A clinical social worker argues that the USA could not have designed a more insane system of mental health services for the chronically mentally ill if it had tried. The author draws on her experience with the severely mentally ill in a wide range of health settings.
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Library Journal
A social worker for the chronically mentally ill (CMI) and now the mental health unit chief at Montefiore/Riker's Island, New York, the author here offers a clear, generally incisive, and provocative analysis of the rationale behind deinstitutionalization (mainstreaming mental patients into the community). She debunks several myths: that deinstitutionalization was planned; that it should cost less; and that medications like Thorazine are the cure-all. She also attacks the false assumptions that CMIs make up the bulk of the homeless, that they fill the prisons, and that we don't know what care they require. Lastly, she discusses the chasm between practitioners and bureaucrats, who turn "messy, unscientific social problems into neat, tidy empirical surveys. . . ." With statistics, case histories, and chapter notes all meant to shock, Johnson delivers a cogent and witty commentary supported by facts and a compassionate perspective.
- Janice Arenofsky, formerly with Arizona State Lib., Phoenix
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
- Janice Arenofsky, formerly with Arizona State Lib., Phoenix
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
An excellent book. Try to find it if you can.,
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This review is from: Out of Bedlam: The Truth About Deinstitutionalization (Paperback)
This book is excellent. Try to find it if you can. The author is a woman who has worked in the system, and isn't afraid to say what's wrong with it, without bitterness, without rancor, with complete honesty. Mental illness has been an enigma in all societies historically, for a very long time, and we haven't come to terms with it even now. What keeps the book from being the complete success I wish it was is that her "solutions," such as they are, are unclear. I'm also not sure that I agree with them as much as I do understand them. But I'm glad she took a brave step not many people have been willing to take so far. I wish there were more like her. Her research is thorough, though there were some missing pieces I would have included, like what happened to the mentally ill in Nazi Germany, and those from Mendocino state hospital. But I'll live that for my own book. Suffice it to say this is a good place to start. There's much to be done.
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