Mental Health Inc: How Corruption, Lax Oversight and Failed Reforms Endanger Our Most Vulnerable Citizens
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Author: Art Levine
Publisher: Harry N. Abrams
Hardcover:
ISBN 10: 1468308378
ISBN 13: 978-1468308372
The mental health system in America is hardly the front-burner issue it should be, despite lip service about reform after each new tragic mass killing. Yet every American should care deeply about fixing a system a presidential commission reported was in “shambles.” By some measures, 20 percent of Americans have some sort of mental health condition, including the most vulnerable among us―veterans, children, the elderly, prisoners, the homeless.With Mental Health, Inc., award-winning investigative journalist Art Levine delivers a Shock Doctrine-style exposé of the failures of our out of control, profit-driven mental health system, with a special emphasis on dangerous residential treatment facilities and the failures of the pharmaceutical industry, including the overdrugging of children with antipsychotics and the disastrous maltreatment of veterans with PTSD by the scandal-wracked VA.Levine provides compelling narrative portraits of victims who needlessly died and some mentally ill people who won unexpected victories in their lives by getting smart, personalized help from “pyschosocial” programs that incorporate safe and appropriate prescribing, along with therapy and social support. He contrasts their stories with corrupt Big Pharma executives and researchers who created fraudulent marketing schemes. Levine also tells the dramatic David vs. Goliath stories of a few brave reformers, including Harvard-trained psychiatrist and researcher Dr. Stefan Kruszewski, who has acted as a whistleblower in several major cases, leading to important federal and state settlements; in addition, the book spotlights pioneering clinicians challenging outmoded, drug-and-sedate practices that leave 90 percent of people with serious mental illness too disabled to work.By taking a comprehensive look at mental health abuses and dangerous, ineffective practices as well as pointing toward solutions for creating a system for effective, proven and compassionate care, Art Levine’s essential Mental Health, Inc. is a call to action for politicians and citizens alike―needed now more than ever.
Review
“In Mental Health Inc., Art Levine presents a convincing case that corruption and failed political policies have waylaid our mental health system and led to great harm. His reporting on successful programs point to a way out of this morass, if only we can find the societal will to pursue such change.”
- Robert Whitaker, New York Times bestselling author of Anatomy of an Epidemic and Mad In America
“A searing indictment of the sorry state of the American mental health care system as seen from the perspective of those who have been victimized by it.”
- VICE
“Mental Health, Inc. is a deep investigation of the horrifying inadequacy and dangerous practices that are all-too-common in our so-called health care ‘system.’ An important and compelling plea for humane reforms.”
- Maia Szalavitz, New York Times bestselling author of Unbroken Brain
“[A] trenchant exposé . . . While lauding judicious medication, Levine takes aim at endemic ‘drug-and-sedate’ practices. He sees hope in institutional reform, peer-to-peer counseling and innovations in de-stigmatizing therapies for post-traumatic stress disorder.”
- Nature
“As this debate will only grow and grow, it’s great to have a book like Mental Health, Inc. [which is] about the business of making a buck off of other people’s mental illness . . . It exposes the shambles that is our mental health system . . . essential . . . a powerful book. Everyone should read Mental Health, Inc.”
- John Fugelsang, Sirius XM
“Art Levine has devoted decades to understanding the politics, science, and economics of health. Mental Health, Inc. is the culmination of that work, presenting an original and convincing case about the failures of the mental health industrial complex in general and the Department of Veteran Affairs in particular. This book is in the classic non-partisan, fact-based exposé tradition and deserves wide attention.”
- James Fallows, National Correspondent, The Atlantic
“Mental Health, Inc. is a hard hitting text exposing hard-to-swallow realities within the underbelly of the mental health industry and its relationship with the Department of Veterans Affairs. Disabled veterans have long been the tip of the spear for risky, off-label drug treatments within the industry. Levine unearths uncomfortable truths in the system that explain why.”
- Benjamin Krause, JD, Chief Editor, Disabledveterans.org
“This well-researched book reveals the scope of an entrenched problem, but it also offers hope . . . Reading Levine’s work might very well be the key to spurring concerned stakeholders into action.”
- Publishers Weekly
“An alarming report on the dire state of our nation's mental health care industry . . . Amid a surfeit of drug company scandals, lawsuits, and blatant wrongdoings, Levine's compelling exposé brings the contemporary state of mental health care into stark focus. But it also offers redemption and hope in the form of modern-day heroes armed with proactive recovery programs and alternative therapies. An urgent, balanced, eye-opening plea for mental health care reform.”
- Kirkus
“Mental Health, Inc. is gripping in the sense that you'll literally grip the book tightly in both hands as you read this horrifying account of our twisted mental health system. Author Art Levine has tirelessly researched stories of individuals whom our system has failed . . . and he is a crusader on a mission to hold executives and bureaucrats accountable.”
- New York Journal of Books
About the Author
Art Levine, a prize-winning contributing editor of The Washington Monthly and a Nation Institute Investigative Fund grantee, has written for The American Prospect, Salon, The Atlantic, The Daily Beast, Mother Jones, Truthout, AlterNet and numerous other publications. Among other awards, he was honored as “Journalist of the Year” by the Florida chapter of the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill in 2001 for his articles in City Link, a Florida weekly, exploring the criminalization of the mentally ill in South Florida. In 2005, as a Health Policy Fellow with the Progressive Policy Institute, he wrote a prescient major report, Parity-Plus: A Third Way Approach to Fix America's Mental Health System that looked at roadblocks to using effective treatments. Since then, he has exposed a wide range of corporate and government wrongdoing, in a series of articles for The American Prospect, The Washington Monthly and Salon, among others.