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Falling Into the Fire: A Psychiatrist's Encounters with the Mind in Crisis
Falling Into the Fire is psychiatrist Christine Montross’s thoughtful investigation of the gripping patient encounters that have challenged and deepened her practice. The majority of the patients Montross treats in Falling Into the Fire are seen in the locked inpatient wards of a psychiatric hospital; all are in moments of profound crisis. We meet a young woman who habitually commits self-injury, having ingested light bulbs, a box of nails, and a steak knife, among other objects. Her repeated visits to the hospital incite the frustration of the staff, leading Montross to examine how emotion can interfere with proper care. A recent college graduate, dressed in a tunic and declaring that love emanates from everything around him, is brought to the ER by his concerned girlfriend. Is it ecstasy or psychosis? What legal ability do doctors have to hospitalize—and sometimes medicate—a patient against his will? A new mother is admitted with incessant visions of harming her child. Is she psychotic and a danger or does she suffer from obsessive thoughts? Her course of treatment—and her child’s future—depends upon whether she receives the correct diagnosis.Each case study presents its own line of inquiry, leading Montross to seek relevant psychiatric knowledge from diverse sources. A doctor of uncommon curiosity and compassion, Montross discovers lessons in medieval dancing plagues, in leading forensic and neurological research, and in moments from her own life. Beautifully written, deeply felt, Falling Into the Fire brings us inside the doctor’s mind, illuminating the grave human costs of mental illness as well as the challenges of diagnosis and treatment.Throughout, Montross confronts the larger question of What is to be done when a patient’s experiences cannot be accounted for, or helped, by what contemporary medicine knows about the brain? When all else fails, Montross finds, what remains is the capacity to abide, to sit with the desperate in their darkest moments. At once rigorous and meditative, Falling Into the Fire is an intimate portrait of psychiatry, allowing the reader to witness the humanity of the practice and the enduring mysteries of the mind
257 pages, Kindle Edition
First published August 1, 2013
68 people are currently reading
5536 people want to read
About the author
Christine Montross
5 books59 followersChristine Montross is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behaviour at Brown University and a practising inpatient psychiatrist with an MFA in poetry. Her writing has appeared in literary journals and women’s magazines as well as the New York Times. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 146 reviews
June 1, 2015
The problem with this book is that Dr. Montross couldn't make up her mind if she wanted to write a book about her psychotic patients, how they got that way and what might help them or her own interesting life as a lesbian where she and her partner have each had a child together.
It was a bit sensationalist reading about people who habitually munch up light bulbs, want to kill their babies and think love is all around (man). Montross, with her predilection for history, forensics, neurology and philosophy and the ability to blend all these elements when telling her patients stories interests me far more than the patients whose disordered lives she retells. But the two elements, her story and theirs do not blend easily. Montross is going to write a brilliant book one day, it isn't this one though.
Read end of 2014/
It was a bit sensationalist reading about people who habitually munch up light bulbs, want to kill their babies and think love is all around (man). Montross, with her predilection for history, forensics, neurology and philosophy and the ability to blend all these elements when telling her patients stories interests me far more than the patients whose disordered lives she retells. But the two elements, her story and theirs do not blend easily. Montross is going to write a brilliant book one day, it isn't this one though.
Read end of 2014/
March 25, 2013
This is a hard book to say that you "liked". I can not say that I really "liked" it, but I found it to be an extremely interesting and informative view of the treatment of psychiatric disorders. IF you have never studied psychology, never taken a class in abnormal psychology, you might have a difficult time following parts of this book as it is written by a psychiatrist and uses the terminology of that field.
This isn't a book for everyone, but who is it for? Well, I would recommend it for anyone interested in the study of psychology or psychiatry, or someone who is considering entering those fields. I would also recommend it to anyone who is or has been dealing with a friend or family member who is suffering from mental illness.
It is a sensitive view of those who suffer from mental illness. You really start to feel for some of the patients in the case studies, hoping that the treatments available will be able to help them recover. And you see the hope and feel the frustration of those in the mental health community. You also get to know the author, and her hope to help her patients as much as possible.
This isn't a book for everyone, but who is it for? Well, I would recommend it for anyone interested in the study of psychology or psychiatry, or someone who is considering entering those fields. I would also recommend it to anyone who is or has been dealing with a friend or family member who is suffering from mental illness.
It is a sensitive view of those who suffer from mental illness. You really start to feel for some of the patients in the case studies, hoping that the treatments available will be able to help them recover. And you see the hope and feel the frustration of those in the mental health community. You also get to know the author, and her hope to help her patients as much as possible.
