Never once, during any of my bouts of depression, had I been inclined or able to pick up a telephone and ask a friend for help. It wasn't in me.
Kay Redfield JamisonRead
There is no common standard for education about diagnosis. Distinguishing between bipolar depression and major depressive disorder, for example, can be difficult, and mistakes are common. Misdiagnosis can be lethal. Medications that work well for some forms of depression induce agitation in others.
Interpretation
What this quote means
This quote highlights the complexities of diagnosing depression, emphasizing the importance of accurate identification for effective treatment.
Kay Redfield Jamison's quote underscores the challenges in the diagnosis of mood disorders such as bipolar depression and major depressive disorder. It stresses that there is no universal standard for education on these conditions, which often leads to misdiagnosis and potentially harmful consequences. The variability in patient responses to medications further complicates the situation, highlighting the necessity for meticulous assessment and personalized treatment strategies in mental health care.
Themes
EducationDiagnosisBipolarDepressionMental Health
In practice
Example use cases
In a lecture on mental health, this quote could be used to illustrate the importance of accurate diagnosis.
More from Kay Redfield Jamison
All quotes →No pill can help me deal with the problem of not wanting to take pills; likewise, no amount of psychotherapy alone can prevent my manias and depressions. I need both. It is an odd thing, owing life to pills, one's own quirks and tenacities, and this unique, strange, and ultimately profound relationship called psychotherapy
Kay Redfield JamisonRead
Mood disorders are terribly painful illnesses, and they are isolating illnesses. And they make people feel terrible about themselves when, in fact, they can be treated.
Kay Redfield JamisonRead
When people are suicidal, their thinking is paralyzed, their options appear spare or nonexistent, their mood is despairing, and hopelessness permeates their entire mental domain. The future cannot be separated from the present, and the present is painful beyond solace. ‘This is my last experiment,’ wrote a young chemist in his suicide note. ‘If there is any eternal torment worse than mine I’ll have to be shown.
Kay Redfield JamisonRead
When public figures remain silent about depression, there is a cost to the rest of society. Silence contributes to the misperception that successful people do not get depressed, and it keeps the public from seeing that treatment allows many individuals to return to competitive professional lives.
Kay Redfield JamisonRead
Because I teach and write about depression and bipolar illness, I am often asked what is the most important factor in treating bipolar disorder. My answer is competence. Empathy is important, but competence is essential.
Kay Redfield JamisonRead
Similar quotes
Was putting a man on the moon actually easier than improving education in our public schools?
B. F. SkinnerRead
Rather, very, little, pretty - these are the leeches that infest the pond of prose, sucking the blood of words. The constant use of the adjective little (except to indicate size) is particularly debilitating; we should all try to do a little better, we should all be very watchful of this rule, for it is a rather important one, and we are pretty sure to violate it now and then.
William Strunk, Jr.Read
Of these austerer virtues the love of truth is the chief, and in mathematics, more than elsewhere, the love of truth may find encouragement for waning faith. Every great study is not only an end in itself, but also a means of creating and sustaining a lofty habit of mind; and this purpose should be kept always in view throughout the teaching and learning of mathematics.
Bertrand RussellRead
I suggest that the introductory courses in science, at all levels from grade school through college, be radically revised. Leave the fundamentals, the so-called basics, aside for a while, and concentrate the attention of all students on the things that are not known.
Lewis ThomasRead
Humor is the oxygen of children's literature. There's a lot of competition for children's time, but even kids who hate to read want to read a funny book.
Sid FleischmanRead
Honour your daughters, trust them and most importantly, educate them.
Ziauddin YousafzaiRead