Acquainted with the Night: A Parent's Quest to Understand Depression and Bipolar Disorder in His Children Paperback – June 14, 2005

I had set this aside for reading as a professional duty but found it so compelling that I promoted it to my bedside. Paul Raeburn is a superb writer. That being said, I think it may be more useful to professionals than to parents. The mental health workers in this book do not come off well and it makes salutary reading. Raeburn is perturbed by his doctors' inability to make a "correct" diagnosis and proceed from diagnosis to specific treatment. Psychiatric diagnoses tend to be fuzzy (although this is by no means confined to psychiatry. How many diagnoses of "fibromyalgia" and "virus infection" are ever scientifically proven?). In children the labeling is further complicated by the wish to avoid diagnoses that stigmatize. The use of psychotropic medications in child psychiatry is often empirical with a "lets try this and see" approach. Some children are definitely made worse by Ritalin and Adderal and other "upper" type drugs. It may be that these include victims of a childhood version of manic-depressive illness, which Kraepelin originally described in adults. The Papalos's, in their book "The Bipolar Child", have extended the definition of this disorder rather more widely than most experts would agree with. For a more balanced viewpoint I would recommend "Do They Grow Out of It?" edited by Lily Hechtman and "Child Psychopharmacology" edited by B Timothy Walsh. I was surprised that no mention was made of telephone hotlines, which are a valuable resource for the suicidal teenager (the national line is 1-800-SUICIDE)and of WEB sites for cutters (see my review of Tracy Alderman's "Scarred Soul.")

Raeburn is a gifted writer and he tells this story well. My problem with the text is that he himself is such a disturbing character in this story that is allegedly about his two kids. His writing has "voice" from the very beginning, but there's something creepy about the way he talks about his family, especially his wife. He tells us that the two of them fought, loudly, and that he blames her for many things---not having the kids wait to eat dinner when he got home, etc.---but the reader never gets any sense of the core of their marriage or his emotional attachment to her. In fact, he seems very narcissistic throughout; he's cold in describing the people he supposedly loves. He has many complaints and not many solutions. I wanted to be more empathetic---certainly being a parent to two children with mental illness is a terribly challenging situation---but I found myself getting annoyed with him over and over. He couldn't take off work to supervise a suicidal daughter? He couldn't figure out somewhere else to live if the commute was such a terrible strain on his family life? I was left feeling sad for this whole family.

Quite well done, altho I thought the author spent too many paragraphscomplaining about his ex wife, rather than how he struggled tounderstand the depression(s) of his children..cyn smith

This is an excellent book for understanding depression and suicide. However, it is very academic and can get a little difficult at times.

I did not like this book at all. I expected to learn a lot of quality information about bipolar disorder and depression. I purchased this book for a class assignment so I had no choice, but to read it. I did not learn much about the illnesses, but I got a very clear picture of how angry the author is with is ex wife.If you are searching for quality information about depression and bipolar disorder, I suggest you try another book.

I really liked this book and it was extremely informative and intense. It did help me at the time to come to terms with our daughter's diagnosis of bipolar disorder. Would recommend it.

Ugh. Had to read for class

Great book! Very enlightening.