“Stories of human behavior at its most extreme….With humor, compassion, empathy, and insight, Small searches for and finds the humanity that lies hidden under even the most bizarre symptoms.”—Daniel H. Pink, author of Drive and A Whole New MindA psychiatrist’s stories of his most bizarre cases, The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head by Gary Small, M.D., and Gigi Vorgan—co-authors of The Memory Bible—offers a fascinating and highly entertaining look into the peculiarities of the human mind. In the vein of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Awakenings, and the other bestselling works of Oliver Sacks, The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head surprises, enthralls, and illuminates as it focuses on medical mysteries that would stump and amaze the brilliant brains on House, M.D.
A psychiatrist recounts some of his most intriguing cases from his more than twenty-year career in this captivating memoir.
"Stories of human behavior at its most extreme. . . . With humor, compassion, empathy, and insight, Small searches for and finds the humanity that lies hidden under even the most bizarre symptoms." -Daniel H. Pink, author of
Drive
and
A Whole New Mind
True stories are more bizarre than any fiction, and Dr. Gary Small knows this best. After thirty distinguished years of psychiatry and groundbreaking research on the human brain, Dr. Small has seen it all-now he is ready to open his office doors for the first time and tell all about the most mysterious, intriguing, and bizarre patients of his career.
The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head is a spellbinding record of the doctor's most bewildering cases, from naked headstands and hysterical blindness to fainting schoolgirls and self-amputations. It is an illuminating journey into the mind of a practicing psychiatrist and his life in medicine as it evolves over time-a behind-the-scenes look at the field and a variety of mental diseases as they've never been seen or diagnosed before. You'll find yourself exploring the puzzling eccentricities that make us human.
Often funny, sometimes tragic, and always compelling, Dr. Small takes you on a tour of his career that moves from the halls of a crowded inner-city Boston emergency room to the multimillion-dollar ski lodges of the nation's elite. In between, Dr. Small introduces a strange cast of true-life characters and conditions, while dealing with mysterious hysterical blindness, a man convinced that his penis is shrinking, secret double lives, and frighteningly psychotic romantic desires. His career and personal life come full circle when his own mentor becomes his patient, making Small realize that no one is beyond mental exploration-not even himself.
"A remarkable achievement . . .uncannily transports the reader into a heretofore unfamiliar world of mental illness. Reading it will fascinate you, inspire you, and teach you more about other people and yourself than you ever thought you knew." -Sonja Lyubomirsky, author
The How of Happiness
and professor of psychology, UC Riverside
"I found it hard to put this treasure of a book down, and still now reflect on the various lives [they] have so vividly shared through these thoughtful lessons in wisdom and what it means to be human." -Daniel J. Siegel, MD, author of
Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation
and professors of psychiatry at UCLA
