Unlike the Heart: A Memoir of Brain and Mind

'In Nicola Redhouse's Unlike the Heart, theoretical questions of psyche and soma are not remote but urgent concerns, intimately bound to her own family's story and the terrible anxiety she experienced after the births of her children. Intelligent, lucid and knowledgeable, the book itself may be said to embody the discipline of neuropsychoanalysis: It combines the narrative of a single patient with insights from the science of the brain.' —Siri Hustvedt

'A vital account of a struggle: resolute, intelligent and endlessly interesting.' Helen Garner

'In this original, rigorous, poignant yet witty, and personally urgent work, Redhouse puts Freud and his disciples onto the couch - to scrutinise the art, and possibly science, of psychoanalysis, and, even more ambitiously, to find where brain ends and mind begins. This book is a feat of literary and intellectual fireworks.' —Lee Kofman, author of The Dangerous Bride

'Redhouse has corralled the ordinary and extraordinary madness of motherhood, the history of psychoanalysis, the efficacy of antidepressants, the future of neuroscience, and the complexities of her uniquely introspective family to create a kind of perfect memoir - one that enlarges the reader's knowledge and leaves them with questions about their own existence.' —Steven Amsterdam, author of The Easy Way Out