A Fractured Mind

My Life with Multiple Personality Disorder

De: Robert B. Oxnam

Narrado por: William Dufris

In 1989, Robert B. Oxnam, the successful China scholar and president of the Asia Society, faced up to what he thought was his biggest personal challenge: alcoholism. But this dependency masked a problem far more serious: Multiple Personality Disorder.

At the peak of his professional career, after having led the Asia Society for nearly a decade, Oxnam was haunted by periodic blackouts and episodic rages. After his family and friends intervened, Oxnam received help from a psychiatrist, Dr. Jeffery Smith, and entered a rehab center. It wasn't until 1990, during a session with Dr. Smith, that the first of Oxnam's 11 alternate personalities, an angry young boy named Tommy, suddenly emerged. With Dr. Smith's help, Oxnam began the exhausting and fascinating process of uncovering his many personalities and the childhood trauma that caused his condition.

©2005 Robert B. Oxnam (P)2005 Listen & Live Audio, Inc.

Reseñas de la Crítica

"This touching and powerful account of the 'inner world' of the disorder, the power struggles and dialogues among the fractured parts of a person's mind, provides valuable insight into a courageous man's struggle." (Publishers Weekly)

Chapter 8 is best in my opinion

Good book. Great for person studying psychology. Especially if you are interested in child psychology and trauma. Book is well laid out. Sometimes the author seems to ramble, but it eventually ties back in. The trauma its-self is a very small part of the book. It is more about life and therapy as a DID person. Which I am grateful for, but I would have enjoyed more about the therapy sessions. Would make a good movie. Chapter 8 covers more about things from MD Smith's view point and more about the actual psychology. It would have been nice to cover what his childhood was like after the abuse and when did the actual abuse stop. Then again my preferred study in psychology is in children's mental health. Anyway, good book.

relatable

This showed so many sides of a very complex diagnosis. I found myself fully engrossed in the story. nodding through most of it with a profound understanding.

Too many name drops but overall a good book

I did enjoy it quite a bit and finished it in a day. My only complaint with it was the touch of narcissism with the constant discussion of status and name dropping. Remove those things and you have a great book!

Brave

Thank you for sharing your story! I learned so much and the book is very well written.

Fascinating Read - Shows What Our Minds Can Do

What did you love best about A Fractured Mind?

The concept that our minds are able to do what is needed to take care of us. Even things that we would think are crazy, really aren't... they're just the mind adapting.

What was one of the most memorable moments of A Fractured Mind?

There's too much to say... I will let the reader determine that for themselves

What about William Dufris’s performance did you like?

Solid performance in the role of the author.

Unsure at first but so glad I listened!

I listened for a few chapters and started to be not so into his voice and snobbishness but I'm really glad I listened to the whole thing, it turned out to be a great story and very informative.

Thank you for sharing...

Thank you for sharing your experience and thoughts on D.I.D.
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You have helped many people.
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Your description of outer life vs inner helped put things in perspective. Easy to comprehend. Very well written... would love an opportunity to speak with you.

A solid look at a rare disorder

Several years ago, as a psychiatrist in training, I listened to this audiobook with some skepticism: Multiple Personality Disorder (now Dissociative Identity Disorder--or DID) is controversial, even among mental health professionals. Still, it was in my field, and I had a download to spare...

Several months after listening to this book, I had a patient's family tell me (details changed) he had numerous "voices", and that he would "be like a little kid, sometimes". He entered therapy, with me, and it became clear he had severe DID, with at least 5 different personalities, and nearly impenetrable amnestic barriers, between them.
Oxnam's audiobook helped me treat this patient (who, alas, dropped out of therapy) with a more human understanding of how someone can be so very divided, yet still be one cohesive being. It's a difficult thing to get your mind around, and seeing it in front of me made me realize that this book did a very good job describing DID.

This audiobook is well written and narrated. To those who were put off by Oxnam's "ego", I invite you to ask yourselves this: "Doesn't a man who was terribly abused as a child, suffered a severe, crippling disintegration of his personality structure, battled long and hard to re-integrate his personalities and then had the wherewithal to write a lucid autobiography about it deserve to be a little "full of himself"?

Educational & Enlightening

Although difficult to keep track of the different personalities at times, I thought reading this book was a priceless experience. Unless you suffer from MPD yourself, I don't think you'll ever get a better insight to what it actually is like to live with this disorder.

I disagree with reviewers who said that the author boasts his accomplishments - I felt that it was all necessary to show the incredible power of the mind to have such an organized 'outside' life, while dealing with such a troubled 'inside' life.

Although the author discusses his own Christianity, I felt that he did it to express the personal choices he made, not as an attempt to convince his readers.

If you know someone who suffers from MPD, or if you have a liking towards human psychology, I highly recommend this book.

Causes rethinking of Self

There are many similarities with my normal mind and the multiple personalities portrayed by the fractured mind in this book. This book caused much rethinking of myself, who I am, which changes depending on circumstances. French writer Montagne is supposed to have said a person is wavelike and varying rather than having a constant personality. I subscribe to this belief. The many personalities are like me when I have acted in a very different manner than my usual self, except that I remember the instances when I have stepped outside of myself.