Strangers to Ourselves (book)

Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories That Make Us is a 2022 non-fiction book by Rachel Aviv that focuses on mental illness, diagnosis, and people in extreme mental distress. It was listed among the New York Times’ "The 10 Best Books of 2022".

Narrative
The book explores the personal stories of mentally ill people and the history of how mental illness has been defined and treated. As an investigative reporter, Rachel Aviv investigates the lives of six people who have diverse experiences of mental illness, including herself. She selected people who had written personal diaries and letters so that she could learn how they viewed their world. The book quotes medical and scholarly essays, legal documents, and personal and creative writings by Ray, Bapu, Naomi, Laura, and Hava. Drawing on her own childhood diagnosis of anorexia nervosa, Aviv weaves her personal story into the narrative.

Reviews
It got mainly favourable reviews:

"In writing against the limits of psychiatric narratives, into the space where language has failed, Ms. Aviv paradoxically finds language for the most ineffable registers of human experience. She begins to name correctly what has been named wrongly. For a journalist, as for a psychiatrist, there is no higher achievement." —Elizabeth Winkler, The Wall Street Journal.

“Aviv’s chapters draw on her talent for narrative feature writing, as she weaves personal stories in and out of structural backdrops. Part reportage, part memoir, and part history, her book might also be read as a series of case studies.” Vulture

“Strangers to Ourselves” delicately balances two truths that prove remarkably difficult to hold in tandem. New York Times.

“A groundbreaking exploration of mental illness and the mind” ―New Yorker.

"Vivid, wrenching, and ambitiously researched. . . Strangers to Ourselves showcases [Aviv's] mastery of psychological portraiture."

—Sally Satel, The Washington Post.

Reception

 * One of the New York Times' Ten Best Books of the Year
 * New Yorker Best Books of 2022