About the book
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Powers combines a social history of mental illness with the story of his own family. Both his sons, Kevin, a gifted musician, and Dean, a writer and guitarist, were diagnosed with schizophrenia. Powers covers the abuse of patients at Bedlam Asylum in London, the eugenics era and the social engineers who twisted Darwin's idea of survival of the fittest, and the antipsychiatry movement, including L. Ron Hubbard and Thomas Szasz. He also describes the present landscape, in which many families care for ill relatives without proper public policies or support. The book blends history, biography, memoir and current affairs and considers where things might go from here.
Author Evan Thomas endorsed it for its persuasive account of America's failure to treat mental illness properly and for Powers's wrenching story of his two sons.
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This book has 1 recommendation
Evan Thomas (Author)
Ron Powers writes eloquently, passionately, and persuasively about the failure to properly treat mental illness in America. What makes this book really powerful is Powers's personal story-the harrowing, wrenching tale of his two sons wrestling with the unholy demon of schizophrenia.
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