Editing Kay Redfield Jamison

{{short description|American bipolar disorder researcher}}
{{Infobox scholar
| name = Kay Redfield Jamison
| image = JAMISON754.JPG
| imagesize = 
| alt = 
| caption = Kay Redfield Jamison in 2007
| fullname = 
| othernames = 
| birth_name =         <!-- Use only if different from full/othernames -->
| birth_date = {{birth date and age|1946|6|22}}
| birth_place = 
| death_date = 
| death_place = 
| death_cause = 
| residence = 
| era = 
| region = 
| workplaces = [[Johns Hopkins School of Medicine]]<br> University of St Andrews
| alma_mater = University of California, Los Angeles
| thesis_title = 
| thesis_url = 
| thesis_year = 
| doctoral_advisor = 
| doctoral_students = 
| notable_students = 
| school_tradition = 
| main_interests = Psychiatry
| principal_ideas = 
| major_works = ''[[An Unquiet Mind]]''
| awards = 
| influences = 
| influenced = 
| website = 
| footnotes = 
}}

'''Kay Redfield Jamison''' (born June 22, 1946) is an American [[clinical psychology|clinical psychologist]] and writer. Her work has centered on [[bipolar disorder]], which she has had since her early adulthood. She holds the post of the Dalio Professor in Mood Disorders and Psychiatry at [[Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine]] and is an Honorary Professor of [[English studies|English]] at the [[University of St Andrews]].

==Education and career==
Jamison began her study of clinical psychology at [[University of California, Los Angeles]] in the late 1960s, receiving both [[Bachelor of Arts|B.A.]] and [[Master of Arts|M.A.]] degrees in 1971. She continued on at UCLA, receiving a [[Candidate of Philosophy|C.Phil.]] in 1973 and a [[PhD]] in 1975, and became a faculty member at the university. She went on to found and direct the school's [[Mood disorder|Affective Disorders]] Clinic, a large teaching and research facility for outpatient treatment. She also studied [[zoology]] and [[neurophysiology]] as an undergraduate at the [[University of St. Andrews]] in Scotland.

After several years as a tenured professor at UCLA, Jamison was offered a position as Assistant Professor and then Professor of Psychiatry at the [[Johns Hopkins University]] School of Medicine.  Jamison has given visiting lectures at a number of different institutions while maintaining her professorship at [[Johns Hopkins University|Hopkins]]. She was distinguished lecturer at [[Harvard University]] in 2002 and the Litchfield lecturer at the [[University of Oxford]] in 2003. She was Honorary President and board member of the [[Canadian Psychological Association]] from 2009 to 2010. In 2010, she was a panelist in the series of discussions on the latest research into the brain, hosted by [[Charlie Rose]] with series scientist [[Eric Kandel]] on PBS.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://charlierose.com/collections/3/clip/18615 |title=The Brain Series: Mental Illness |access-date=October 8, 2017 |work=Charlie Rose |date=June 22, 2010}}</ref>

