Frank Brady: Endgame: Bobby Fischer's Remarkable Rise and Fall - from America's Brightest Prodigy to the Edge of Madness

In "A Psychological Autopsy of Bobby Fischer" from the periodical, "Miller-McCune", Joseph G. Ponterotto wrote: Unfortunately, Bobby Fischer’s dramatic rise to world pre-eminence and equally dramatic descent into isolation and mental instability is a life path not unique to him or to chess. To be sure, Paul Morphy, the New Orleans chess prodigy who played a century earlier than Bobby, also lapsed into a state of delusion, in his case centered on belief that he was being persecuted by his brother-in-law, the executor of his father’s estate. But outside the field of chess, one can find countless examples of prodigies who succumbed to stress and intense career expectations. The musical genius of Michael Jackson, the acting and singing gift of Judy Garland, and the poetry and prose brilliance of Sylvia Plath represent but a few examples of promising talent undermined by mental health problems insufficiently dealt with, or left untended altogether. Read that Miller-McCune research essay here.

Oliver Sacks Discusses Vision and 'The Mind's Eye' from NPR Podcast Science Friday

Normally the eyes and brain work together in a seamless, intricate system. But what happens when the brain can no longer make sense of visual information? Neurologist Oliver Sacks talks about his new book, The Mind's Eye, and what visual disorders reveal about how the brain processes sight.

Download the podcast here. See also: The Mind's Eye, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Revised and Expanded Edition, Migraine

Oliver Sacks Discusses Vision and 'The Mind's Eye' from NPR: Science Friday Podcast

Normally the eyes and brain work together in a seamless, intricate system. But what happens when the brain can no longer make sense of visual information? Neurologist Oliver Sacks talks about his new book, The Mind's Eye, and what visual disorders reveal about how the brain processes sight.

View the webpage for this particular Science Friday show, here. See also: The Mind's Eye, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For A Hat: And Other Clinical Tales, Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, Revised and Expanded Edition, Migraine

"Don't Confuse Depression and Grief, Author Advises" from Psychiatric News by Aaron Levin

Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D., who has endured mental illness and her husband's death, realizes that depression is destructive and alienating, but that grief acts to preserve the self and draw people together. “It has been said that grief is a kind of madness,” Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D., told listeners at APA's Institute on Psychiatric Services in Boston in October. “I disagree.” Kay Redfield Jamison, Ph.D.: “Madness prepared me for grief. It gave me an unsentimental gauge by which to test my sanity within my grief and a respect for the true terror that is at the core of madness.” She spoke in hope of adding to the discussion over proposed elimination of the grief exclusion from the DSM-5's criteria for major depressive disorder. That possible change has been characterized by some as medicalizing normal human experience. “There is a kind of sanity to grief,” continued Jamison, a professor of psychiatry at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine and honorary professor of English at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. “It provides a path—albeit a broken one—by which those who grieve can find their way. Grief is not a disease; it is a necessity.”

Read that full article, here, at Psychiatric News. These are also good books on the topic of depression, by Kay Redfield Jamison: Nothing Was the Same, Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament, Exuberance: The Passion for Life, Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide

California's Prop 19: The Politics and Practicality of Marijuana Prohibition from The Takeaway: Early Edition by feedback@thetakeaway.org (Public Radio International and WNYC Radio)

In under a week, the nation will vote in gubernatorial, Senate and Congressional elections that seem very likely to shift the national balance of power. But in many states, those same voters will be deciding on ballot initiatives that will have more dramatic and immediate consequences. In California, voters are going to decide on Proposition 19, a ballot initiative that would legalize the use of marijuana for non-medicinal purposes. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder says that even if California were to legalize pot, the Department of Justice will prosecute Californian users and growers under federal drug laws. For more on the politics and the practicality of Prop 19 we speak with Bruce Cain, political science professor at U.C. Berkeley and Time.com health reporter Maia Szalavitz, author of "Born for Love: Why Empathy is Essential ... and Endangered."

Listen to the podcast here. Download the podcast here. See also: Recovery Options: The Complete Guide, The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog: And Other Stories from a Child Psychiatrist's Notebook Child Psychiatrist's Notebook--What Traumatized Children Can Teach Us About Loss, Love, and Healing, Help at Any Cost