Capture: Unraveling the Mystery of Mental Suffering

This book is a compendium of all the quotes he has collected over the years. Every page has one or two quotes. The author has no real overarching idea that connects all the quotes. It seems his mind was captured into thinking dumping antidotes would have the reader construct his or her own therapy.

This is not so much a book as a series of essays all of which center on a single idea, capture. According to Kessler, capture is sort of an all inclusive explanation for mental illness. Capture is the process by which psychological, environmental, neurological processes work in tandem to compel certain predisposed individuals to fixate on deleterious ideas or behaviors (self-loathing, alcohol, drugs, grandiosity, etc) to exclusion of more healthful ones. As a theory, I find the argument bold though not compelling. Why? Because ... well... it leaves much to be assumed, especially with respect to question of pre-disposition and (one hopes) the possibility of early interventions. Don't get me wrong. I learned a great deal from Kessler's analysis. It made me think differently -- always a good thing. But in the end, I was left feeling like George Gershwin, who after five years of psychoanalysis, quipped, "Well, now I know WHY I'm constipated."

The book came on time. The price was wonderful. Book in excellent condion. What more can I say?

This is an outstanding book and worth reading for anyone who has been around or experienced any type of mental suffering.

David Kessler is nothing if not thorough. And meticulous. The very fact that a 406-page book (that includes the index) contains a 118-page notes section speaks, well, volumes about the kind of care he puts into every topic he tackles. His meticulousness made him a formidable opponent of the tobacco industry when he was FDA Commissioner, resulted in the deeply researched and beautifully written "The End of Overeating," and now, with "Capture," Kessler leaves no mental suffering stone unturned. This breathtakingly thoughtful book guides us through the exceedingly complicated landscape of mental afflictions, from mild unhappiness to suicidal depression -- and where such states of mind can lead us.At first blush, Kessler's choice of subjects might seem odd, even eccentric. Here, after all, is a book with David Foster Wallace, Sylvia Plath, and Franz Kafka sharing ink with Mark David Chapman and Ted Kaczynski. It all begins to make sense when Kessler concludes that there is, in fact, a common mechanism underlying emotional struggles and mental illness. Simply put, he writes, a stimulus takes hold of our attention and shifts our perception. That unremitting "capture" of the mind lies at the heart of much human behavior, much of which is beneficial, but much of which drives us to destructive impulses. It led Wallace and Plath to suicide, and Chapman to the murder of John Lennon. We are captured in small ways every day (Kessler writes of his being unable to tune out a conversation near him on a plane, to the point of total distracted annoyance). It's the big, vise-like captures that Kessler chooses to focus on.For someone as brilliant as Kessler clearly is, he is also a most accessible -- and human -- writer. His compassion for Wallace (the subject to whom Kessler devotes the most space), who was captured well beyond his ability to cope, is clear.One sign that a book like this is very well done is that, after you read it, you feel different somehow, better equipped to understand the basic workings of human psychology, and the behavior those workings can lead to. I felt this way after reading Thinking Fast and Slow. I felt this way after reading The Power of Habit. And now, after reading Capture, I feel far better equipped to understand that most basic of human experiences -- emotion.