Book Review: The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head by Gary Small M.D. and Gigi Vorgan

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The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head

Gary Small M.D. & Gigi Vorgan

Non-Fiction - Psychology

267 pages

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.

(Text from front inner cover)

 

   The Naked Lady Who Stood on Her Head was probably the best psychology book I've read so far. Dr. Small didn't sugar coat anything, he told you exactly what happened, his thoughts, treatment, and how the patient progressed/turned out. The title of the book is from one of his earlier cases- a woman who was, quiet literally, standing on her head naked. Each chapter is a different case, starting from when he was training at Harvard to when he has his own floor for his patients. Dr. Small told the true difficulties of being a psychiatrist. He told us what his thoughts were about each client, his feelings about actually, finally, being a psychiatrist, and how he wasn't afraid to ask his mentors for advice.

 

   Being a high schooler studying psychology, it was nice to read about the 'truths' per-say. I liked that Dr. Small told us about how, when he first started out, he actually felt as if he was just role playing, and in the last chapter, he gave us an all too real experience about losing someone you're close to to a psychological disease-in this case, Alzheimer's- and not being able to do anything to help.

 

   I do wonder about how the patients felt when, assuming they did, they read about themselves, their case, and Dr. Small's thoughts in this book.  I guess we will never know.

 

   I will definitely be reading more of Dr. Small's books as I progress in my psychology career, and will recommend this book to anyone looking for books on the subject.