June 9, 2017
We all live beneath a veil of invulnerability. For the most part, we act as if we and our loved ones will live forever. But then there are earthshaking moments in our lives - a diagnosis, an accident, some unforeseen catastrophe - when the veil is pulled back and we see with clarity that we are all in fact perched on a precipice.
Mental illness pierces the veil, and those who suffer from it dwell with their fragility in plain view. My role as a psychiatrist is not to try to repair the veil but to strengthen my patients so that they can live, so that they can suffer less, so that they can hope.
Mental illness pierces the veil, and those who suffer from it dwell with their fragility in plain view. My role as a psychiatrist is not to try to repair the veil but to strengthen my patients so that they can live, so that they can suffer less, so that they can hope.
August 4, 2013
*I received this book through a First Reads giveaway*
Falling Into the Fire is not an easy read. Dr. Christine Montross is a psychiatrist and writes openly about some of her clients who had particularly troubling problems. And this is why the book is, at times, difficult. To learn of and attempt to sympathize with these people who are battling remarkable despair is not easy to stomach. Of course that's nothing compared to the task of being responsible for diagnosis and treatment, which is nothing compared to living it.
For instance, a patient named Lauren has such a troubling life that her mind compels her to compulsively ingest countless dangerous items, from knives to a bedspring. Montross talks about how the hospital sees her so frequently that they have a special procedure just for Lauren, which consists of removing anything from the hospital room that could possibly be broken down and ingested.
I appreciate how open Montross is about the ambiguity in many of these cases. The difficulty in treating problems that seldom have a physical cause or symptom.
"Visions and voices and fear and despair cannot be captured by CT scan or measured in the amplitude of EKG waves. Try as we might, we simply cannot predict which of our patients will kill themselves, which will murder their children, and which will leave the hospital healed, never to return."
I think it's important that she talks about this, partly because of the amount of criticism that is heaped upon the field of psychiatry. In fact, there have been at least a couple of books that came out this year attacking the field. Psychiatry is not an exact science and it can never be. Montross shows how this is true, as well as why the aim of psychiatry is a good one and how, when applied successfully, it can have wonderful results.
What takes the book from good to great, for me, is Montross's glimpses into her personal life and how her world view plays out at work and at home. Her home life was a small part of the book, but it had a big impact on me. Montross was able to keenly express how vulnerable we all are.
"Standing on the edge with my patients — abiding with them — means that I must harbor a true awareness that I, too, could lose my child through the play of circumstance over which I have no control. I could lose my home, my financial security, my safety. I could lose my mind. Any of us could."
"Thus far we have been able to protect [our children] from the deep and enduring traumas that scar the minds and selves of so many of the patients I see. How — how?—can I make it always so?"
Falling Into the Fire is not an easy read. Dr. Christine Montross is a psychiatrist and writes openly about some of her clients who had particularly troubling problems. And this is why the book is, at times, difficult. To learn of and attempt to sympathize with these people who are battling remarkable despair is not easy to stomach. Of course that's nothing compared to the task of being responsible for diagnosis and treatment, which is nothing compared to living it.
For instance, a patient named Lauren has such a troubling life that her mind compels her to compulsively ingest countless dangerous items, from knives to a bedspring. Montross talks about how the hospital sees her so frequently that they have a special procedure just for Lauren, which consists of removing anything from the hospital room that could possibly be broken down and ingested.
I appreciate how open Montross is about the ambiguity in many of these cases. The difficulty in treating problems that seldom have a physical cause or symptom.
"Visions and voices and fear and despair cannot be captured by CT scan or measured in the amplitude of EKG waves. Try as we might, we simply cannot predict which of our patients will kill themselves, which will murder their children, and which will leave the hospital healed, never to return."
I think it's important that she talks about this, partly because of the amount of criticism that is heaped upon the field of psychiatry. In fact, there have been at least a couple of books that came out this year attacking the field. Psychiatry is not an exact science and it can never be. Montross shows how this is true, as well as why the aim of psychiatry is a good one and how, when applied successfully, it can have wonderful results.
What takes the book from good to great, for me, is Montross's glimpses into her personal life and how her world view plays out at work and at home. Her home life was a small part of the book, but it had a big impact on me. Montross was able to keenly express how vulnerable we all are.
"Standing on the edge with my patients — abiding with them — means that I must harbor a true awareness that I, too, could lose my child through the play of circumstance over which I have no control. I could lose my home, my financial security, my safety. I could lose my mind. Any of us could."
"Thus far we have been able to protect [our children] from the deep and enduring traumas that scar the minds and selves of so many of the patients I see. How — how?—can I make it always so?"
