experiencing a range of treatments moves this work forward compellingly. His craft maintains the suspense and interest until the end. This is a book I'm recommending to friends and will return to.
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