Journalist Robert Whitaker (author of books including Mad in America) interviews Sarah Fay about her mental health experiences and her memoir "Pathological..."

This is a brief excerpt from the much longer conversation podcast. My title comes from a comment by Sarah Fay: "I have to admit that I was so attached to my diagnosis, I had defined myself by it."

Source podcast:

The Impact the DSM Has Had On All of Us: An interview with Sarah Fay and Allan Horwitz By Robert Whitaker, Mad in America, April 6, 2022

Sarah Fay, PhD is an author of essays and articles published in the New York Times, the Atlantic and numerous other national publications. Her memoir is Pathological: The True Story of Six Misdiagnoses.

In her newsletter, Fay summarized: "Simply put, Pathological is both a memoir and a work of investigative journalism that...explores the ways we pathologize human experiences and emotions."

She quotes a review:

"Over thirty years, doctors diagnosed Sarah Fay with six different mental illnesses—anorexia, major depressive disorder (MDD), anxiety disorder, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), and bipolar disorder.

"Pathological is the gripping story of what it was like to live with those diagnoses, and the crippling impact each had on her life. It is also a rigorous investigation into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM)—psychiatry’s “bible,” the manual from which all mental illness diagnoses come.

"Yet as Fay found out, some of our most prominent psychiatrists have been trying to warn us that the DSM is fiction sold to the public as fact.

"In Pathological, former advisory editor at The Paris Review and award-winning writer Fay calls for a new conversation about mental health diagnosis, one based on rigorous transparency.

"With exquisite detail and a precise presentation of fact, she digs up her own life at the root to finally ask, Is a diagnosis a lifeline or a self-fulfilling prophecy?"

Her site: sarahfay.org

Her book Cured: The Memoir "tells the story of Sarah’s full recovery from serious mental illness and how recovery is possible for everyone. It’s the sequel to Pathological."

Read the exclusive publication on Substack - see the Creative Mind Newsletter site with this podcast episode, plus additional material: "Attached to my mental health diagnosis" - interview with author Sarah Fay.

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