May 20, 2017
A compassionately written account of a few cases the author encountered in her life, with a solid attempt at explaining the mental ilness in discussion using current scientific knowledge. I particularly enjoyed the fact that, for someone who suffered from mental ilness, when I encountered the chapter where my particular affliction was discussed, I didn't feel in any way like the tone was authoritative, but rather open-minded and focused on the best possible explanation. A good read for someone studying psychology/psychiatry.
August 11, 2013
Christine Montross is a psychiatrist. Each of five chapters centers on a particular type of patient. You get to read some of the patient's odd behaviors, how the medical staff relates to them, and sometimes a bit about their families as well. The author talks a lot about the disorders, how she goes about determining a diagnosis, how cloudy the diagnosis can be because it can resemble so many others, yet with quite different treatment needs. I'm interested, and I like the doctor and her kind approach to her patients along with her probing of the illness and how it affects the patient.. she attempts to see the world from the patient's eyes in order to really get a hold on their experience and how to help them.
The one drawback is that she sometimes goes on a little too long on the analysis of the psychosis and how she came to her conclusions. Otherwise it's an interesting read that I recommend. The human brain and human behavior are fascinating topics about which I enjoy reading and wondering.
The one drawback is that she sometimes goes on a little too long on the analysis of the psychosis and how she came to her conclusions. Otherwise it's an interesting read that I recommend. The human brain and human behavior are fascinating topics about which I enjoy reading and wondering.
July 7, 2013
I was one of the lucky winners of the First Reads giveaway for this book. I should also say that I am reading this book partway through my medical school education. Now, on to the review!
As I was reading through this book, I felt that the author struggled with interspersing the patient cases with personal anecdotes and experiences that complimented her patient narrative. In fact, often these personal anecdotes broke the flow of the narration, and did not flow as smoothly as her patient case descriptions. Because this book is targeted towards non-psychiatrists, there was obviously the need to explain medical terms, especially psychiatry-related concepts within each chapter. Unfortunately, in the first several chapters, these explanations felt very long winded and overly dramatic, and sometimes a little defensive. However, these became much better interwoven as the book progressed.
Overall, I found this book to not be an engaging read until past half way through (I felt chapters 3-5 were more engaging than chapters 1 & 2). Maybe I would have enjoyed the overall flow of the book if the author had began her narration from her personal experiences, then woven in cases to supplement/compliment her introspection, as opposed to the other way around.
As I was reading through this book, I felt that the author struggled with interspersing the patient cases with personal anecdotes and experiences that complimented her patient narrative. In fact, often these personal anecdotes broke the flow of the narration, and did not flow as smoothly as her patient case descriptions. Because this book is targeted towards non-psychiatrists, there was obviously the need to explain medical terms, especially psychiatry-related concepts within each chapter. Unfortunately, in the first several chapters, these explanations felt very long winded and overly dramatic, and sometimes a little defensive. However, these became much better interwoven as the book progressed.
Overall, I found this book to not be an engaging read until past half way through (I felt chapters 3-5 were more engaging than chapters 1 & 2). Maybe I would have enjoyed the overall flow of the book if the author had began her narration from her personal experiences, then woven in cases to supplement/compliment her introspection, as opposed to the other way around.
March 4, 2014
This book is the reflections of a psychiatrist on her profession. She provides us with the details of encounters with her patients all of whom have reached a stage of being unable to cope with their lives. One, for instance, is obsessed constantly by his facial skin condition – he is looking in the mirror several hours a day and has spent thousands of dollars to attempt to alleviate this. Visually he is a normal looking person with no skin condition. A woman hears voices and feels that she may be in danger of acting out and killing her infant son. She fears being left alone with him and has tried to remove the knives in her house.
The author makes the interesting point that her profession is often denounced for over-treating patients; she gives the example of the film “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest” – when in fact most patients are undertreated with short sessions with long intervals in between. Medications for out-patients cannot be monitored. There is also a societal tendency to worship the “mad artist”, Van Gogh comes to mind.
The examples of the patients provided in the book are really out there – these people are crazy (my terminology). Often they can range to totally unresponsive to rude and threatening to the psychiatrist. They sometimes have an uncanny ability to make hurtful and cutting remarks to the person trying to aid them. In many ways their lives are shattered.
This book is written with great tenderness and is just the right length – more examples of maladjusted individuals would have been too depressing for me. Along with interactions with the patients we are given a history of varied aspects of psychiatry along with the normal life of the author with her two children and partner.
I was somewhat frustrated by the lack of follow-through; we are not given the long term results of the patients she has treated and spoken with. But perhaps that is also a part of being in the psychiatric profession – where patients are shifted from hospitals to institutions to out-patient clinics. One passage in the book that stood out was that suicide of your patients was part and parcel of the job. And you do not want to wake up one day to read or hear on the news of the mayhem that your patient caused.
