Children with Emerald Eyes: Histories of Extraordinary Boys and Girls [Paperback]

Mira Rothenberg pioneered both the clinical distinction and treatment protocol for autistic and severely disturbed children as separate from those for the mentally retarded. Winner of a Woman of the Year award from the New York City Chamber of Commerce and the National Organization for Mentally Ill Children, she eloquently recounts a lifetime of taking on seemingly hopeless cases and bringing these children, through painstaking therapy and love, back into the world. Unflinchingly honest, whether dealing with the raw pain of her patients' lives or with Rothenberg's own complex feelings for them,Children with Emerald Eyesexplores the landscape of mental illness while never losing sight of the humanity within each patient."Mira Rothenberg's insightful and unique ability to turn the suffering psyche into a landscape which must be entered and explored was fundamental to the understanding of mental illness I brought toA Beautiful Mind. She is also one hell of a mother."
—Akiva Goldsman, Rothenberg's son, and Academy Award winner, Best Adapted Screenplay, forA Beautiful Mind

"Vivid and profoundly moving...I found myself looking at the ordinary children I know with renewed respect and wonder...The line of separation, this book teaches us, is very thin indeed."
—Henry Mayer,The New York Times Book ReviewMira Rothenberg is a licensed clinical psychologist with over forty years of experience working with a range of disturbances in children. She was a founder and clinical director of Blueberry Treatment Centers, Inc., the first internationally recognized therapeutic agency for treatment of autistic and schizophrenic children. Rothenberg continues to write and lecture for a worldwide audience. She lives in Brooklyn, New York, where she sees patients in private practice.US