Making It Crazy: An Ethnography of Psychiatric Clients in an American Community [Paperback]

Sue E. Estroff (Author), Richard H. Lamb (Foreword)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0520054512 | ISBN-13: 978-0520054516 | Publication Date: June 6, 1985

Estroff describes a group of chronic psychiatric clients as they attempt life outside a mental hospital.

Editorial Reviews

Review

A captivating and thoroughly believable account. . . . An intelligent, well-written account of the lives and problems of the mentally ill trying to make it in the community. -- Contemporary Psychology

An Important book, scholarly, informative, and a challenge to simplistic notions of community care. -- British Journal of Psychiatry

Product Details

• Paperback: 338 pages
• Publisher: University of California Press (June 6, 1985)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0520054512
• ISBN-13: 978-0520054516
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.7 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #349,586 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating look into the lives of the severely mentally ill, October 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Making It Crazy: An Ethnography of Psychiatric Clients in an American Community (Paperback)

It has been quite awhile since I've read this book, but I want to tell students, professors, and other people with mental illness like me (I suffer from recurrent depression) that this book gives an excellent description of what it is like to be among the mentally ill and what it is like to deal with chronic mental illness.

The author immerses herself in the lives of a group of patients (clients) at a day treatment setting (which would probably now be horribly called "partial hospitalization") in a Northern city. She shows compassion for the clients, but, as I remember it, she really tells it like it is: there is no glorification of mental health treatment, there is direct honesty about the tough lives of the clients.

I, myself, have been in a very similar setting to the one that Estroff describes, and I know the sense of cameraderie that is fostered, as well as, sadly, for most people, the lack of increased or better functioning that occurs.

Overall, I think that Estroff's book, even though it is deeply descriptive (and meant to be such), nevertheless points out the desperate need for such programs in our society.