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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Nursing Diagnoses and Process in Psychiatric Mental Health Nursing by McFarland
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Posted in Mental Health | 
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