==Awards and recognition==
[[File:Kay Redfield Jamison, 2017.jpg|alt=Jamison at a lectern looking to the side|thumb|Jamison at a book fair in 2017]]
Jamison has won numerous awards and published over 100 academic articles. She has been named one of the "Best Doctors in the United States" and was chosen by ''[[Time (magazine)|Time]]'' as a "Hero of Medicine."<ref>{{cite magazine|last=Downer |first=Joanna |url=http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,987104,00.html |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130205151451/http://www.time.com/time/printout/0,8816,987104,00.html |url-status=dead |archive-date=February 5, 2013 |title=Physician, Heal Thyself |magazine=Time |date=October 1, 1997 |access-date=July 27, 2011}}</ref>  She was also chosen as one of the five individuals for the public television series ''Great Minds of Medicine''.<ref name="Interview">{{cite web|url=http://menstuff.org/columns/overboard/jamison.html|title=An Interview with Kay Redfield Jamison|last=Baer|first=Reid|year=2003|work=Menstuff|publisher=Gordon Clay|access-date=17 May 2014}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/185175/Great-Minds-of-Medicine-Depression/overview|title=Great Minds of Medicine: Depression (1999)|access-date=17 May 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140519024405/https://www.nytimes.com/movies/movie/185175/Great-Minds-of-Medicine-Depression/overview|department=Movies & TV Dept.|work=[[The New York Times]]|date=2014|archive-date=19 May 2014}}</ref> Jamison is the recipient of the [[National Association of Mental Health|National Mental Health Association]]'s [[William Styron]] Award (1995), the [[American Foundation for Suicide Prevention]] Research Award (1996), the Community Mental Health Leadership Award (1999), and was a 2001 [[MacArthur Foundation|MacArthur Fellowship]] recipient.
In 2010, Jamison was conferred with an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters from the [[University of St Andrews]] in recognition of all her life's work.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/graduation/laureationaddresses/ |title=Laureation addresses Tuesday 22 June 2010 |access-date=2010-06-24 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100627174727/http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/graduation/laureationaddresses/ |archive-date=2010-06-27 }} St Andrews 2010 Graduation: Laureation Addresses</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/news/archive/2010/title,53001,en.php |title=Laureation address - Professor Kay Redfield Jamison |date=June 23, 2010 |access-date=October 8, 2017 |work=University of St Andrews |archive-date=October 3, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151003095449/http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/news/archive/2010/title,53001,en.php |url-status=dead }}</ref>  In May 2011, The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, New York, made her a Doctor of Divinity ''honoris causa'' at its annual Commencement.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://gts.edu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1159:general-seminarys-189th-commencement-on-may-18-&catid=68:frontpage-news |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110624162216/http://www.gts.edu/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=1159:general-seminarys-189th-commencement-on-may-18-&catid=68:frontpage-news |url-status=dead |archive-date=June 24, 2011 |title=General Seminary's 189th Commencement on May 18 |publisher=The General Theological Seminary |date=May 5, 2011 |access-date=July 27, 2011 }}</ref> In 2017 Jamison was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the [[Royal Society of Edinburgh]] (CorrFRSE).<ref>{{Cite press release|url=https://www.rse.org.uk/rse-welcomes-60-new-fellows/|title=RSE Welcomes 60 New Fellows|date=15 February 2017 |publisher=[[Royal Society of Edinburgh]] |access-date=28 March 2017}}</ref>

==Academic contributions==
Her latest book, ''Robert Lowell:  Setting the River on Fire'', was a Pulitzer Prize Finalist for Biography in 2018.

Her book ''Manic-Depressive Illness'', first published in 1990 and co-authored with psychiatrist [[Frederick K. Goodwin]] is considered a classic textbook on bipolar disorder. The Acknowledgements section states that Goodwin "received unrestricted educational grants to support
the production of this book from [[Abbott Laboratories|Abbott]], [[AstraZeneca]], [[Bristol Meyers Squibb]], [[Forest Laboratories|Forest]], [[GlaxoSmithKline]], [[Janssen Pharmaceutica|Janssen]], [[Eli Lilly and Company|Eli Lilly]], [[Pfizer]], and [[Sanofi]]", but that although Jamison has "received occasional lecture honoraria
from AstraZeneca, GlaxoSmithKline, and Eli Lilly" she "has received no research support from any pharmaceutical or biotechnology company" and donates her royalties to a non-profit foundation.

Her seminal works among laypeople are her memoir ''An Unquiet Mind'', which details her experience with severe [[mania]] and [[depression (mood)|depression]], and ''Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide'', providing historical, religious, and cultural responses to [[suicide]], as well as the relationship between [[mental illness]] and suicide. In ''Night Falls Fast'', Jamison dedicates a chapter to American public policy and public opinion as it relates to suicide. Her second memoir, ''Nothing Was the Same'', examines her relationship with her second husband, the psychiatrist [[Richard Jed Wyatt]], who was Chief of the Neuropsychiatry Branch of the [[National Institute of Mental Health]] until his death in 2002.

In her study ''Exuberance: The Passion for Life'', she cites research that suggests that 15 percent of people who could be diagnosed as bipolar may never actually become [[depression (mood)|depressed]]; in effect, they are permanently "high" on life. She mentions President [[Theodore Roosevelt]] as an example.

''Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament'' is Jamison's exploration of how bipolar disorder can run in artistic or high-achieving families. As an example, she cites [[Lord Byron]] and his relatives.<!--Expand examples to at the least  include composers particularly, foundational to her later work with wife of Norman Mailer on Moods sand Music concert series.-->

Jamison wrote ''An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness'' in part to help clinicians see what patients find helpful in therapy. J. Wesley Boyd, an assistant professor at the Department of Psychiatry at Tufts University's School of Medicine, wrote, "Jamison's description [of the debt she owed her psychiatrist] illustrates the importance of merely being present for our patients and not trying to soothe them with platitudes or promises of a better future."<ref>Boyd, J. Wesley. "Stories of Illness: Authorship in Medicine" Psychiatry, Vol. 60 Winter 1997: 352. Print</ref>

