Strangers to Ourselves




The Takeaway show

Summary: <p>In <a href="https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780374600846/strangerstoourselves">"Strangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories that Make Us,"</a> New Yorker staff writer <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/contributors/rachel-aviv">Rachel Aviv</a> ventures into what she calls "the psychic hinterlands" — the gap between an individual's clinical mental health diagnosis and their lived experience.</p> <p>She joined us to discuss Naomi, a young mother whose story bears a striking parallel to the inspiration behind Toni Morrison's "Beloved;" Laura, a Harvard student whose life couldn't be more different, and in other ways is a consistent through line; and Rachel herself, whose lifelong interactions with the field of psychiatry have caused her to question how a diagnosis can shape our experiences of the world, and of ourselves.</p>