Same Time Next Week

Same Time Next Week
True Stories of Working Through Mental Illness
EDITED BY LEE GUTKIND

In any given year as many as many as one in four adults (approximately 61.5 million individuals) suffers from a diagnosable mental illness-and yet there is still a significant stigma attached to being labeled as “mentally ill.”

We hear about worst-case scenario’s, but many—maybe even most-cases, there is much room for hope. These 18 frank, often intimate stories reflect the writers’ struggles to overcome—both as professionals and as individuals, as current therapists, and as former patients—the challenges presented by depression, bipolar disorder, OCD, and other mental disorders.

The encouraging and vitally important message is that a diagnosis of mental illness, although difficult, painful, and sometimes humiliating and degrading, needn’t lead to defeat. With hard work and empathic, passionate support, individuals suffering from mental illness can regain hope, build a sense of accomplishment, and survive.

These dramatic narratives communicate clearly the rewards of helping patients move forward with their lives, often through combination of medication, talk therapy, and common sense.

Collectively these true stories argue for a system that encourages human connection rather than diagnosis by checklist.

Catherine Klatzker’s contribution to this anthology is her essay Hitbodedut.