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The most striking of these profiles is of Naomi Gaines.
五个人中最引人注目的是娜奥米·盖恩斯。
In 2003, when she was a 24-year-old mother of four, she jumped off a bridge into the Mississippi river with her young twin boys, one of whom drowned.
2003年，当她还是一个有着四个孩子的24岁母亲时，她带着年幼的双胞胎儿子从桥上跳入密西西比河，导致其中一个孩子溺亡。
Her problems, as a poor black woman, started young.
作为一个贫穷的黑人女性，她的问题从很小就开始了。
She grew up in a sprawling public-housing complex in Chicago that was partly controlled by gangs.
她在芝加哥的一个庞大公共住宅区中长大，那里的部分区域受帮派控制。
Her mother had an abusive boyfriend and the pair took drugs.
她的母亲有一个残暴的男朋友，两人都吸毒。
Mental illness was never discussed, her mother tells Ms Aviv.
她的母亲告诉艾薇芙，没有人谈论过精神疾病。
“In our family, if you feel a little down you just take a nap.
“在我们家，如果有人心情不太好，打个盹就行了。
That’s the solution: take a nap.”
这就是解决办法：打个盹。
Ms Gaines moved in and out of hospital before her leap from the bridge.
盖恩斯在跳桥前曾多次去过医院。
But the litany of diagnostic labels she was given was alienating, and she did not take her medication.
但医院给她的一连串诊断结果让她感到陌生，而且她没有服用药物。
“Where is the sensitive side of psychiatry?” she asked.
“精神病学就这么不体贴吗？”她问道。
After the jump she was committed to a secure institution as “mentally ill and dangerous” and started to take an antipsychotic.
跳桥事件后，她因“患有精神病且很危险”被关进了一家安全机构，并开始服用抗精神病药物。
She was charged with second-degree murder and sent to prison.
她被指控犯有二级谋杀罪，并被送进了监狱。
Things began to change: she read voraciously and became the prison’s library clerk.
事情由此开始发生变化：她如饥似渴地读书，成了监狱的图书馆管理员。
She was assigned a therapist.
她被分配了一名心理治疗师。
But in 2010 she was taken off the antipsychotic “due to cost”, and was soon put in solitary confinement for 60 days.
但在2010年，她“由于费用问题”停用了抗精神病药物，并很快被单独监禁了60天。
She was released 16 years after her crime.
她在犯罪的16年后获释。
Ms Aviv writes sensitively about the limits of diagnosis in a case like this one.
艾薇芙细腻地写到了在这种情况下诊断的局限性。
“Psychiatric insight can save a life,” she acknowledges.
她承认，“精神病学的洞察力可以拯救一条生命”。
Yet a narrow medical outlook “may also blind doctors and family members to certain beliefs—a relationship to God, a new understanding of society and one’s place in it—that are essential to a person’s identity and self-worth.”
但狭隘的医学观“也可能使医生和家人忽视某些信仰，比如与上帝的关系、对社会和个人社会地位的新理解，而这些对一个人的身份和自我价值至关重要。
She scrutinises the racial biases seemingly inherent in the American health-care system: according to one study, 40% of second-year medical students think black Americans are less liable to feel pain.
她仔细研究了美国医疗保健系统中似乎固有的种族偏见：一项研究表明，40%的二年级医学生认为美国黑人更不容易感受到疼痛。
She sees the limits of antidepressants, even if some drugs can reshape lives for the better.
她看到了抗抑郁药物的局限性，即使一些药物可以改善生活。
The subtlety of Ms Aviv’s book is also its flaw.
艾薇芙这本书的微妙之处也是它的缺陷。
Her five profiles feel disparate and disconnected.
她对五个人的描述给人的感觉截然不同且互不相干。
A chapter set in India is the weakest; the author is best when she is on home ground.
以印度为背景的一章是最弱的；以家乡为背景的篇章写得最好。
A case study that was originally a New Yorker profile—of a woman called Laura who was prescribed pill after pill—has the strongest sense of purpose.
一个最初在《纽约客》上描述的案例研究--一个叫劳拉的女人被开了一次又一次药--目的感最强。
Ms Aviv’s withering assessment of the over-prescribing “biochemical” model of health care is powerful, as is her horror at the treatment Ms Gaines received at the hands of doctors and prison guards.
艾薇芙对过度开药的“生化”医疗保健模式的尖锐评价很有力，她对盖恩斯在医生和狱警手里接受的治疗表现出的恐惧也是如此。
More moments of clarity like these would have made for a better book.
如果这本书有更多这样清晰的描写会变得更好。
译文由可可原创，仅供学习交流使用，未经许可请勿转载。
