Description

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"Vital for all working in the mental health field . . . . Fascinating reading for anyone." —Choice

E. Fuller Torrey, the author of the definitive guides to schizophrenia and manic depression, chronicles a disastrous swing in the balance of civil rights that has resulted in numerous violent episodes and left a vulnerable population of mentally ill people homeless and victimized. Interweaving in-depth accounts of landmark cases in California, Wisconsin, and North Carolina with a history of legislation and changes in the mental health care system, Torrey gives shape to the magnitude of our failure and outlines what needs to be done to reverse this ongoing—and accelerating—disaster. A new epilogue on the 2011 shooting in Tucson, Arizona, brings this tragic story up to date.

About the Author

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E. Fuller Torrey is a research psychiatrist specializing in schizophrenia and manic-depressive illness. He is the founder of the Treatment Advocacy Center and the executive director for laboratory research at the Stanley Medical Research Institute. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland.

Praise For…

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Torrey's book describes a nation that has been unable to come up with a humane mental health policy—one that protects the ill from their own demons and society from their rare but deadly outbursts.
— David Brooks - New York Times