Living in the Dead Zone: Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison: Understanding Borderline Personality Disorder

by Gerald A. Faris, Ralph M. Faris, Ralph M. Faris, Gerald A.; Faris

Psychologist Dr. Gerald Faris and sociologist Dr. Ralph Faris explain their findings about two icons of 1960s music and how each suffered from a complicated condition psychiatrically defined as... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0971654204
• ISBN13: 9780971654204
• Release Date: August 2001
• Publisher: Faris PH D
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.87 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.6" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

Finally an explanation that makes sense!

Nowhere in the literature is there an analysis and narrative like this. Intense, compelling and riveting, the book explains why these two icons were so tragically self-destructive. In doing so, they have illuminated and clarified for the public, the complex nature of the poorly understood borderline disorder. So many people can benefit from reading "Living in the Dead Zone". Bravo gentlemen!

Insightful analysis of two deepyl troubled people

I was unable to put this book down once I began reading the accounts offered by Faris and Faris. Their analysis of the borderline disorder was so disturbingly realistic in my own experience with my son that I thought they were writing to me. The therapy sessions they created with Janis and Jim were not only revealing but astonishing when you consider how good their music was. This book is a most excellent read, filled with insights into the behavior of the borderline. And I truly did appreciate the sociological observations as well which contextualized the 1960s so well...and I do remember them as if it was yesterday.

another response to J

J why is an exchange of views juvenile? Can't you support your points without ad hominems? How do you come by your conclusions? The judgements you make here are in total disagreement with thousands of fans and clinicians we have met and talked with and heard from. If you were an experienced clinician we wouldn't be having this discussion. No one, no one trained to make the careful diagnostic discrimination in psychiatry would argue with our conclusion as you do. If you think the work is so far-reaching and unrealistic, I would ask on what basis? Did you know them personally? Have you experience with this disorder so that you can say the sessions are as you categorize them? Haven't you assumed that the simulated sessions are unrealistic from your lack of experience about how someone with this disorder would be in a therapeutic environment.? Are you upset that obvious humanity of these two threatens your illusions about Morrison, his creativity and poetry? You are correct-the book I should have referenced was "Touched by Fire". But Jameson still diagnosed "dead people". Additionally, you are uninformed if you think that simulated sessions with historical figures is unusual. Irving Yalom's book "When Nietzche Wept" is one good example of many. I will send you a long list if you like. We do not diminish Morrison's creativity or talent. We ask that you appreciate that his work was accomplished while wrestling with a torment that neither you nor I will ever experience. But his poetry can be recognized as the work of a creative but confused mind. We even know why the confusion. The poetry we leave to other recognized poets we have consulted, all of whom say most of it is the work of a brilliant mind but bizarre and almost uninterpretable. You have identified some pieces as incomprehensible and obscure. OK. fine. you have stated in your last communication that "Yes, they were self destructive; yes, they used drugs extensively; yes, they played with different identities, different costumes. No one will EVER know why." You should stick to what you know. Most trained clinical observers would not shrug off the evidence as you do. Your lack of curiosity about these facts that you yourself acknowledge is itself curious. You seem to be dismissing these facts to hold on to some view of these two people (or at least Morrison). I submit that your view of him doesn't do then justice. That by failing to recognize the torturous world they lived in, you undervalue their accomplishments. Neverthless it fits the story of Morrison. The behavior of Morrison in New Haven, Florida, with Pamela Courson and the "marriage" to Patricia Kennealy are well documented. So are his other escapades, drug abuse, identity issues and the other bizarre actions such as the Jekyll and Hyde pattern and thrill seeking behavior.You cannot dismiss all this as part of creativity or the search to be free (Break On Through). No clinician would miss

response to j's response

There is little one can do with a true believer and a closed, uninformed nonclinician. Books are written analysing historical figures by qualified clinicians all the time. See Kaye Redfield Jameson's "The Unquiet Mind" or of any of dozens of others of this genre.. If you are well-trained as a clinician, it is no trick to see the emotional disorder in well documented public personalities. Books, movies, interviews - if there are enough of them, by intelligent people who knew them it isn't that hard to be diagnostic about serious disorders in this way. Furthermore the attempt to identify the presence of a disorder doesn't call for a comprehensive, detailed explanation of the whole personality of a person. It only requires that the key criteria outlining the disorder are present. As an aside, with respect to Oliver Stone's "The Doors", John Densmore has said that the movie "has integrity" and that "Val Kilmer miraculously re-created Jim". And there is an extensive public record. To write off Jim's self-destructiveness, alcohol and drug abuse and the chaos of his interpersonal life is simply not reasonable and cannot be so cavalierly dismissed as "creativity". Morrison was brilliant and creative despite his struggle with the borderline condition, not because of it!And no poet I have ever talked to thought that his poetry was comprehensible.Because one needs a hero, one doesn't have to ignore the hero's vulnerabilities. Humans struggle. And these two humans were tormented - not as part of their creativity but separate from it. No one close to them has ever disputed their torment, confusion and despair. So why is it so hard to see them as humanly vulnerable as well as talented?

response to the review by J from new york

J clearly doesn't understand that subtlety, intelligence, nuance,unpretentiousness and sincerity , do not mean that a person isn't suffering and conflicted. And it doesn't show how someone would be in a psychoanalytic therapy. Anyone who reads all the extensive biographies of Janis and Jim can't ignore the self-destructiveness, the chaotic series of relationships, the disturbance of identity and the impulsivity. They were always drinking and used drugs extensively. They were very intelligent and talented-and very troubled with the borderline condition. It is incorrect to say "any other diagnosis is feasible". J apparently doesn't know anything about psychotherapy or diagnosis. And he doesn't seem to know about the deep despair both Janis and Jim expressed and acted out. His view of them seems to be based on interviews, idealization and on ignorance of their lives. Most intelligent patients with this condition look good socially and superficially. (See "Fatal Attraction"). I would refer J to the lives of these two as reflected in their many biographies and in the movies "the Rose" and "the Doors". The accomplishments of Janis and Jim are all the more remarkable because of their torment in the struggle with this condition. J needs education about the lives of these two and about diagnosis.