What is it like to try to heal the body when the mind is under attack? In this gripping & illuminating book, Dr Allan Ropper reveals the extraordinary stories behind some of the life-altering afflictions that he & his staff are confronted with at the Neurology Unit of Harvard`s Brigham & Women`s Hospital. Like Alice in Wonderl&, Dr Ropper inhabits a place where absurdities abound: a sportsman who starts spouting gibberish; an undergraduate who suddenly becomes psychotic; a mother who has to decide whether a life locked inside her own head is worth living. How does one begin to treat such cases, to counsel people whose lives may be changed forever? Dr Ropper answers these questions by taking the reader into a world where lives & minds hang in the balance.