Arts Publications

Dante's Cure

Wisconsin Bookwatch, Sept, 2004

Dante's Cure

Daniel Dorman, M. D.

Other Press

307 Seventh Ave., #1807, NY, NY 10001

Dante's Cure: A Journey Out Of Madness by Daniel Dorman (Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, School of Medicine University of California at Los Angeles) traces the history of Catherine, a woman suffering from severe schizophrenia in the 1970s and was admitting at a UCLA hospital as an adolescent anorexic who was suicidal and heard murderous voices in her head. Dr. Dorman describe's Catherine's condition, her background, and moments of interpretative breakthroughs, and his work with her in resistance to collegial pressures to medicate Catherine. Dr. Dorman set up in private practice and continued his sessions with Catherine. Gradually she was able to begin a recovery, live in an apartment, attend college, and eventually qualified as a psychiatric nurse. Of special interest is Dr. Dorman's epilogue setting out his rationale in opposition to the dominant psychiatric view of schizophrenia as a "brain disorder" requiring medication. He persuasively advocates a humanist, patient-doctor collaborationist approach as illustrated by his years of work with Catherine. Dante's Cure is a welcome and valued contribution to psychiatric medicine and a recommended addition to personal, professional, and Mental Health Studies library collections.