Book Review: Psychiatric Tales by Darryl Cunningham

My rating: 4.5/5

Psychiatric Tales is a graphic novel written by an artist who formerly worked in an acute psychiatric ward in the UK.  It includes eleven stories, mostly about the author's experiences on that ward.  In the introduction, he clearly states the point of writing and illustrating this book: "'Psychiatric Tales' is intended to be a stigma-busting book. This is needed because fear and ignorance of mental illness remain widespread in society."

I would recommend this book to anyone, whether you know nothing about mental illness, think you know about mental illness, suffer from mental illness, or know someone with a mental illness. It's a quick read, and it's informative.  For example, I believed incorrectly that schizophrenia is the same thing as multiple personality disorder.  It's not.  And that people with schizophrenia are by definition dangerous. They're not.

My only complaint is that I would've liked to have more stories included in the book.  On that note though, the author is working on a second volume.  If you would like to see examples from the book, or from his upcoming book, check out his blog and his Flickr stream.