A Fractured Mind: Summary and book reviews of A Fractured Mind by Robert Oxnam, plus links to an excerpt from A Fractured Mind and a biography of Robert Oxnam.
A Fractured Mind My Life with Multiple Personality Disorder
by Robert B. Oxnam
Hardcover: Oct 2005,
304 pages.
Paperback: Oct 2006,
304 pages.
Robert Oxnam was a high-profile, successful man: A renowned scholar and president of the Asia Society, he appeared frequently on television and traveled the world as a sought-after expert. But what the millions of people who’d seen him didn’t know -- what even those closest to him didn’t know -- was that Oxnam suffered from multiple personality disorder. It was only after an intervention staged by family and friends, in response to frequent blackouts and episodic rages assumed to be alcohol-driven, that he sought treatment with Dr. Jeffery Smith; the first of his eleven personalities emerged in a session in 1990. After years of treatment, he has integrated them into three: Robert, Wanda, and Bobby, who take turns narrating this remarkable, unprecedented chronicle.
Multiple personality disorders (MPD) have come in for a lot of bad press over the years. Some in the medical community don't believe they exist at all, many believe they are over-diagnosed, and some baulk at the suggestion that they are caused by the need to suppress memories of significant childhood trauma, usually of a sexual nature - memories that are later "recovered" during treatment.
Many readers have also been burned recently by memoirs that are not all that they purport to be, the most recently notorious being A Million Little Pieces, so you would be right to have your cynicism antennae well attuned when considering whether to believe the story told in A Fractured Mind.
However, as one reads Oxnam's story, and as one learns about his life, as one of the most respected Asia specialists in the world, one can't help but wonder why he would invent such a story - in publicly telling it he has nothing to gain and a great deal to lose. The conclusion that many will reach can be summed up by the immortal (and oft repeated) words of Sherlock Holmes, "We must fall back upon the old axiom that when all other contingencies fail, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." (Reviewed by BookBrowse Review Team).
Time
A brave effort to explain how a troubled man found a way to get better.
Kirkus Reviews
While the fanciful imagery employed by Oxnam may give his story greater impact, it will not authenticate it for skeptics who question either the existence of MPD as a genuine mental disorder or the legitimacy of recovered memories.
Publishers Weekly
...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
Booklist - Donna Chavez
Starred Review. A remarkable life that, for all its successes, took great personal courage to survive and to publicly record.
Marlene Steinberg, M.D., author of The Stranger in the Mirror: Dissociation -- The Hidden Epidemic
...Oxnam reveals how someone who appears so successful and talented on the outside can be filled with overwhelming self-hatred...
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by Joyce Opening the door Robert Oxnam opens the door for the reader to peer inside the disruptive world of MPD - truly an illness difficult to live with and difficult to understand for the reader. His brilliance shines through in his ability to draw the reader into his... Read More
Robert B. Oxnam is internationally recognized as an Asia specialist and
dynamic speaker. He often guides prominent Americans (including Bill Gates,
Warren Buffett and former President George H. W. Bush) seeking
in-depth knowledge of China. For more than ten years he was president of the
Asia Society, which has offices in New York, Washington, D.C., Los Angeles,
Houston, and Hong Kong. He has hosted MacNeil/Lehrer News Hour specials on
Asia; is a director of the Clemente Global Growth Fund and the First Philippine
Fund; a trustee of the Rockerfeller Brothers Fund and Armand G Erpf Fund; and
President Emeritus of the Asia Society. He lives with his wife
Vishakha
Desai, who is the current President of the Asia Society, in New York City.
Interesting Links:
An interview with Oxnam, in case anyone doubts his expertise!
An
Audio Interview on New York Public Radio in which Oxnam talks about A
Fractured Mind (jump to the second story).
About Multiple Personality Disorder
According to the Diagnostic...
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(1127 words).
Kirkus Reviews
Marlene Steinberg, M.D., author of The Stranger in the Mirror: Dissociation -- The Hidden Epidemic
of 5
by Joyce
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