A Mood Apart: The Thinker's Guide to Emotion and Its Disorders

388 Pages·1997·8.228 MB·English

by  Peter C. Whybrow

Praise for
A Mood Apart
“A reader-friendly compendium of the most significant research and the
most profound thoughts devoted to mood and mood disorders.”
—Philadelphia magazine.
“Seldom has the inner emotional landscape of melancholic depression,
mania and manic-depressive illness been mapped with so much clarity,
empathy and sensitivity.” —Publishers Weekly
“A terrific book for professionals and the public.... A Mood Apart repre­
sents a literary achievement as well as a scientific accomplishment. It is not
a self-help manual with simple lists and prescriptions, nor a compendium
without conclusion of every scientific study. Rather, it is a seamless prod­
uct resulting from a career of research and clinical practice expressed in
lucid, moving style, but not at the expense of integrative complexity.”
— Contemporary Psychology
“This is a masterly and highly readable discourse.... Whybrow has really
attempted to enter into the soul of manic depression and has succeeded to
a remarkable extent.” —British Journal of Psychiatry
“Dr. Whybrow has succeeded in presenting a balanced, well-written
account of mood disorders and their treatment which will inform the gen­
eral reader and which also contains much of interest to the professional.”
— Literary Review
“A most graceful introduction to the science of mood, by one of the world’s
experts.” —Peter D. Kramer,
author of Listening to Prozac
“Dr. Peter Whybrow explains everything you ever wanted to know about
moods and their vicissitudes, and he does so in wonderfully elegant,
highly readable prose.”
—Maggie Scarf, author of
Unfinished Business and Intimate Worlds
“Dr. Whybrow has written a wise and graceful book that should be helpful
and consoling to patients and their loved ones.”
—Irvin D. Yalom, author of
Love’s Executioner and Lying on the Couch
“A Mood Apart is a beautifully crafted volume that probes into the recesses
of the brain and mind to reveal the secrets of depression. Dr. Whybrow
distills a lifetime of experience as a master clinician and scientist. ... I
highly recommend this definitive work to the nonprofessional as well as
the professional.”
—Aaron T. Beck, M.D., university professor emeritus, University of
Pennsylvania, and author of Cognitive Therapy of Depression
“This compassionate book will console through its effective teaching. Any­
one who has dealt with depression will be drawn to it.”
—Judith Rapoport, M.D., chief, child psychiatry, National Institute of
Mental Health, and author of The Boy Who Couldn’t Stop Washing
“A Mood Apart is a tour de force, a new standard in writing for the
public.... A masterpiece.... His topic is complex, his explanation scien­
tific and yet deeply rooted in compassion, understanding, perception,
and respect for his patients.”
—Frank Burgmann, president, National Depressive
and Manic-Depressive Association
A
Mood
Apart
The Thinker’s Guide to Emotion
and Its Disorders
PETER C. WHYBROW, M.D.
3*1 HarperPerennial
A Division of HzrperCoilinsPublishen
Excerpt from The Poetry of Robert Frost, edited by Edward Connery Lathem.
Copyright 1947 by Holt, Rinehart & Winston, © 1975 by Leslie Frost Ballan-
tine. © 1969 by Henry Holt & Co., Inc. Reprinted by permission of Henry
Holt & Co., Inc.
Published by arrangement with Perseus Basic Books, L.L.C.
a mood apart. Copyright © 1997 by Peter C. Whybrow. All rights reserved.
Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be used in
any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief
quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information address
HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.
HarperCollins books may be purchased for educational, business, or sales pro­
motional use. For information please write: Special Markets Department,
HarperCollins Publishers Inc., 10 East 53rd Street, New York, NY 10022.
First HarperPerennial edition published 1998.
Designed by Elliott Beard
The Library of Congress has catalogued the hardcover edition as follows:
Whybrow, Peter C.
A mood apart : depression, mania, and other afflictions of the self /
by Peter C. Whybrow.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 0-465-04725-4
1. Affective disorders. 2. Self. 3. Personality. I. Title.
RC537.W487 1997
616.89'5—dc2i 96-47974
ISBN 0-06-097740-x (pbk.)
13 14 15 ♦/RRD 20 19 18 17 16 15 14
For my father,
Charles Ernest James Why brow

A Mood Apart
Once down on my knees to growing plants
I prodded the earth with a lazy tool
In time with a medley of sotto chants;
But becoming aware of some boys from school
Who had stopped outside the fence to spy,
I stopped my song and almost heart,
For any eye is an evil eye
That looks in onto a mood apart.
Robert Frost
Steeple Bush (1947)