Part Three: Field Research

I went to Politics and Prose in NW DC. I went to the librarian and asked her if
they had a mental health section. She directed me to it, but that was all. The books are
classified as psychology, which is in a corner all the way in the back of the store no
one was there. The collection is small compared to other sections such as biography,
non-fiction, new fiction, etc. While it is one of the smallest, there are a few other sections
that are smaller, such as cooking and travel. Once you arrive in the corner, they books are
separated into different categories including aging, trauma, sexuality, learning disorders,
psychological disorders, grief, addiction and recovery, self-help, relationships, and wellbeing. The largest sections are sexuality, trauma, and aging. There are also a few books
not in any categories, such as books on business psychology (strategically placed in
between the business section and psychology section) and sensorimotor psychology.
Books on neuropsychology were next to the psychology section under science. The
fact that neuropsychology is excluded form the psychology section and put under the
science frustrates me, because it suggests that psychology is not a science; or that only
one part of psychology is legitimate, and the rest of the field isnt worthy.
While the collection covers many subfields of psychology, the texts within those
subfields are limited, particularly psychological disorders. Considering the number of
psychological disorders, the memoirs of those who deal with them, approaches we use for
treatment, and knowledge we have about them, two shelves are insufficient. The
disorders represented were bipolar disorder, borderline personality disorder, anxiety,
depression, anger, cognitive-behavior therapy for bipolar, mindfulness, eating disorders,
and sleep. Sleep itself is not a disorder, and should have been in the well-being section.

There were multiple books on borderline personality disorder and bipolar disorder,
mostly non-fiction and a couple memoirs. There were a few books on anxiety, a few on
depression, two on anger, one on cognitive-behavior therapy, one on mindfulness, and
one on eating disorders. Autism was in the learning disorders section. I would put
Autism in the psychological disorders section, as it is in the DSM. However, debates in
the psychology community over where to place autism persist.