A Narrow Bridge: Awakening From Mental Illness - Hardcover

by Deborah Ruth Bronstein (Author)

"One of the most important and least attended-to mysteries in the treatment of mental illness is the need for a delicate, careful and thoughtful study and separation between the symptoms of illness and the search for God. There's a difference between visions and hallucinations which very few psychiatrists and psychotherapists understand and support - even now. A Narrow Bridge is the only first-person memoir I've read to touch on and reveal these differences and to attempt to explain them. It is a well-thought-out, honest and penetrating memoir. This is one of the things that makes Bronstein's work a vital contribution to the first-person literature on this deep subject." -Joanne Greenberg, author of I Never Promised You A Rose Garden "This is a raw, heart rendering and, in the end, victorious book. Bontshe Sveig (in Yiddish literature) could not cry out. But Rabbi Deborah Bronstein could. And we can hear her. And we hear her now. And we will hear her Ad Olam; to the end of time." -Dvorah Telushkin, author of Master of Dreams "This extraordinary book is a gift to anyone who has been touched first or secondhand by mental illness. With remarkable courage, candor, and compassion, Rabbi Bronstein shares her personal story and, in the process, illuminates the inner experience of mental illness and the inner world of the psychiatric hospital. Depression, despair, shame, rage, and self-loathing are depicted in all of their darkness. And yet, Bronstein insists, "truth is sometimes hidden in dark places. . .and goodness too." This is ultimately an inspirational book, a testament to the power of the human spirit to move from great brokenness to greater wholeness and healing." -Ken Pargament, author of Spiritually Integrated Psychotherapy: Understanding and Addressing the Sacred