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Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness | |||||||
 
| 80% Recommended by our customers. Publisher: Berkley Trade Catalog: Book Release date: 2007-04-03 Media: Paperback Format: Bargain Price Number of pages: 384  Tip: compare prices with similar booksAuthor:
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Former Washington Post reporter Pete Earley had written extensively about the criminal justice system. But it was only when his own son- in the throes of a manic episode-broke into a neighbor's house that he learned what happens to mentally ill people who break a law. This is the Earley family's compelling story, a troubling look at bureaucratic apathy and the countless thousands who suffer confinement instead of care, brutal conditions instead of treatment, in the "revolving doors" between hospital and jail. With mass deinstitutionalization, large numbers of state mental patients are homeless or in jail-an experience little better than the horrors of a century ago. Earley takes us directly into that experience-and into that of a father and award-winning journalist trying to fight for a better way. |
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 Written on January 6, 2007 Summary: Tangential response to a family affair Book is a sparkling reminder of what journalism, so-called, in the US of A is composed. We've become way too accustomed to tangential solutions to problems, & Pete Earley doesn't disappoint: it makes perfect Cartesian dualist sense for the author to hustle on down to Miami to "study" mental illness & the "mental health system" while his son wrestles with his emotional demons back in Virginia. If he's confounded by his son's baffling behavior & by his inability to "understand," then, by all means, flash your press card & get "complete run of the [Miami-Dade County] jail...with no restrictions." Were we not inured to this sort of professional conduct on the part of our journalists & other proselytes of the dominant philosophy, we might easily ponder why a father would abdicate his parental responsibility; indeed, abdicate his humanity. As Mr. Earley notes, this has all been done before, ever since Quakers discovered compassion was missing from the care of our most desperately & forcibly dispassioned. According to Mr. Earley, if we can replace compassion with forced treatment, then all's right with the world. "Crazy" is yet another stellar example of the party line commandment: thou shalt live statistically & scientifically, even if by force. Like all his brethren with their easy, unquestioned access to the public, Mr. Earley succumbs to the inessential details: the medication his son sporadically took turned his mouth dry & killed his sex drive; meanwhile, the old man is bending every effort to get his 20-something son committed to any psychiatric facility, even to the point of lying. Mr. Earley is so busy manipulating the system that any semi-conscious reader might start wondering how long he'd been manipulating the desperate son & indeed all his loved ones, so-called; however, that certainly will never occur to Mr. Earley. But he is worried about that sex drive. The dissenters from the orthodox view of mental illness, like Laing & Szasz, are quickly dispatched. E. Fuller Torrey, with his Maslow-like (& hence impersonal) hierarchy of disorders, is sanctified. All the dispassionate objectivity of law & science must be brought to bear on the insidious disease, although Laing wrote in his memoir that the decision to be objective is a subjective decision. & Even when author Earley allows himself a moment of subjectivity--asking his St. Paul, Judge Leifman (self-appointed legal benefactor of the mentally ill), "Why are you doing this?"--, he cannot be so careless with his own son, for it's a question he never asks him. A serious, questioning reading of "Crazy" can reveal that Mr. Earley exhibits the same symptoms as his son: there is indeed a stigma attached to mental illness (it carries a "life sentence of its own"), but it is an illness like diabetes or the flu; he & his associates manipulate the legal system so that "Mike" can plead guilty to misdemeanors & pursue his career dream, even while Mr. Earley insists that the illness is a life sentence & admits that the stigma attached to it bars his son from pursuing that dream (significantly, Mr. Earley never reveals precisely what that dream career is). & Most telling: this schizophrenia with which his son has been diagnosed is due to a chemical imbalance, but it is thru "Mike's" actions & inaction (his conduct, his behavior) only that he has been so diagnosed. Mr. Earley declines to see any contradiction here; he declines to inquire, "Which chemical imbalance in my son produces these behavioral symptoms?" Instead, he leaves Virginia to investigate the mental health system in Florida. In writing of his own experience with the obsession to medicalize conduct, humorist Mort Sahl wrote to the effect that if you state your own case, it's paranoia; if [someone of community standing] states it for you, it's social justice. Ergo, Mr. Earley.  Written on December 29, 2006 Summary: Everyone Needs to Read This Book! I've worked 11 years in corrections and I am a Social Worker by profession. This book shows the real crime was when we stopped helping the mentally ill. How hard it is to explain to a family I cannot help them with the problems of their son or daughter and we ALL must endure their illness together. Families of SPMI (Seriously and Persistently Mentally Ill), lawyers, judges, LAW MAKERS, and those that work with this population, should read this book. Written on December 15, 2006 Summary: great book This book was both educational and interesting. Very well-written. I had to read it for school and I read ahead because it was so good. Written on November 6, 2006 Summary: Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness When I first heard about this book and it's title, I assumed "Crazy" referred to the author's son's mental illness. It actually refers to how mental health services are delivered in the United States. As an experienced journalist, the author writes an actual account of the realities of coping with mental health care in a compelling and very understandable style. There is no one who does not know someone who has had a mental illness, but many do not understand how today's delivery "system" (so-called 'system') mitigates against the effective treatment of conditions which respond well to drug and behavioral therapies. The fact that jails and prisons have become bigger providers of mental health care than hospitals is something about which we should all be ashamed and want to do something about! Mr. Early's experiences and excellent writing make this totally evident to the reader. I have recommended "Crazy" to relatives of people with mental illness and to those engaged in providing better care and all have been moved and motivated by reading it. Written on October 5, 2006 Summary: Everyone should read this book Whether or not you have personally experienced mental illness in your family or have experience in the criminial justice system, this book will open your eyes. I want to thank the author for bringing this difficult and stigmatized subject the the attention of the average citizen. A very important book that will hopefully bring about change in both the mental health system and the criminal justice system. |
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| Our price | - | $17.95 | $10.17 | - | $10.17 | $5.99 |
| List price | $15.00 | $19.95 | $14.95 | $14.95 | $14.95 | $15.00 |
| Lowest used price | $7.56 | $14.31 | $2.86 | - | $7.99 | $4.46 |
| Lowest new price | $8.27 | $17.72 | $4.99 | $6.24 | $8.71 | $4.99 |
| Collectible price | - | - | $13.95 | - | - | - |
| Catalog | Book | Book | Book | Book | Book | Book |
| Release date | 2007-04-03 | 2007-05-10 | 1997-01-14 | 2003-11-01 | 2008-08-12 | 2001-05-08 |
| Media | Paperback | Paperback | Paperback | Paperback | Paperback | Paperback |
| Format | Bargain Price | - | - | Bargain Price | - | Bargain Price |
| Number of pages | 384 | 168 | 240 | 336 | 368 | 544 |
| Ean | - | 9780967718927 | 9780679763307 | - | 9781401309442 | - |
| Book Isbn | - | 0967718929 | 0679763309 | - | 1401309445 | - |
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