Gracefully Insane: Life and Death Inside America’s Premier Mental Hospital
Gracefully Insane: Life and Death Inside America’s Premier Mental Hospital
This is a compelling and often oddly poignant reading for fans of books like Plath’s The Bell Jar and Susanna Kaysen’s Girl, Interrupted (both inspired by their author’s stays at McLean) and for anyone interested in the history of medicine or psychotherapy, or the social history of New England.
Alex Beam’s Gracefully Insane is a knowledgeable historical portrait of New England’s McLean Hospital, until recently the mental institution equivalent of the Plaza Hotel. Fenceless and unguarded, McLean’s grounds were landscaped by Frederick Law Olmsted. Amenities included tennis courts, a golf course, room service, and a riding stable. As one director said, “If you don’t know where you are, then you’re in the right place.” Its patients have included James Taylor, Robert Lowell, and Ray Charles. It also looms large in The Bell Jar and Girl, Interrupted, written by former patients Sylvia Plath and Susanna Kaysen. Beam weaves patients’ and employees’ stories with an informal review of mental health treatments through the years, including lobotomies, insulin-induced comas, ice-water baths, and a ghastly device called the “coercion chair.” Gracefully Insane is amiable, lively, and honest. Its many anecdotes (derived from patient records, journals, and interviews) are by turns poignant, humorous, and unsettling. –H. O’Billovitch
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The Package Deal: Mental Illness, Stigma, and Discrimination
My longtime friend, Jean Lyon, encouraged me to write a book about my experiences with the mental health system. “You should write a book,” she said.
“No, I couldn’t. No one would believe me,” I replied.
“Yes, you could,” Jean insisted. “You could call it One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the Sequel–it’s worse than the original.”
The Package Deal is a short, 4500-word memoir that takes the reader into a world that most people do not know about. My non-fictional account provides an inside, uncensored look at societal discrimination against people with mental illness.
This eBook consists of two distinctly different parts. Part one, titled Unplanned Patienthood, provides a humorous glimpse of the mental health professionals whom I have been fortunate, and not so fortunate, to encounter. Part two, titled A System Without Oversight, opens with my voluntary admission to a psychiatric unit in Northern Virginia. This part chronicles my conflict with the mental health system, which began when hospital personnel assaulted me. It covers the facts surrounding the assault, as well as my resultant struggle for justice, not only with the mental health system, but also with the criminal justice system and government oversight agencies.
At every turn in my search for justice, I faced discrimination. This eBook echoes an all-too-common situation for those who happen to have a mental illness. Discrimination against this marginalized population too often goes unreported and unchallenged. In addition to being enlightening, the narrative is entertaining, suspenseful, and incorporates humor as a powerful communication tool.My longtime friend, Jean Lyon, encouraged me to write a book about my experiences with the mental health system. “You should write a book,” she said.
“No, I couldn’t. No one would believe me,” I replied.
“Yes, you could,” Jean insisted. “You could call it One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, the Sequel–it’s worse than the original.”
The Package Deal is a short, 4500-word memoir that takes the reader into a world that most people do not know about. My non-fictional account provides an inside, uncensored look at societal discrimination against people with mental illness.
This eBook consists of two distinctly different parts. Part one, titled Unplanned Patienthood, provides a humorous glimpse of the mental health professionals whom I have been fortunate, and not so fortunate, to encounter. Part two, titled A System Without Oversight, opens with my voluntary admission to a psychiatric unit in Northern Virginia. This part chronicles my conflict with the mental health system, which began when hospital personnel assaulted me. It covers the facts surrounding the assault, as well as my resultant struggle for justice, not only with the mental health system, but also with the criminal justice system and government oversight agencies.
At every turn in my search for justice, I faced discrimination. This eBook echoes an all-too-common situation for those who happen to have a mental illness. Discrimination against this marginalized population too often goes unreported and unchallenged. In addition to being enlightening, the narrative is entertaining, suspenseful, and incorporates humor as a powerful communication tool.
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The Art and Science of Mental Health Nursing NEW
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Leave a commentMental Health – Provides healthy body and soul
Mind is the way to body and soul. Mental health representing emotional well being of a person provides healthy body and soul that offers people greater opportunity or increases the chances to live long and healthy life.
The present world of competition has bought several evils along with them. It has created stress, tension, emotional imbalances etc to people up to a large extend. These factors are mother of mental illness and inject people with their virus that not only destroys the life of the person who is suffering from such disease but also leave adverse effect on their family members.
Mentally ill people suffer from various diseases like depression, anxiety, fear etc. All these diseases reduce their efficiency in performing their important functions and sometimes even lead to criminal tendency in them. It increases the chances of self harm and suicidal acts by the person who is inflicted from such diseases. People who are victim of these diseases often resort to drug and alcohol abuse that ruins their life to greater extend. Behavioral changes and different response to other people in surrounding are the evident symptoms of the person who is caught up with such disease.
There are several companies working in providing aid to people in getting mental health. These companies provide various techniques of stress management and getting control over emotional fluctuations. They offer therapies like laughing therapies and often provide them emotional support that offers greater chance of getting rid of these diseases. They also provide easy tips that can be followed by person at their home and achieve their desired mental health.