Voluntary Madness
By:
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- Synopsis
- Norah Vincent has always suffered from depression but at the end of a book project that required her to spend eighteen months disguised as a man she felt that she was a danger to herself and was committed to a 'loony bin'. As a result of this traumatic experience Norah came out resolved to go back undercover to report on a range of mental institutions u three difficult, pressurized and very different environments u and to experience first hand their effect on the body and mind. Her journey starts in a huge inner city hospital where most patients are 'repeats', often poor and dispossessed. There Norah confronts the boredom and babbling of an underfunded facility: a place where medication is a process of containment: its purpose to make life easier for the rest of us, not the patients themselves. Cut to the calming green carpet of St Lukes: plenty of 'loonies' here too of course but Norah is taken aback when her doctor allows her to reduce her medication, have a room of her own and a regular jog in the park. Then to Mobius, and a Buddhist-inspired brand of healing, where Norah is forced to plunge deep into her emotional past, and swim through the psycho-babble to some unexpected conclusions. In Voluntary Madness, Norah Vincent takes a fearless and unprecedented view of mental health care u from the inside out. She demonstrates the power of common sense and human connection: how much better a patient can feel when treated like a person and not a petri dish. In analysing the peculiar, sometimes damaging and occasionally transformative relationships between patients and their caregivers, her consummate, fearless and darkly funny reportage makes for riveting reading.
- Copyright:
- 2008
Book Details
- Book Quality:
- Publisher Quality
- ISBN-13:
- 9781440641039
- Publisher:
- PENGUIN group
- Date of Addition:
- 04/29/14
- Copyrighted By:
- Norah Vincent
- Adult content:
- No
- Language:
- English
- Has Image Descriptions:
- No
- Categories:
- Nonfiction, Biographies and Memoirs, Psychology
- Submitted By:
- Bookshare Staff
- Usage Restrictions:
- This is a copyrighted book.