Page 207 my book (from Matthew 17:14 – 16)
And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying, Lord have mercy on my son: for he is a lunatic and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.
Page 212 from a psychologist friend of the author
“The patients we work with have fallen through the ice in the middle of a frozen lake – your job is to go to them, to be with them on the thin ice, and to work with them to get them out of the frigid water. But you must know that if you go out to them on that thin ice, there’s a real danger you’ll fall in, too. So if you go into this work, you’ve got to be anchored to the shore. You can reach out one hand to the person in the water, but your other hand needs to have a firm grip on the people and things that connect you to shore.”
The author makes the interesting point that her profession is often denounced for over-treating patients; she gives the example of the film “One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest” – when in fact most patients are undertreated with short sessions with long intervals in between. Medications for out-patients cannot be monitored. There is also a societal tendency to worship the “mad artist”, Van Gogh comes to mind.
The examples of the patients provided in the book are really out there – these people are crazy (my terminology). Often they can range to totally unresponsive to rude and threatening to the psychiatrist. They sometimes have an uncanny ability to make hurtful and cutting remarks to the person trying to aid them. In many ways their lives are shattered.
This book is written with great tenderness and is just the right length – more examples of maladjusted individuals would have been too depressing for me. Along with interactions with the patients we are given a history of varied aspects of psychiatry along with the normal life of the author with her two children and partner.
I was somewhat frustrated by the lack of follow-through; we are not given the long term results of the patients she has treated and spoken with. But perhaps that is also a part of being in the psychiatric profession – where patients are shifted from hospitals to institutions to out-patient clinics. One passage in the book that stood out was that suicide of your patients was part and parcel of the job. And you do not want to wake up one day to read or hear on the news of the mayhem that your patient caused.
Page 207 my book (from Matthew 17:14 – 16)
And when they were come to the multitude, there came to him a certain man, kneeling down to him, and saying, Lord have mercy on my son: for he is a lunatic and sore vexed: for ofttimes he falleth into the fire, and oft into the water. And I brought him to thy disciples, and they could not cure him.
Page 212 from a psychologist friend of the author
“The patients we work with have fallen through the ice in the middle of a frozen lake – your job is to go to them, to be with them on the thin ice, and to work with them to get them out of the frigid water. But you must know that if you go out to them on that thin ice, there’s a real danger you’ll fall in, too. So if you go into this work, you’ve got to be anchored to the shore. You can reach out one hand to the person in the water, but your other hand needs to have a firm grip on the people and things that connect you to shore.”
July 6, 2013
Compelling Psychiatric Cases and the Ethics of Treatment
Christine Montross presents a series of cases from her psychiatric residency and early clinical practice that raise issues not only of treatment, but the physician's response to treating patients. Several of the patients we meet in this fascinating book are not very likable: the woman who swallows light bulbs and other dangerous objects to relieve stress, the young mother who is afraid she'll murder her baby son, and the woman whose seizures are psychological in origin rather than physical. Each of these patients presents a unique aspect that requires sensitive treatment and forces the doctor to examine her own motives in providing care.
I highly recommend this book, if you have an interest in psychiatry or mental health. The cases are unusual enough to provide interesting reading, but for me the most important part was how the doctor felt about her diagnoses. Seeing a patient leave the hospital wondering if they are at risk for a psychotic break is harrowing, if you care about your patients. It is equally frightening to send a woman home when she feels that she may kill her baby. The question for the doctor becomes did you make the correct diagnosis and what harm will result if you didn't.
I was particularly impressed by Montross' desire to get as much information about the diagnosis and it's repercussions as possible. The book is replete with citations and quotes from journal articles. The is an exceptionally well written and more important well researched book.
I reviewed this book for the Amazon Vine Program.
Christine Montross presents a series of cases from her psychiatric residency and early clinical practice that raise issues not only of treatment, but the physician's response to treating patients. Several of the patients we meet in this fascinating book are not very likable: the woman who swallows light bulbs and other dangerous objects to relieve stress, the young mother who is afraid she'll murder her baby son, and the woman whose seizures are psychological in origin rather than physical. Each of these patients presents a unique aspect that requires sensitive treatment and forces the doctor to examine her own motives in providing care.
I highly recommend this book, if you have an interest in psychiatry or mental health. The cases are unusual enough to provide interesting reading, but for me the most important part was how the doctor felt about her diagnoses. Seeing a patient leave the hospital wondering if they are at risk for a psychotic break is harrowing, if you care about your patients. It is equally frightening to send a woman home when she feels that she may kill her baby. The question for the doctor becomes did you make the correct diagnosis and what harm will result if you didn't.
