Strangers to Ourselves

A subtle and penetrating investigation into how mental illness is diagnosed … Aviv is an instinctive storyteller… meticulous, empathic, tirelessly inquisitive. – Hephzibah Anderson * Observer *So attuned to subtlety and complexity… a book-length demonstration of Aviv’s extraordinary ability to hold space for the “uncertainty, mysteries and doubt” of others. * New York Times Book Review *Profoundly intelligent … superbly written portraits … [A] remarkable book. * Guardian *Captures with subtlety and empathy the honest reality of mental illness… a human chronicle that is intimate and unpredictable… Instead of demonizing disorders of the mind, Aviv seeks to understand their causes. * The Times *An incredibly researched, empathetic, and moving book. * Lit Hub *Combines the poise of Janet Malcolm and the confessional bravery of Joan Didion … Through half a dozen vivid case studies - one being the story of her own hospitalization at age six - Aviv unravels medical diagnoses and demonstrates how societal narratives around illness take hold. The result is fascinating and empathetic. * Vogue *Aviv applies her signature conscientiousness and probing intellect to every section of this eye-opening book … A moving, meticulously researched, elegantly constructed work of nonfiction. * Kirkus Reviews (starred review) *In writing against the limits of psychiatric narratives, into the space where language has failed, Aviv paradoxically finds language for the most ineffable registers of human experience. * Wall Street Journal *Writing with uncanny empathy and integrity … Strangers to Ourselves is a work of landmark reporting that is truly heartbreaking and astonishing. – Cathy Park Hong, author of MINOR FEELINGS: An Asian American ReckoningA groundbreaking, paradigm-shifting exploration of the relationship between diagnosis and identity. This is the kind of book that can make your life flash before your eyes, glittering with new insights and a sense of unguessed possibilities. – Elif Batuman, author of EITHER/OR and THE IDIOT

Rachel Aviv is a staff writer at The New Yorker, where she writes about medicine, education, criminal justice, and other subjects. In 2022, she won a National Magazine Award for Profile Writing. A 2019 national fellow at New America, she received a Whiting Creative Nonfiction Grant to support her work on Strangers to Ourselves. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.