Jeanie Wolfson It's Not Mental - Book Review Suite101.comImportance of Hiring a Commercial Painti

Maija Haavisto - published author (both fiction and non-fiction), journalist and medical writer

It's Not Mental book cover - Jeanie Wolfson

Jeanie Wolfson's book is a filled with both hope and science, demonstrating that often children's psychiatric symptoms are caused by treatable medical conditions.

Millions of families around the world struggle with parenting children with mental illnesses. Jeanie Wolfson's It's Not Mental: finding innovative support and medical treatment for a child diagnosed with a severe mental illness (Cerebella Publishing 2010, ISBN 978-) is a memoir of a mother whose daughter Keri - and with her, the whole family - went through hell and back, but in the end Keri emerged as an almost healthy young woman. No miracles were involved, just proper medical tests and treatment.

Keri's Childhood

Keri was an unusual child, who at barely over a year old was already speaking full sentences and not much later helping her eight years older sister with her homework. She enjoyed classical music and poetry. She played the piano and violin and composed her own songs. Time and time again her emotional maturity surprised both her family and strangers.

But Keri also suffered from severe depression, mood swings and psychosis (diagnosed as e.g. bipolar and schizoaffective disorder), including terrifying visual and auditory hallucinations. Luckily for her she retained strong insight: she was well aware she had hallucinations, even if she couldn't always separate them from reality.

But mental symptoms weren't the only problems Keri had. Even as a baby she barely slept and suffered from allergies and reflux. She later developed e.g. frequent, disabling migraines, fibromyalgia, severe fatigue, narcolepsy and a similar condition called Kleine-Levin's syndrome, which features sleep episodes that can last for weeks. Her growth and puberty were delayed. She was also diagnosed with ADHD and Tourette's syndrome.

Finding Help

For years Keri's parents struggled to help her. Psychiatric drugs alleviated some of her symptoms, but many of them created bothersome side effects, often worsening both physical and psychiatric symptoms. Therapy was helpful, but as the problems weren't behavioral, its efficacy was limited mostly to helping her cope with her symptoms.

But finally, as Keri was nearing adulthood, she was able to get the treatments her body needed. Miracles don't happen overnight, but after several years she was practically free of psychiatric and most physical symptoms.

So what brought forth this improvement? One of the most important things was removing gluten, dairy, soy and eggs from Keri's diet, as she was intolerant to all of them. She was found to be deficient in many hormones, such as thyroid hormones, cortisol, progesterone and growth hormone, and supplementing them helped a great deal.

Keri was also diagnosed with genetic issues which made her prone to some nutritional deficiencies, e.g. those of some B vitamins and calcium. These deficiencies were further worsened by malabsorption. She also benefited from many other supplements, such as melatonin and omega-3 fatty acids.

Another fascinating aspect of the book is the part about Keri's guide dog Kira that the family trained themselves with the help of a professional dog trainer. Kira not only helped Keri tell hallucinations apart from reality, it alerted her to migraine prodromes, helping her take medication earlier. She helped with Keri's balance and brought her medications - and of course also offered emotional support.

Book Review

While the premise of the book fascinated this reviewer, before starting reading she had her doubts. Would she, as a childfree person, be interested in this parenting journey? Would there be proper, scientific explanations for Keri's improvement to satisfy her medical curiosity and skeptical mindset?

All these worries quickly abated. First of all, It's Not Mental is very well written. The most stunning aspect is how it is both emotional and touching yet thoroughly intelligent and insightful at the same time, a balance often difficult to achieve.

Even though it is written by a non-doctor (though Wolfson has a background in science), the book is full of medical information (with numerous references to studies) which is easy to understand for a layman yet scientific enough to satisfy a medical professional. There were a few errors, but they were very minor (e.g. in supplement names) - most medical textbooks written by doctors contain many more.

It's Not Mental does not suggest that every child (or adult) should follow the same routes of treatment they did, or that everyone with severe mental symptoms can experience such dramatic improvement. It is also not about touting complementary/alternative medicine as superior to pharmaceuticals.

Most of all, It's Not Mental is a powerful, thoroughly documented case history, a testimony to the importance of proper diagnosis - e.g. "depression" is not a real diagnosis unless physical causes for it have been excluded with thorough tests, which rarely is the case. It is a book full of both hope and concrete ideas on improving the health of a mentally or neurologically ill children (and adults).

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