Book Review: Insane Consequences

I have read Insane Consequences: How the Mental Health Industry Fails the Mentally Ill a couple of times and am still contemplating it. It also inspired me to research further into how we treat the seriously mentally ill in America. In the book, author DJ Jaffe takes on what he calls the “mental health industry,” and I think that is a fair characterization. He is not the only writer to use the phrase, and he confronts that industry with a voice that reminds me of a prosecuting attorney on a mission. Jaffe became involved in the mental health system in the 1980s when his wife’s 18 year old sister, Lynn, came to New York from Wisconsin to live with them. Lynn had been a high performing high school student who began to have behavioral issues with her Hungarian immigrant mom, and Jaffe thought that coming to New York to live with “aging hippies” might help. Things went well at first, but Lynn’s behavior became more and more difficult – from screaming at voices that only she could hear, to paranoia. Jaffe’s attempts to get her help engulfed him in the mental health system and all its shortcomings. The experience started him on “a thirty-year journey to try to find out what is wrong with the mental health system and what can be done to fix it.” This book reminded me of another I read back in the 1970s, Susan Sheehan’s Is There No Place on Earth for Me. Sheehan’s book told the story of Sylvia Frumkin, another h...
Source: Psych Central - Category: Psychiatry Authors: Tags: Book Reviews Caregivers Disabilities Policy and Advocacy Psychiatry Psychology Schizophrenia Treatment DJ jaffe mental health policy Mental Illness mental illness violence serious mental illness Source Type: news