Jamison began her study of clinical psychology at University of California, Los Angeles in the late 1960s, receiving both B.A.

She went on to found and direct the school's Affective Disorders Clinic, a large teaching and research facility for outpatient treatment.

In 2010, Jamison was conferred with an Honorary Degree of Doctor of Letters from the University of St Andrews in recognition of all her life's work.

[5][6] In May 2011, The General Theological Seminary of the Episcopal Church, New York, made her a Doctor of Divinity honoris causa at its annual Commencement.

Her book Manic-Depressive Illness, first published in 1990 and co-authored with psychiatrist Frederick K. Goodwin is considered a classic textbook on bipolar disorder.

Her second memoir, Nothing Was the Same, examines her relationship with her second husband, the psychiatrist Richard Jed Wyatt, who was Chief of the Neuropsychiatry Branch of the National Institute of Mental Health until his death in 2002.

J. Wesley Boyd, an assistant professor at the Department of Psychiatry at Tufts University's School of Medicine, wrote, "Jamison's description [of the debt she owed her psychiatrist] illustrates the importance of merely being present for our patients and not trying to soothe them with platitudes or promises of a better future.

"[9] Jamison has said she is an "exuberant" person who longs for peace and tranquility but in the end prefers "tumultuousness coupled to iron discipline" to a "stunningly boring life.

"[10] In An Unquiet Mind, she concluded: I long ago abandoned the notion of a life without storms, or a world without dry and killing seasons.

And I am, by nature, too mercurial to be anything but deeply wary of the grave unnaturalness involved in any attempt to exert too much control over essentially uncontrollable forces.

It is, at the end of the day, the individual moments of restlessness, of bleakness, of strong persuasions and maddened enthusiasms, that inform one's life, change the nature and direction of one's work, and give final meaning and color to one's loves and friendships.

At first she wanted to become a doctor, but because of increasing occurring manic episodes, she decided she could not maintain the rigorous discipline needed for medical school.