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Falling into the Fire

A Psychiatrist's Encounters with the Mind in Crisis

Christine Montross

A woman habitually commits self-injury, ingesting light bulbs, a box of nails, zippers and a steak knife. A new mother is admitted with incessant visions of harming her child. A recent graduate, dressed in a tunic and declaring that love emanates from everything around him, is brought to A&E by his alarmed girlfriend. These are among the patients new physician Christine Montross meets during rounds at her hospital’s locked inpatient ward – and who we meet as she struggles to understand the mysteries of the mind, most especially when the tools of modern medicine are failing us. Beautifully written and deeply felt, Falling into the Fire is an intimate portrait of psychiatry and a moving reminder, in the words of the New York Times, of ‘our fragile, shared humanity’.

  • Publication date: February 6, 2014
  • ISBN: 9781780743660
  • RRP: £11.99
  • Pages: 256
  • Publication date: February 6, 2014
  • ISBN: 9781780743677
  • RRP: £5.994.99
  • Pages: 256

Christine Montross

Christine 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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