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Whispers: The Voices of Paranoia | 
 enlarge | Author: Ronald K. Siegel
Publisher: Crown
Category: Book
List Price: $23.00
Buy Used: $0.69
You Save: $22.31 (97%)
New (3) Used (31) from $0.69
Avg. Customer Rating:  10 reviews
Sales Rank: 1723925
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 310
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.4
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 6.3 x 1
ISBN: 0517592398
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.897
EAN: 9780517592397
ASIN: 0517592398
Publication Date: May 24, 1994
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Shipping: International shipping available
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| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Combining the insights of a gifted research scientist with vivid tales that are usually the realm of the novelist, Dr. Ronald Siegel lets his readers experience the suspicion, terror, and rage that possess the mind of the paranoid. This is the first book to investigate the actual experience of paranoia and to demonstrate that under the right conditions -- drugs or deprivation, for example -- anyone can be driven into that state. And indeed, eight million Americans already have been.
The paranoid inhabits a different realm of being, one that tilts the world ever so slightly. The senses detect these differences and sound mental alarms. Delusions and hallucinations feed on each other, flourishing with amazing speed. The paranoid becomes locked in a new mode of thinking -- viewing life as from a cell.
In a dozen case studies, Dr. Siegel follows his patients into the shadow lands where paranoia flourishes -- drug addiction, prison, organized crime, and terrorism. He introduces us to mild cases where there is only a vague sense that something is out there stalking, to those with apocalyptic visions so intense that they shake the foundations of an entire community. We meet the old woman who hears her teeth whispering, the beautiful ballet dancer who falls in love with a shadow, and the cocaine addict for whom the invasion of imaginary bugs was strong enough to kill. This intrepid journey through the mind's dark corridors ends with a reflective coda exploring the suicide of Ernest Hemingway, and there is no better guide than Dr. Ronald Siegel.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 5 more reviews...
 Definitely Weird - Off the Wall And Not What You'd Expect From a UCLA researcher September 8, 2008
The basis of a good researcher is neutrality and reserve, keeping a distance between themselves and the subjects whose lives they are studying. The book is disturbing and brings into question the motives and ethics of the author-researcher as he tried to recreate the details of a paranoid state that his subjects were experiencing.
Dr. Siegel is an accomplished and respected expert in abnormal psychiatry and biobehavioral science. However, this book is more than a little bit creepy and disturbing.
 Interesting collection of...short stories? December 20, 2007
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Yick. It is hard to believe that an academic wrote this book; the writing style is more in line with what one might expect from a journalist -- so much fluff and embellishment and irrelevant banter. The case studies might be interesting, if only Siegel would get to the point of these flowery, discursive anecdotes. Disregarding the lightly scientific introduction, this book would be more palatable if classified as fiction, not psychology, the truth of stories notwithstanding; there is simply not enough substance here. Compare to Oliver Sacks' _The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat_ or _An Anthropologist on Mars_ -- which I consider worthy examples of relaying psychological case studies in an style that is engaging and accessible, yet not overwrought and still scientifically informative.
Well, the cover art is really great! August 12, 2007
I am a big fan of case study books when it comes to topics like depression, paranoia and schizophrenia having suffered from the first like a lot of people and having a very close friend that suffers from the last.
Maybe it's the fact that I've read many of these types of books that makes me feel like Whispers just wasn't that great.
This book was short but could have been much shorter. I'm no stranger to long books and the length is not something I consider when seeking out new things to read but reading Whispers over the course of a work week made it feel as if it dragged on.
The writing style is interesting, not dull at all but at times I got the feeling that the author wrote this book to stroke his own ego for being so willing to put himself into potential dangerous situations to learn about the individuals more than to tell a story or to explore and explain with words the world of paranoia that some people live in.
Maybe I just expected the wrong thing when I picked this up? I can accept that but in my opinion there are many other books about this subject that are more rewarding to read regardless of if you are looking for clinical date and cold hard facts OR shock value.
Yeah, right *rolls eyes* March 9, 2006
10 out of 13 found this review helpful
12 case studies, into 12 paranoid people. However, it doesn't take the most critical of thinkers to realize that Siegel may be embellishing the facts a little.
Don't take my word for it read the book, and you may find some of his stories to be a little far fetched. Like the last story of the book (Paranoid Express) in which Siegel locks himself in a train cart, snorts cocaine, pisses in his pants, and suffers blistering heat, for three days, just to experience what Mario N. goes through in his final days before being arrested. The unbelievable part, is that the police go along with Siegel's little experiment. They bring him food, change audio tapes, and deliver messages in the same way they did with Mario N. for three days. I don't think there is a federal government alive who would go to such great lengths to accommodate a professor who wanted to get coked up to prove that a murderer was paranoid at the time.
Don't get me wrong "Whispers" is an interesting read and a page turner, but they way Siegel ties his cases together like the game "six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon", is a little worrisome. You have this little nagging feeling in the back of your brain that says "if he went to such great lengths to embellish how the 12 paranoids were connected or what he did to understand their pain", then maybe he embellished their cases as well.
If that doesn't bother you, then by all means get the book.
 A real page-turner. Not boring at all... June 25, 2005
2 out of 4 found this review helpful
This book is so exciting that it is hard to believe it is non-fiction at times. The author covers many different cases with literary mastery usually reserved for fiction writers. There are stories of Hitler's brain in a jar, crazy cokehead hallucinations, psycho killers and more. This is not your standard acedemic (read boring) case study. I read this book from cover to cover in about a week, very hard to put down. It is written for the layman, but in a way that it is excessible to anyone (including professionals in the field). I would recommend this book to anyone with even a passing interest in abnormal psychology.
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