Customer Reviews

Street Crazy : America's Mental Health Tragedy

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Dr. Seager explains graphically and passionately what those of us who have dealt with the homeless mentally ill have know for years; the current system is neither humane nor effective. His chronicles of his real life patients show how the current system, which places patients' personal freedoms and rights over their own safety and the safety of the community, is creating a dangerous subculture of homeless mentally ill whose only option to a night on the streets is a night in jail. He opens the controversial debate pitting moral and ethical laws against Constitutional law, and tries to strike the delicate balance between the two. Bravo to Dr. Seager from a career peace officer and current Police Chief. We need to have this discussion especially as Calfornia's mental health laws are up for review this year.

I'm a Psychologist and have devoted my career to working with the chronically mentally ill. Once I started reading this book I couldn't put it down. Dr. Seager's passion for the severly chronically mentally ill is absolutely inspiring. His account of the abuse of the mentally is poinient. That is, allowing the most severe of the mentally ill to walk the streets homeless is barbaric. We can and we need to do better. Dr. Seager explains how this all came about while weaving a story of the struggles of his own life.

I highly recommend reading this book. In fact I've purchased more books for collegues and local legislatures.

I want to be a part of this movement toward making drastic changes to our mental health system. It's time for us all to put our heads together and work collaboratively to create a system that makes sense.

Please read this book and share the information and the book with others. We can all make a difference one person at a time.

Dave Tweedy, Ph.D, MFT Director, Behavioral Health Services Tri-City Medical Center TweedyDG@TCMC.COM

I just recently read this book and in one sitting. I couldn't put it down. It definitely gives you a different out look on our mental health care today and makes you think. I believe that our country has gone backwards in its care for the mentally ill. If your interested in mental health, mental illness, this is the book to read.

I loved reading this book. It was difficult to lay it down. My heart aches for the mentally ill. I am a psych nurse--and I know the issues--court problems and goverment problems that each person with a mental illness faces--and this book brings it out prefectly. I would recommend anyone interested in mental health issues to read this book.

I am going to school to be a Psychiatric Technician to work in a State Mental Health Hospital and this was one of the required reading for the course. It was so interesting I finished it the very day I got it. You feel as though you are right there with the author as he is telling his story and interactions with several of his patients.

It's not bogged down with lots of medical jargon that makes the book long and boring to read. It sheds a new light into the lives of the homeless mentally ill and what happens to them if and when they die. If you are entering a similar field I highly recommend this book.

Dr. Seager's book is a fine introduction to the problems of mental illness among the homeless. Written as a first-person narrative (which at times does become a little too melodramatic), he still manages to discuss the problem. If you're a mental health professional, some of the material is a little basic, but this is a good book to give to your friends to help them to understand what you do on a daily basis. Seager's portraits put a human face on the homeless and mentally ill. Those who read this book may never be able to pass by that guy on the street begging for change again.

As a psychiatrist reading this book, I have mixed feelings about it. The book is at its best when Dr. Seager explores the mental health care history and current system, explaining why things work (or don't) and what can be done to change the system. The melodramatic, bombastic writing gets in the way. The patient stories seem picked for shock value, and while it is effective for layman readers, it is tedious. I was hoping for more systems information and discussion about change. I also didn't see a disclaimer that patient names were changed; I hope they were, as it seems opportunistic if they were not. Some of the medication references are off (Neurontin is not used as monotherapy in bipolar disorder), but this was written seven years ago, so he deserves some slack. It's an interesting read and would have been much better had it been more about the American Mental Health Tragedy and less about Dr. Seager's countertransference, family issues, and titillating case stories.

I come from the outpatient side of the mental health field, as alicensed social worker rather than a physician who worked largely with the homeless for six years. There is a treatment resistant core group of extremely mentally ill homeless people for which again and again, my co-workers and I struggled to find solutions. There are some new modalities starting that show promise, such as the housing first model and the idea of using motivational interviewing and Assertive Community Treatment (ACT) teams to get out on the streets and engage over and over again until the clients "come in", but the stories the author portrays are heartbreakingly common in the world of caretakers for the homeless mentally ill.

The book is not a prescriptive, and I think its target audience is not so much current professionals but policy makers and laymen who have a stake in "cleaning up the streets". Understanding the problem helps substantially in fixing it, and Dr. Seager's delineation of the limitations of the mental health field's ability to fix the problem alone is spot on.

I highly recommend this book for anyone getting ready to work in the field of inpatient mental health, community mental health, or homeless services.

He is great...I was his patient for anxiety and panic attacks in Kaiser hospital a couple years back. He then moved back to LA...so I had to get another doctor. I wish he was around for more advice. He made things easy for me.

metzgar@netscape.com