A Fractured Mind
My Life with Multiple Personality Disorder
-
-
4.5 • 10 Ratings
-
-
- $9.99
Publisher Description
In 1989, Robert B. Oxnam, the successful China scholar and president of the Asia Society, faced up to what he thought was his biggest personal challenge: alcoholism. But this dependency masked a problem far more serious: Multiple Personality Disorder.
At the peak of his professional career, after having led the Asia Society for nearly a decade, Oxnam was haunted by periodic blackouts and episodic rages. After his family and friends intervened, Oxnam received help from a psychiatrist, Dr. Jeffrey Smith, and entered a rehab center. It wasn't until 1990 during a session with Dr. Smith that the first of Oxnam's eleven alternate personalities--an angry young boy named Tommy--suddenly emerged. With Dr. Smith's help, Oxnam began the exhausting and fascinating process of uncovering his many personalities and the childhood trauma that caused his condition. This is the powerful and moving story of one person's struggle with this terrifying illness. The book includes an epilogue by Dr. Smith in which he describes Robert's case, the treatment, and the nature of multiple personality disorder. Robert's courage in facing his situation and overcoming his painful past makes for a dramatic and inspiring book.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
As a child Oxnam worried about how the fractured Humpty-Dumpty could be fixed. This nursery rhyme later became a metaphor for his "fractured mind." Oxnam was outwardly a successful China scholar and president of the Asia Society. Inwardly, however, he struggled with self-doubt and inadequacy, blackouts and alcoholism. He sought treatment from psychiatrist Jeffrey Smith, who, during a session in 1990, found that Oxnam's problem was not alcoholism but multiple personality disorder when Tommy, an angry boy, emerged as the first of Oxnam's alternate personalities. Eventually, 11 personalities emerged, including Baby, who had suffered from severe child abuse. Through therapy, Oxnam was able to put most of the pieces of his personalities together (three remain). In an epilogue, psychiatrist Smith writes that while the disorder is serious and therapy is demanding, the results are usually good. Although the conversations the 11 personalities have with Smith are at times difficult to follow, this touching and powerful account of the "inner world" of the disorder the power struggles and dialogues among the fractured parts of a person's mind provides valuable insight into a courageous man's struggle.