==Personal life==
Jamison has said she is an "exuberant" person who longs for peace and tranquility but in the end prefers "tumultuousness coupled to iron discipline" to a "stunningly boring life."<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.mcmanweb.com/article-247.htm |title=Kay Jamison Interview |access-date=2005-11-06 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20051119033108/http://mcmanweb.com/article-247.htm |archive-date=2005-11-19 }}</ref> In ''[[An Unquiet Mind]]'', she concluded:

<blockquote>I long ago abandoned the notion of a life without storms, or a world without dry and killing seasons. Life is too complicated, too constantly changing, to be anything but what it is. And I am, by nature, too mercurial to be anything but deeply wary of the grave unnaturalness involved in any attempt to exert too much control over essentially uncontrollable forces. There will always be propelling, disturbing elements, and they will be there until, as Lowell put it, the watch is taken from the wrist. It is, at the end of the day, the individual moments of restlessness, of bleakness, of strong persuasions and maddened enthusiasms, that inform one's life, change the nature and direction of one's work, and give final meaning and color to one's loves and friendships.<ref>Kay Redfield Jamison, An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness {{ISBN|1447275284}}, Publisher: Picador (1 Jan. 2015)</ref></blockquote>

Jamison was born to Dr. Marshall Verdine Jamison (1916–2012), an officer in the U.S. [[United States Air Force|Air Force]], and Mary Dell Temple Jamison (1916–2007).<ref>{{cite web|title=Marshall Verdine Jamison |url=http://www.northumberlandecho.com/?p=2136 |archive-url=https://archive.today/20130130030315/http://www.northumberlandecho.com/?p=2136 |url-status=dead |archive-date=January 30, 2013 |access-date=September 22, 2012 }}</ref><ref name="An_Unquiet_Mind" /> Jamison's father, and many others in his family, had bipolar disorder.<ref name="An_Unquiet_Mind" />

As a result of Jamison's military background, she grew up in many different places, including [[Florida]], [[Puerto Rico]], [[California]], [[Tokyo]], and [[Washington, D.C.]] She has two older siblings, a brother and a sister, who are three years and half a year older, respectively.<ref name="An_Unquiet_Mind" /> Her niece is writer [[Leslie Jamison]].<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.graywolfpress.org/blogs/video-leslie-jamison-and-kay-redfield-jamison-conversation-politics-prose |title=Video: Leslie Jamison and Kay Redfield Jamison in Conversation at Politics & Prose |date=April 17, 2014 |access-date=October 8, 2017 |work=Graywolf Press |archive-date=September 22, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170922003031/https://www.graywolfpress.org/blogs/video-leslie-jamison-and-kay-redfield-jamison-conversation-politics-prose |url-status=dead }}</ref> Jamison's interest in science and medicine began at a young age and was fostered by her parents. She worked as a [[candy striper]] at the hospital on [[Andrews Air Force Base]].<ref name="An_Unquiet_Mind" />

Jamison moved to California during adolescence, and soon thereafter began to struggle with bipolar disorder. She continued to struggle in college at UCLA. At first she wanted to become a doctor, but because of increasing occurring manic episodes, she decided she could not maintain the rigorous discipline needed for medical school. Jamison then found her calling in psychology. Here she flourished and was extremely interested in mood disorders. Despite her studies, Jamison did not realize that she was bipolar until three months into her first job as a professor in UCLA's Department of Psychology. After her diagnosis, she was put on [[lithium (medication)|lithium]], a drug that has commonly  been used to regulate and moderate moods. At times, she would refuse the medication because it impaired her motor skills, but after a greater depression she decided to continue to take it. Jamison once attempted suicide by overdosing on lithium during a severe depressive episode.

Jamison is an [[Episcopal Church (United States)|Episcopalian]],<ref>{{harvnb|Jamison|1999|p=310}}</ref> and she was married to her first husband, Alain André Moreau, an artist, during her graduate school years.<ref name="An_Unquiet_Mind">{{harvnb|Jamison|1995|pages=57, 222}}</ref> She later married Dr. Richard Wyatt in 1994;<ref>{{harvnb|Jamison|2009|p=32}}</ref> and they remained married until his death in 2002.<ref>{{cite news|last=O'Connor |first=Anahad |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/12/us/richard-j-wyatt-63-is-dead-led-studies-of-schizophrenia.html |title=Richard J. Wyatt, 63, Is Dead; Led Studies of Schizophrenia |newspaper=The New York Times |date=June 12, 2002 |access-date=July 27, 2011}}</ref> Wyatt was a [[psychiatrist]] who studied [[schizophrenia]] at the [[National Institutes of Health]]. Their romance is detailed in her memoir ''Nothing Was the Same''.

