FEATURE I LOCAL AUTHOR
In Two Minds Long-time Northwood resident, Professor Gordon Parker, describes his life working as a psychiatrist as being like a ‘pig in mud’. But his path could have been very different, grappling at an early age with the dilemma of whether to choose a medical or writing career. By Jocelyn Biddle.
I
Doctor Martin Homer has a naturally sunny disposition. Honourable, attentive and trusted by all of his patients, he has only ever loved one woman – his wife, Sarah. When his mother dies suddenly, Martin’s life is thrown into complete disarray. His profound grief sinks him into a state of black dog depression, before he is propelled to new heights in a frenzied, manic high.
In between riding his new skateboard around the streets and skating on thin ice personally and professionally, the now self-entitled Martin crosses paths with Bella, a beautiful and sensual young woman profoundly damaged by trauma of her own.
Professor Gordon Parker AO is the founder and former Executive Director of the Black Dog Institute. Currently Scientia Professor of Psychiatry at the University of New South Wales, he was, for nearly two decades, Head of the School of Psychiatry at UNSW and Director of the Division of Psychiatry at Prince of Wales and Prince Henry Hospitals. His first novel was published in 1966, and he has written for The Mavis Bramston Show and OZ Magazine. He was an ABC Science broadcaster and a book reviewer for the Sydney Morning Herald and The Australian. His play, Personality Games, was staged in 2004 while his autobiography, A Piece of My Mind: A Psychiatrist on the Couch, was published in 2012.
cover white 11mm wide
www.venturapress.com.au
‘I can more or less guarantee that you know someone for whom this book will be important and inspiring. There’s a very strong chance that person will be you.’
In two Minds Gordon Parker STEPHEN FRY
A NOVE L
A NOVEL
Gordon Parker
In Two Minds takes you on a quirky, rollicking journey that unveils the complexities of mental illness with wit and warmth. Gordon Parker’s impressive career in psychiatry reveals itself through rich and insightful descriptions of depression, bipolar disorder and borderline personality characteristics – and their powerful impacts.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
In two minds
t was medicine that ultimately won out and in the past 50 years, Gordon has established himself as an internationally recognised psychiatrist specialising in mood disorders. He has also written prolifically on the topic, producing hundreds of research papers and books. Gordon has more recently indulged his creative side with the release of his second fiction novel – some five decades after the first. Having spent his career writing technical books and papers on mental illness, he was keen to step out of his comfort zone. “When I wrote my first novel in 1966, I’d sit down and type in the evening and all of a sudden it would be 3am. I was keen to test if I could ‘capture the muse again’ by experiencing the novel’s characters taking on a life of their own.” The result is a novel that has seen two of Gordon’s passions - psychiatry and writing coincide. In Two Minds, which was released on April 1st, follows the story of Martin, a Sydneybased GP. Martin is a high achiever who is popular amongst his friends, patients and colleagues. However the death of his mother triggers an episode of melancholic depression, later followed by a manic state, that sees him being lead astray by the alluring, yet manipulative Bella. The situation is completely out of character for Martin, who is a loyal and devoted husband to his long-standing wife Sarah - who happens to be away on a business trip at the time. What unravels is a series of events that sees Martin, Bella and Sarah struggling with the fallout of his actions, representative of the risk-taking behaviours often seen when someone is in the grip of a psychotic episode. The insights that Gordon has gleaned from years of clinical practice listening to the narrative of people with mental health issues brings an insightful perspective to the novel. Cover illustration: Aura Parker
FICTION
9 781925 384192
Also available as an ebook
www.venturapress.com.au
3821 Two Minds_COVER.indd 1
4 I THE VILLAGE OBSERVER I NO. 261 I APRIL 2017
22mm
9/02/2017 9:55 am
“I believe Australia is ahead of the world in destigmatizing depression. There is still a way to go – and thus a secondary aim for my novel.”
By writing In Two Minds, Gordon was not only able to quell his writer’s itch, but it also provides an opportunity to raise awareness of mood disorders - particularly bipolar disorder. Gordon is a passionate advocate for identifying two mood conditions - melancholia and bipolar disorder. He established the Mood Disorders Unit at Prince Henry Hospital in 1985 in order to improve their diagnosis and management. “My raison d’être has been to provide the right diagnosis with the right management. If you do that, people can get their life back and you obviate suicide risk. “At the end of one hour with a patient, I want to be able to provide them with a diagnosis, treatment options and plenty of information so that they can make an informed decision as to the best path forward.” With a long list of career highlights, the pinnacle for Gordon was founding the Black Dog Institute in 2002. “We established the Black Dog Institute to expand clinical services and drive research in order to better understand, prevent and treat the mood disorders, and to help create a world where mental illness is treated with the same level of concern, immediacy and seriousness as physical illness.” The Institute now has over 100 staff who conduct research, offer clinical services, and provide health professional training and community education programs. Sophisticated information is presented on the Institute’s website, together with online questionnaires that people can use to test themselves for depression (which affects about one in four women and one in six men over their lifetime), bipolar or anxiety. Each month, around 60 thousand people undertake the bipolar test alone. “In Australia we have managed to destigmatize mood disorders better than any other country in the world, helped in
