'Madness Reimagined: Envisioning a Better System of Mental Health in America' provides a comprehensive analysis of the current mental health system in the United States. Presented from a sociological rather than a psychological perspective, this book seeks to provide readers with an extensive but accessible look at its history, the current mental health treatment modalities, the various mental health practitioners, the different conditions known as mental health disorders, as well as strategies for improving the system. Trained both in clinical and applied therapy and sociology, the author aims to provide a balance to the work that other books on mental health often lack. As a result, this book proposes a dual approach to the study of mental health. Dr. Steverson acknowledges that while disorders and treatment modalities require a micro-level (intrapsychic) approach, the overall analysis of the mental health system demands a macro-level (sociological) approach. Due to the recent changes in the American healthcare system and the concerns this has raised, this book is a necessary and important contribution to its field. It also reflects a growing desire from the public to better understand this subject as mental health issues continue to gain visibility in the public eye. Free of psychological jargon and in an accessible format, this book will not only appeal to academics and students, but also to mental health consumers, their families, and people who are interested in advocacy.

In Imagining Robert, Jay Neugeboren told the sad, deeply personal, often harrowing story of one man and one family's struggle with chronic mental illness. Now, he presents an overview of the entire field: a clear-eyed, articulate, comprehensive survey of our mental health care system's shortcomings and of new, effective, proven approaches that make real differences in the lives of millions of Americans afflicted with severe mental illness. A book for general readers and professionals alike, Transforming Madness is at once a critique, a message of hope and recovery, and a call to action. Filled with dramatic stories, it shows us the many ways in which people who have suffered the long-term ravages of psychiatric disorders have reclaimed full and viable lives.

From the author of The New York Times bestseller Self- Made Man, a captivating expose of depression and mental illness in America Revelatory, deeply personal, and utterly relevant, Voluntary Madness is a controversial work that unveils the state of mental healthcare in the United States from the inside out. At the conclusion of her celebrated first book--Self-Made Man, in which she soent eighteen months disguised as a man-Norah Vincent found herself emotionally drained and severely depressed. Determined but uncertain about maintaining her own equilibrium, she boldly committed herself to three different facilities-a big-city hospital, a private clinic in the Midwest, and finally an upscale retreat in the South. Voluntary Madness is the chronicle of Vincent's journey through the world of the mentally ill as she struggles to find her own health and happiness.

"Through much of 2020 and into 2021, nations throughout the world locked down because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Before then, the most pressing global anxiety for many people was climate anxiety. However, these phenomena are in many ways interconnected. Many of the elements in the global economic and logistical systems cause both ecological problems and vulnerability to pandemics. When pandemics happen, they influence ecological problems-for better or worse. In turn, ecological dynamics shape pandemics"--

“Addiction Reimagined: Challenging Views of an Enduring Social Problem” outlines the current issues in the field of substance use and addiction by thoroughly analyzing its history and other concerns such as diagnosis, treatment, and prevention measures, or the effect of addiction on the family and its connection to the criminal justice system. In this work, Professor Steverson calls for a reimagining of our past and current understandings of addiction and its role as a social, rather than a medical, problem. “Addiction Reimagined” provides a macro-level (i.e. sociological) approach to the examination of the processes and treatment modalities of addiction. This book will be valuable to those who are interested in addiction and the mental health system (people who have addiction problems or policy makers, for instance) as well as to practitioners in the field and people concerned about a failing system, and who would like to make it more functional. It will also be useful to university students undertaking courses such as The Sociology of Addiction or Sociology of Substance Abuse.

While mental illness and mental health care are increasingly recognized and accepted in today’s society, awareness of the most severely mentally ill—as well as those who care for them—is still dominated by stereotypes. Managing Madness in the Community dispels the myth. Readers will see how treatment options often depend on the social status, race, and gender of both clients and carers; how ideas in the field of mental health care—conflicting priorities and approaches—actually affect what happens on the ground; and how, amid the competing demands of clients and families, government agencies, bureaucrats and advocates, the fragmented American mental health system really works—or doesn’t. In the wake of movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Shutter Island, most people picture the severely or chronically mentally ill being treated in cold, remote, and forbidding facilities. But the reality is very different. Today the majority of deeply troubled mental patients get treatment in nonprofit community organizations. And it is to two such organizations in the Midwest that this study looks for answers. Drawing upon a wealth of unique evidence—fifteen months of ethnographic observations, 91 interviews with clients and workers, and a range of documents—Managing Madness in the Community lays bare the sometimes disturbing nature and effects of our overly complex and disconnected mental health system. Kerry Michael Dobransky examines the practical strategies organizations and their clients use to manage the often-conflicting demands of a host of constituencies, laws, and regulations. Bringing to light the challenges confronting patients and staff of the community-based institutions that bear the brunt of caring for the mentally ill, his book provides a useful broad framework that will help researchers and policymakers understand the key forces influencing the mental health services system today.

“A magnificent gift to those of us who love someone who has a mental illness…Earley has used his considerable skills to meticulously research why the mental health system is so profoundly broken.”—Bebe Moore Campbell, author of 72 Hour Hold 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.