I was particularly impressed by Montross' desire to get as much information about the diagnosis and it's repercussions as possible. The book is replete with citations and quotes from journal articles. The is an exceptionally well written and more important well researched book.
I reviewed this book for the Amazon Vine Program.
October 25, 2013
My library sends out a newsletter called Wowbrary every Wednesday listing the week's latest additions. The description of this book made it sound fascinating so I arranged to grab a copy. Sadly for me the book didn't live up to my expectations for it. The author, Christine Montross, writes about some of her more unusual psychiatric cases. They include a woman who will swallow literally anything left within reach when she gets distressed, a man who is so beaten down that he can remain asleep even when subjected to pain, and people who want their healthy limbs amputated. The cases themselves are endlessly fascinating but other than relating them no real insight is provided. I don't think these people ever became cured of their mental illness. My impression when I got done with this book is that the field of psychiatry has not made tremendous progress in the past two hundred years. They can medicate the heck out of you but that is treating the symptoms not solving the problem. Weighing down the book is the author's personal asides into her family life that did not add anything to the reason I picked up the book in the first place. I couldn't care less about her family life. I wanted to see people with complex problems getting real help. I hope the people portrayed here eventually did. The alternative is too sad to think about.
February 21, 2021
4.5 stars rounded up—would have been a full five if the author had focused less on her own personal life, which I found mostly unnecessary at the end of every chapter, but I still couldn’t stop reading this book.
May 31, 2025
good read (ha) for right before residency (ah).
the author reflects on a few patient encounters from her residency days while providing historical and societal context. the writing is succinct and accessible.
i think i just find most of these memoir-y doctor books self-congratulatory and unsatisfying. this is definitely one of the better ones, honest and compassionate. but i still rolled my eyes at what felt like half-hearted attempts to connect her residency memories to present day. how to make meaning-making in medicine not feel corny as hell…
the author reflects on a few patient encounters from her residency days while providing historical and societal context. the writing is succinct and accessible.
i think i just find most of these memoir-y doctor books self-congratulatory and unsatisfying. this is definitely one of the better ones, honest and compassionate. but i still rolled my eyes at what felt like half-hearted attempts to connect her residency memories to present day. how to make meaning-making in medicine not feel corny as hell…
May 21, 2017
I should not make this review an essay on what I think about psychiatry, because I don’t know much. There’s no denying the fact that reading any book on this matter will swarm one’s mind with the most fundamental questions that can be put regarding this medical practice, for instance, and the most fundamental being, its existence as a full-fledged area of medicine. Much after I finished reading this, my mind lingered on one particular part of the book-- the question of Mad Pride. Dr Montross has not answered as much in this book as she has questioned, and therein lied the origin of my discomfort. She quotes Virginia Woolf, “madness is terrific, I can assure you, and not to be sniffed at; and in its lava I still find most of the things I write about” and Dr. Montross herself doesn’t seem to have particularly clear opinions on the matter.
About the book, it is fairly apparent that the writing is rhythmic. Fancy reading a book by a doctor who also has an MFA in poetry? Read her. Sometimes it was difficult, trying not to throw up. We’ve all seen Indian Magicians on reality shows swallowing swords, but the thought of an everyday doctor treating patients who voluntarily ingest sharp objects to hurt themselves, as a refuge from their thoughts is discomforting. In this book, Christine Montross discusses about 5 such patients and their illnesses (filling in basic information on psychiatry), never really completing their stories or the end of their medical stories; but with her humane compassion, I think she was trying to build in us readers, the same empathy for people with mental illnesses that she has for her patients.
About the book, it is fairly apparent that the writing is rhythmic. Fancy reading a book by a doctor who also has an MFA in poetry? Read her. Sometimes it was difficult, trying not to throw up. We’ve all seen Indian Magicians on reality shows swallowing swords, but the thought of an everyday doctor treating patients who voluntarily ingest sharp objects to hurt themselves, as a refuge from their thoughts is discomforting. In this book, Christine Montross discusses about 5 such patients and their illnesses (filling in basic information on psychiatry), never really completing their stories or the end of their medical stories; but with her humane compassion, I think she was trying to build in us readers, the same empathy for people with mental illnesses that she has for her patients.
September 14, 2013
The author couldn't decide whether she wanted to write a scholarly piece or a book about her feelings about her personal life and her patients. It was disappointing as both. The discussion of scholarly works on various psychiatric maladies was thin and distracting. The discussion of the author's feelings was neither revealing nor particularly insightful. The book would have been much better if she had discussed some of her own problems, why she was attracted to psychiatry and what she learned about herself as a result of her interaction with her patients.
January 3, 2015
As a psychologist I recommend this book. Full of case stories and knowledge I learnt a lot about psychiatry and psychology. It`s up to date when it comes to research, and I also like that the book is so diverse in what it covers.