In 2010, Jamison married Thomas Traill, a cardiology professor at Johns Hopkins.<ref>{{cite news|last=Thomas-Lester |first=Avis |url=http://views.washingtonpost.com/on-success/what-it-takes/2009/12/a_career-altering_mental_illness.html|title=A psychologist's career-altering mental illness |newspaper=Washington Post|year=2010 |access-date=December 8, 2011}}</ref>

==Bibliography==
[[File:Bookbits - 2009-12-01 Kay Redfield Jamison-Nothing Was the Same.vorb.oga|thumb|right|Kay Redfield Jamison talks about ''Nothing Was the Same'' on Bookbits radio.]]
*{{citation |last1=Goodwin |first1=Frederick K. |last2=Jamison |first2=Kay Redfield |title=Manic-Depressive Illness |year=1990 |isbn=0-19-503934-3 |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/manicdepressivei00good }}
:*{{citation |last1=Goodwin |first1=Frederick K. |last2=Jamison |first2=Kay Redfield |title=Manic-Depressive Illness |url=https://archive.org/details/manicdepressivei02edgood |year=2007 |edition=Second |publisher=Oxford University Press |location=New York |isbn=978-0195135794}}
*{{citation |last=Jamison |first=Kay Redfield |title=[[Touched with Fire (book)|Touched with Fire: Manic-Depressive Illness and the Artistic Temperament]] |year=1993 |isbn=0-02-916030-8 |publisher=The Free Press |location=New York }} (includes a study of [[George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron|Lord Byron]]'s illness)
*{{citation |last=Jamison |first=Kay Redfield |title=An Unquiet Mind |year=1995 |publisher=Vintage Books Random House |location=New York |isbn=0-679-76330-9 |url=https://archive.org/details/unquietmindmemoi00jami }}
*{{citation |last=Jamison |first=Kay Redfield |title=Night Falls Fast: Understanding Suicide |year=1999 |isbn=0-375-70147-8 |publisher=Vintage Books Random House |location=New York }}
*{{citation |last=Jamison |first=Kay Redfield |title=Exuberance: The Passion for Life |year=2004 |isbn=0-375-40144-X |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/exuberancepassio00jami }}
*{{citation |last=Jamison |first=Kay Redfield |title=Nothing Was the Same: A Memoir |year=2009 |isbn=978-0-307-26537-1 |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |location=New York |url=https://archive.org/details/nothingwassameme00jami }}
*{{citation |last=Jamison |first=Kay Redfield |title=Robert Lowell: Setting the River on Fire |year=2017 |publisher=Alfred A. Knopf |location=New York|isbn=978-0307700278 }}
*{{Cite book |last=Jamison |first=Kay Redfield |title=Fires in the Dark: Healing the Mind, the Oldest Branch of Medicine |publisher=Knopf |year=2023 |isbn=978-0-525-65717-0}}

==References==
{{Reflist}}

==External links==
{{sisterlinks|n=no|d=Q265762|b=no|s=no|wikt=no|v=no|voy=no|species=no|mw=no|commons=Category:Kay Redfield Jamison}}
*[https://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/11/a-conversation-with-kay-redfield-jamison-professor-of-psychiatry/247995/ A Conversation With Kay Redfield Jamison, Professor of Psychiatry by Grace Bello, ''The Atlantic'']
*[https://web.archive.org/web/20071012235434/http://www.charlierose.com/shows/1999/10/26/1/an-interview-with-kay-redfield-jamison An Interview with Kay Jamison on Charlie Rose Show - 17 mins video]
*{{IMDb name|5376545}}
*{{C-SPAN|52526}}

{{Bipolar disorder}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Jamison, Kay Redfield}}
[[Category:American women psychologists]]
[[Category:21st-century American psychologists]]
[[Category:American Episcopalians]]
[[Category:American memoirists]]
[[Category:Bipolar disorder researchers]]
[[Category:American non-fiction writers]]
[[Category:Writers from Baltimore]]
[[Category:Writers from Los Angeles]]
[[Category:Writers from Washington, D.C.]]
[[Category:Academics of the University of St Andrews]]
[[Category:Harvard University staff]]
[[Category:Johns Hopkins University faculty]]
[[Category:University of California, Los Angeles alumni]]
[[Category:MacArthur Fellows]]
[[Category:People with bipolar disorder]]
[[Category:People related to suicide prevention]]
[[Category:1946 births]]
[[Category:Living people]]
[[Category:American women academics]]
[[Category:21st-century American women]]
[[Category:American women memoirists]]
[[Category:20th-century American psychologists]]