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Book Cover
Book
Author Powers, Ron, author

Title No One Cares About Crazy People : The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America / Ron Powers

Copies

LOCATION CALL NO. STATUS
 Bangor Pub. Lib. Stacks  362.26.P874n    AVAILABLE  
 Maine State Lib. Stacks  OFFSITE 362.26 P888n 2017    AVAILABLE  
Edition First edition
Phys Descr xxi, 360 pages ; 24 cm
Note Text in English
Includes bibliographical references (pages [335]-348) and index
Contents Membrane -- What is schizophrenia? -- Regulars -- Bedlam, before and beyond -- Eugenics: weeding out the mad -- "A more normal world" -- "When they were young" -- Madness and genius -- "If only, if only, if only . . ." -- Chaos and heartbreak -- The great unraveler -- Surcease -- Debacle -- "Hey fam-- " -- Antipsychotics -- "Something unexplainable" -- "We have done pitifully little about mental illnesses" -- "Primoshadino" -- Red Sox 17, Yankees 1 -- Insanity and Icarus -- Someone cares about crazy people
Summary "How did we, as a society, get to this point? It's a question that Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and bestselling author Ron Powers set out to answer in this gripping, richly researched social and personal history of mental illness. Powers traces the appalling narrative--from the sadistic abuse of "lunaticks" at Bedlam Asylum in London seven centuries ago to today's scattershot treatments and policies. His odyssey of reportage began after not one but both of his beloved sons were diagnosed with schizophrenia. From the earliest efforts to segregate the "mad" in society, to the wily World War II-era social engineers who twisted Darwin's "survival of the fittest" theory to fit a much darker agenda, to the follies of the antipsychiatry movement (starring L. Ron Hubbard and his gifted, insanity-denying compatriot Thomas Szasz), we've struggled to deal with mental health care for generations. And it all leads to the current landscape, in which too many families struggle alone to manage afflicted loved ones without proper public policies or support. Braided into his vivid social history is the moving saga of Powers's own family: his bright, buoyant sons, Kevin (a gifted young musician) and Dean (a promising writer and guitarist), both of whom struggled mightily with schizophrenia; and his wife, Honoree Fleming, whose knowledge of human biology and loving maternal instincts proved inadequate against schizophrenia's hellish power. For Powers the question of "what to do about crazy people" isn't just academic; it's deeply personal. And he's determined to forge a better way forward, for his family's sake as well as for the many others who deserve better."--Jacket
Subject Schizophrenia -- History
Mental health services -- History
Mental health services
Mentally ill
Mesh Subject Schizophrenia -- history.
Mental Health Services -- history.
Mental Health Services -- legislation & jurisprudence.
Mentally Ill Persons.
Subject United States.
Alt Title Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America
OCLC # 951764773
ISBN # 9780316341172
0316341177