July 10, 2013
I received this book as a give-away from Goodreads. It is a fascinating look into the minds of some disturbed patients, and the author's compassion and insight are phenomenal.
December 28, 2022
Interesting book on psychiatrist’s experiences in treating specific patients. Severe depression, self-harm, body dysmorphic disorder, euphoria due to bipolar affective disorder or schizophrenia, a mom’s psychotic thoughts of harming her baby son, psychogenic non-epileptic seizure. These are all patient stories told by Dr. Montross.
I appreciate her honesty in explaining that her training cannot predict which patients will be successful in treatment and which ones will not. I have come to realize that medicine in general is not an exact science, and psychiatry is the most difficult discipline where treatments are usually decided by “trial and error”.
What causes the aberrations of the mind? Why is it that in Biblical times mental illness was explained by demon possession? Now you would be considered a religious fanatic to suggest such a thing. My father in law suffered with mental illness; when he died my husband, who was only 14 at the time, felt relief for his dad, that his dad was finally at peace. He told me that his dad was tormented, and even extreme treatment like electroshock therapy was tried and failed. He went through so much, he and the family, with no success.
I enjoyed the book and I recommend it. I agree, as Dr. Montross wrote, that humans live under a veil of invulnerability, and a tragedy can expose that veil. The beauty of the human condition is that most of us, in our lifetimes, have personal witness to triumph over tragedy.
I appreciate her honesty in explaining that her training cannot predict which patients will be successful in treatment and which ones will not. I have come to realize that medicine in general is not an exact science, and psychiatry is the most difficult discipline where treatments are usually decided by “trial and error”.
What causes the aberrations of the mind? Why is it that in Biblical times mental illness was explained by demon possession? Now you would be considered a religious fanatic to suggest such a thing. My father in law suffered with mental illness; when he died my husband, who was only 14 at the time, felt relief for his dad, that his dad was finally at peace. He told me that his dad was tormented, and even extreme treatment like electroshock therapy was tried and failed. He went through so much, he and the family, with no success.
I enjoyed the book and I recommend it. I agree, as Dr. Montross wrote, that humans live under a veil of invulnerability, and a tragedy can expose that veil. The beauty of the human condition is that most of us, in our lifetimes, have personal witness to triumph over tragedy.
July 14, 2017
I thought this was a good book, easy to read and understand even with all the psychiatric phrases and diagnosis names. Some of the stories are really heartbreaking. I also commend the author for NOT making herself out to be the savior of the world ... she identified several mistakes she made and not once claimed to have instantly cured anyone, as some of these books do (often to great exaggeration).
What I didn't like was the supposed tie-ins with her family. It sounds like she has a wonderful, loving family, and that is great ... but I didn't understand why the book kept going to them and the author's personal life. The parallels just weren't there for me.
Overall, a good read, and interesting introduction to a psych ward.
What I didn't like was the supposed tie-ins with her family. It sounds like she has a wonderful, loving family, and that is great ... but I didn't understand why the book kept going to them and the author's personal life. The parallels just weren't there for me.
Overall, a good read, and interesting introduction to a psych ward.
August 19, 2024
Ehh. I wanted to like this book, and some of it was pretty interesting with the examples of psychiatric patients… but I constantly found myself reading this book just to have it finished. Which isn’t a good sign. It was a bit of jumbled mix of work anecdotes (interesting), personal story (which felt a bit unnecessary? Not the purpose of the story?), and slightly difficult to follow medical speak come philosophical lecture about life. On to the next!
September 3, 2018
Interesting read of a psychiatrist explaining mental illnesses in layman terms. Crossed more into a memoir than I expected.
January 22, 2024
One of the best books by a psychiatrist that I’ve read. The parts on BIID really made me think. It led to some good discussions amongst my social work colleagues and I.
January 25, 2024
This is my jam. One more Montross books to go.
March 26, 2023
Enjoyed this book from the thoughts and experiences of a psychiatrist, how treatments have developed over time, her own struggles to get over the ego thinking she may be one to get through to a regular patient who keeps self harming by ingesting objects, and exploring the treatments available for recovery or management of the conditions.
August 8, 2020
Beautifully written. The book just shows how much compassion is needed in dealings with others-- people who, like ourselves, live on the precipice of healthy, mentally-well life. We take it all for granted, but so many chemical, biological, and environmental factors go into being physically and mentally well, and hidden within all of us is the potential for psychosis, depression, pica, or somatoform disorders. I admire Montross infinitely and she shows that you can take a longer path to medical school and through life, like she did by first becoming a poet and writer. <3
August 8, 2013
I received a copy of Falling into the Fire by psychiatrist Christine Montross through a Goodread’s First Read give away.
