Customer Reviews

Madness in the Streets : How Psychiatry and the Law Abandoned the Mentally Ill

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Public policy regarding mental illness has been shrouded by myth, ideology, and fanatiscism. Madness in the Steets explains the history and myths that have caused the criminalization and neglect of people with no-fault brain disorders such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Those myths now exposed, it is a clarion for legislative change. A must read for sociologists, legislators, and those who understand the tragedy of lack of treatment.

I am so disappointed that this book is out of print! I have been recommending it to everyone including political leaders. This book explains so well why our mental health system is failing! From the ACLU who allow our loved ones to "die with their rights on" to the anti-psychiatry movement who deny that mental illness exist.The authors have uncovered the web of a failed system which advocates need to have as a resource. This book needs to be available.

after reading this book I finally understood why it was so difficult to
obtain services and appropriate treatment for my patients - the authors
amazingly were able to penetrate the veil of secrecy surrounding psychiatry . This book is just as important now as it was in the late
80's and early 90's as many of the same problems still exist and new ones
are cropping up - JV

I read this book and could not put it down. It really explains how our mental health policy in America became so distorted. The abandonment of our mentally ill in the name of freedom and self determination was ill thought out. This book is thorough and riveting.

If you accept the notion that insanity is an illness (in contast to the whacked-out anti-psychiatry crowd) then this is an outstanding history of how America's treatment of the mentally ill has been made into a disgrace by the very ilk (counterculture/New Left types) who cry the loudest and hardest about social injustice in America. Christ warned about certain men who tie heavy loads on other mens backs, but won't lift a finger to help them; well, the anti-psychiatry crowd has made it virtually impossible for concerned, compassionate Americans to help the people who need it most. One can only take comfort in the notion that at the Final Judgment the people responsible for bringing about such mind-boggling suffering will be certainly be held accountable.

New. Hardcover. Half the price of the 5-day shipping charge. Delivered 3 days prior to when it was promised without damage. What's not to like! It is the only way I can afford to purchase such books for myself or, more importantly, as presents that I most love to give. The book itself: I haven't read it yet and am looking forward to doing so after the holidays.

This is a very dangerous book. It is not what its title suggests-- it is not about the reduction of funding for mental health services, a legitimate matter for concern. It is about the struggle of patients and ex-patients to free themselves from the forced treatments which the authors favor. Take for instance ECT: the authors admit that bilateral ECT, in which the current passes through both sides of the brain, can lead to memory loss, but maintain that this can be reduced by unilateral ECT, in which it passes through only one side. The problem is that the side which it is passed through is the nondominant, non-verbal side, so that the patient may be suffering yet be unable to verbalize his/her suffering, conveying a false sense of confidence to the psychiatrist. Likewise with the "new" ECT, which is administered to heavily-sedated patients so that they do not appear to have a grand mal convulsion: as Peter Breggin has pointed out, this requires a higher voltage and may therefore do more damage (see Toxic Psychiatry).

The repressive implications of the forced treatment the authors advocate is brought out most clearly in a chapter entitled "The Specter of Violence". Noting that some mentally ill people are violent (as indeed are many people who are not mentally ill), they maintain that such patients must be forced to endure potentially dangerous treatments not only for their own sake but for that of society. President Bush must have been using this book as a reference when he decided to push for mental health screening for all citizens. And what will be taken as an indication of mental illness? Opposition to the War in the Middle East? Opposition to the treatment of detainees? Opposition to the administration in power? Have we not learned enough from the abuse of of psychiatry to persecute dissidents in the Soviet Union? Forced treatment of the mentally ill is a major civil liberties issue because WHEN THE RIGHTS OF ONE CITIZEN OR GROUP OF CITIZENS ARE INFRINGED, THE RIGHTS OF ALL ARE THREATENED.