This is a story about Bella, a beautiful tale of caring, trust and emotional healing. It begins when Dr. Zal, a first-year resident in Psychiatry, meets a 20-year-old in the throws of a severe psychotic episode. It chronicles thirty-seven years of psychiatric treatment. Focusing on family relationships, he tells how both Bella and he resolved issues with a significant parent. Although his life was quite different, he was able to draw parallels that allowed him to empathize with some of her life events. Bella was a role model of strength, endurance and caring for her children and husband. She survived childhood abuse, molestation and a dysfunctional family background. In the end, mental illness did not ravish her life. Rather it was a physical disease. The book also shows how Dr. Zal changed from an inexperienced, anxious, psychiatric resident and become a wiser, more empathetic therapist. It illustrates how he learned to balance personal angst, the biologic basis of psychiatric illness and the uniqueness of the individual patient into a therapeutic tool. This balancing act, illustrated through Bella's story, is the dance with medusa that has occupied the core of his life in psychiatry. Dr. Zal is able to weave a 40-year history of psychiatry through this story, including sweeping changes in treatment, mental health laws and the role of the psychiatrist. Using Haverford State Hospital, he tells the story of the transition to community mental health. Bella's story is about hope, overcoming the stigma of mental illness and the role that determination can play in life success. Her accomplishments reinforce Dr. Zal's firm belief that although psychiatric medications can facilitate improvement in mental disorders, it is people working with people, on a sustained long-term basis, that is equally or even more important, in maintaining recovery and producing emotional growth.

This is a story about Bella, a beautiful tale of caring, trust and emotional healing. It begins when Dr. Zal, a first-year resident in Psychiatry, meets a 20-year-old in the throws of a severe psychotic episode. It chronicles thirty-seven years of psychiatric treatment. Focusing on family relationships, he tells how both Bella and he resolved issues with a significant parent. Although his life was quite different, he was able to draw parallels that allowed him to empathize with some of her life events. Bella was a role model of strength, endurance and caring for her children and husband. She survived childhood abuse, molestation and a dysfunctional family background. In the end, mental illness did not ravish her life. Rather it was a physical disease. The book also shows how Dr. Zal changed from an inexperienced, anxious, psychiatric resident and become a wiser, more empathetic therapist. It illustrates how he learned to balance personal angst, the biologic basis of psychiatric illness and the uniqueness of the individual patient into a therapeutic tool. This balancing act, illustrated through Bella's story, is the dance with medusa that has occupied the core of his life in psychiatry. Dr. Zal is able to weave a 40-year history of psychiatry through this story, including sweeping changes in treatment, mental health laws and the role of the psychiatrist. Using Haverford State Hospital, he tells the story of the transition to community mental health. Bella's story is about hope, overcoming the stigma of mental illness and the role that determination can play in life success. Her accomplishments reinforce Dr. Zal's firm belief that although psychiatric medications can facilitate improvement in mental disorders, it is people working with people, on a sustained long-term basis, that is equally or even more important, in maintaining recovery and producing emotional growth.

As the baby boomer generation becomes senior citizens and starts to flood into the last stage of life, a new definition and new expectations of retirement and aging are evolving. This is not your father's way of being an older adult. People today tend not to retire in a traditional way. They envision getting older as a challenge to stay active and engaged, a chance to reinvent themselves, and an opportunity to reach for new goals. However, for some, this stage of life can be difficult, bringing with it a whole range of new challenges and obstacles. Along the way, many may deal with mental health problems such as stress and anxiety, grief and depression, drug and alcohol abuse, changes in marital and other relationships, as well as elder abuse. Are you ready? How will you fill your new free time? How will you cope with the psychological changes? Let this book, on coping with the emotional, mental, physical, and spiritual issues of retirement and aging from a psychiatrist's perspective, light the way. This book will help readers deal with common issues across a broad spectrum. It offers treatment options, suggests coping skills, and even deals with spiritual and emotional challenges at the end of life. It will help you invest in relationships, redefine your marriage, and broaden your horizons. It will allow you to take charge of your life in retirement and not just let it happen to you.

Originally published: Cambridge, Massachusetts: Perseus Publishing, 1990."