I was touched and awed by this book. Ms. Montross shares her experiences as a psychiatrist at an in-patient hospital. Her experience in getting to know her patients, sometimes with detailed case notes, other times having to prize information from the patient, peeling away at their experiences, stories and symptoms to come up with a diagnosis and treatment plan. Ms. Montross shares with the readers her successes and failures and her frustration with trying to help individuals for which medicine doesn’t have clear answers, admitting to her powerlessness and limitations of her speciality.
As a family member of someone with a severe mental illness it was an eye opener to read these stories. It was refreshing to read a very optimistic and dedicated doctor be honest about not having all the answers, being honest about how treatment is often a practise in addition and elimination until a workable solution is found.
I have found other literature about mental illness to be unnaturally optimistic about diagnosis, treatment and outcomes, upbeat “how-to” guides, or memoires by patients who have found a level of “normal”. This is the first book I have read that dealt honestly with the frustration, the impotence, the revolving cycle of success to failure to success, the lifelong burden these patients and their families carry. Having a psychiatrist express frustration with patients, frustration with the limitations of medicine when dealing with mental illness, frustration with less than ideal outcomes for her patients was so humanizing and honest. As a family member I have felt the same frustrations and reading her accounts, I felt validated that my feelings were not a sign of giving up, but rather a normal expression to a challenging situation. Ms. Montross’s example of
continuing to work in this profession, continuing to find a care plan gives me hope.
Since her patients come to her admitted into the hospital, she doesn’t follow them as outpatients which leaves the reader without a clear resolution. Some readers might see this as a weakness. However, I see it as a realistic representative of mental health treatment. Patients with severe mental illnesses are frequently diagnosed when their behaviour brings them through the door of an ER into a hospital admission. Once stabilized they are sent out the door clutching prescriptions, and follow-up contacts for on-going treatment, expected to navigate the labyrinth alone if they do not have family to assist. Patients who can, at most, hope for control, without the expectation of a cure.
Well written, fascinating, a very intimate portrait of treating mental illness.
I was touched and awed by this book. Ms. Montross shares her experiences as a psychiatrist at an in-patient hospital. Her experience in getting to know her patients, sometimes with detailed case notes, other times having to prize information from the patient, peeling away at their experiences, stories and symptoms to come up with a diagnosis and treatment plan. Ms. Montross shares with the readers her successes and failures and her frustration with trying to help individuals for which medicine doesn’t have clear answers, admitting to her powerlessness and limitations of her speciality.
As a family member of someone with a severe mental illness it was an eye opener to read these stories. It was refreshing to read a very optimistic and dedicated doctor be honest about not having all the answers, being honest about how treatment is often a practise in addition and elimination until a workable solution is found.
I have found other literature about mental illness to be unnaturally optimistic about diagnosis, treatment and outcomes, upbeat “how-to” guides, or memoires by patients who have found a level of “normal”. This is the first book I have read that dealt honestly with the frustration, the impotence, the revolving cycle of success to failure to success, the lifelong burden these patients and their families carry. Having a psychiatrist express frustration with patients, frustration with the limitations of medicine when dealing with mental illness, frustration with less than ideal outcomes for her patients was so humanizing and honest. As a family member I have felt the same frustrations and reading her accounts, I felt validated that my feelings were not a sign of giving up, but rather a normal expression to a challenging situation. Ms. Montross’s example of
continuing to work in this profession, continuing to find a care plan gives me hope.
Since her patients come to her admitted into the hospital, she doesn’t follow them as outpatients which leaves the reader without a clear resolution. Some readers might see this as a weakness. However, I see it as a realistic representative of mental health treatment. Patients with severe mental illnesses are frequently diagnosed when their behaviour brings them through the door of an ER into a hospital admission. Once stabilized they are sent out the door clutching prescriptions, and follow-up contacts for on-going treatment, expected to navigate the labyrinth alone if they do not have family to assist. Patients who can, at most, hope for control, without the expectation of a cure.
Well written, fascinating, a very intimate portrait of treating mental illness.
September 30, 2013
This book was my first Firstreads book I received free from the Goodreads giveaway. I received an 'Advance Uncorrected Proofs' copy.
I really liked this book. The author is very knowledgeable in this work, as well she should be, being that it's her life's work. Though the subject matter was difficult to read, it was not because Montross wrote over the reader's head, but just from the sheer extreme disorders that she has treated in patients--from people who wanted a limb amputated for no other reason than they felt it didn't belong to them to mothers who thought of doing harm to their children--Montross recounts those who she's helped & those who continue to come back to the hospital, along with offering the reader a glimpse into her own happy, personal life.
The part that most resonated with me is her experience holding her young infant daughter while on a boat over deep water during a family vacation. The fear of what could happen if she dropped the child, unintentionally, into the dark abyss is something I've gone through as well. That jolting, extreme, gut-wrenching "what if" is extremely terrifying. Montross's description of this gripping fear was so well done, and I was extremely grateful to know that others have had these horrible, breathless moments as well.
If the subject matter of psychiatry fascinates you, you will enjoy this well-written & well-researched book by Christine Montross.
(I'd like to say that I would have preferred to have been a bit quicker in completing it, but I had myself on a couple of waiting lists at the library, and when I got my hands on those books, I needed to put this book aside so that I could read the library books quickly in order to return them by the due dates.)
I really liked this book. The author is very knowledgeable in this work, as well she should be, being that it's her life's work. Though the subject matter was difficult to read, it was not because Montross wrote over the reader's head, but just from the sheer extreme disorders that she has treated in patients--from people who wanted a limb amputated for no other reason than they felt it didn't belong to them to mothers who thought of doing harm to their children--Montross recounts those who she's helped & those who continue to come back to the hospital, along with offering the reader a glimpse into her own happy, personal life.
The part that most resonated with me is her experience holding her young infant daughter while on a boat over deep water during a family vacation. The fear of what could happen if she dropped the child, unintentionally, into the dark abyss is something I've gone through as well. That jolting, extreme, gut-wrenching "what if" is extremely terrifying. Montross's description of this gripping fear was so well done, and I was extremely grateful to know that others have had these horrible, breathless moments as well.
If the subject matter of psychiatry fascinates you, you will enjoy this well-written & well-researched book by Christine Montross.
(I'd like to say that I would have preferred to have been a bit quicker in completing it, but I had myself on a couple of waiting lists at the library, and when I got my hands on those books, I needed to put this book aside so that I could read the library books quickly in order to return them by the due dates.)
August 7, 2013
I consumed this in just a few days, but there were times that it was a tough read due to the intensity of the problems that were being described. The author, a hospital psychiatrist, explores mental illness of different types (body dysmorphic disorder and self-mutilation, body integrity identity disorder, obsessive disorder, catatonic depression and others) but all which have progressed to the degree that the patient had to be admitted to an inpatient psychiatric facility. The author presents each case with sensitivity and explores what is known historically and medically about each disorder. I am not doing the book justice in my description, because while this might sound cold and clinical, the author is a great writer and weaves in her own personal observations and vignettes from her own life to provide the book's humanity.
August 3, 2013
*First-reads giveaway*
If you are interested in psychology you will like this book. Written by a practicing psychiatrist, it describes some of her extreme mental health cases and her desire to treat her patients but with the frustration of not always being able to. A woman who eats broken glass and knives to relieve stress. People who beg to have healthy limbs amputated because those limbs feel alien to them. A woman who keeps having visions of killing her child. Just a few of the cases. There are also comparisons to mental health cases and treatment from the distant past. The chapter on hysteria and pseudo-seizures is unnerving but fascinating at the same time. It's a tough read because you feel so sad to know that people have these extreme issues but it is very interesting too.
If you are interested in psychology you will like this book. Written by a practicing psychiatrist, it describes some of her extreme mental health cases and her desire to treat her patients but with the frustration of not always being able to. A woman who eats broken glass and knives to relieve stress. People who beg to have healthy limbs amputated because those limbs feel alien to them. A woman who keeps having visions of killing her child. Just a few of the cases. There are also comparisons to mental health cases and treatment from the distant past. The chapter on hysteria and pseudo-seizures is unnerving but fascinating at the same time. It's a tough read because you feel so sad to know that people have these extreme issues but it is very interesting too.
May 6, 2014
Falling Into the Fire is a good quick read that presents several interesting stories about a psychiatrist's experiences with patients. Dr. Montross is successful in presenting these illnesses in a way that is accessible to those with non-psychological backgrounds, as well as bridging the gap between those who are mentally ill and those who are not. Her personal anecdotes at the end of each chapter do well to make the reader acutely aware of the humanness of those who are suffering from mental illnesses. This is incredibly prudent given the usual difficulty in relating to those suffering by those who are healthy.
September 21, 2013
An interesting quick read. Falling Into the Fire is roughly 3/4 stories about psychiatric illness and 1/4 memoir. The author juxtaposes stories about patients she has treated with the normal problems and joys of the her own life. Dr. Montross is a woman married to another woman. Each woman has given birth to one of their children. I suppose the twist of showing a normal married life for two woman is what got this book published, but I was looking for a bit more of the "mind in crisis" and less of about the joys of family life.
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