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The Insanity Offense: How America's Failure to Treat the Seriously Mentally Ill Endangers Its Citizens | 
 enlarge | Manufacturer: W. W. Norton
Category: EBooks
List Price: $24.95
Buy New: $9.99
You Save: $14.96 (60%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  5 reviews
Sales Rank: 13407
Format: Kindle Book
Media: Kindle Edition
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Dewey Decimal Number: 362.19689
ASIN: B001E95QT6
Publication Date: June 16, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
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Product Description
A leading expert on mental illness outlines the tragic consequences of deinstitutionalization and sounds the call for reform.
Beginning in the 1960s in the United States, scores of patients with severe psychiatric disorders were discharged from public mental hospitals. At the same time, activists forced changes in commitment laws that made it impossible to treat half of the patients that left the hospital. The combined effect was profoundly destructive. Today, among homeless persons, at least one-third are severely mentally ill; among the incarcerated, at least one-tenth. Of those individuals living in our communities, many are the victims of violent crime. Other untreated individuals commit crimes, including murder and assault. In The Insanity Offense, E. Fuller Torrey takes full stock of this phenomenon, exploring the causes and consequences as he weaves together narratives of individual tragedies in three states with sobering national data on our failure to treat the mentally ill. In the book's final chapters, Torrey outlines what needs to be done to reverse this ongoing—and accelerating—disaster.
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| Customer Reviews:
 Torrey,s Best Book November 30, 2008
E. Fuller Torrey has been one of the most astute commentators on the deinstitutionalization charade for decades. This is his best book. He takes the key states (California and Wisconsin) which contributed to the legislative and court changes to the involuntary commitment laws for people with mental disorders and traces them from their original passing (late 1960s and early 1970s) to the present. He uses case vignettes and journal articles to convey the consequences of the new legislation and court decisions respectively. The result is deeply disturbing and powerful. Torrey has been controversial for years but he is right on target. The solutions to this very problematic reality are extremely difficult. But talking about it is the beginning. This book is an excellent place to start.
 E. Fuller Torrey - The Creator of the Current Mental Health System November 10, 2008
0 out of 2 found this review helpful
Basically the mentally ill have an extremely reduced set of rights now due to E. Fuller Torrey. It is fairly easy in this country to get picked up and taken to a psychiatric ward. What happens afterwards? The patient hits the streets at odds with family members who due to Torrey have treated the ill individual as lacking all insight. Torrey has broadcast that people with schizophrenia have no insight. Upon leaving the hospital there is a lack of housing and social security disability income is laughably indadequate. Disaster has struck. Acting on the advice of E. Fuller Torrey for all practical purupose family members cut the line to any kind of dialogue with an ill member. The fact of the matter is that people with mental illness frequently have double bookkeeping systems which are internally somewhat coherent and which keep people with mental illnesses out of trouble. With these charges of lack of insight what Torrey is doing is upsetting the delicate balance people with serious mental illness have achieved, undermining the double bookkeeping systems of people with mental illness, and basically forcing a decompensation. After Torrey people with serious mental illness avoid the mental health system as toxic, are at odds with family members and abandoned by society as crazed killers. Torrey has wrecked havoc on the mental health system. The main problem for the mentally ill is lack of housing, which Torrey is attempting to make impossible to obtain vis-a-vis the denial of Social Security disablity benefits. Yes, Torrey is trying to end Federal grants to the mentally ill. Basically, Torrey's solution is 100,000 very, very expensive beds in a state mental hospital system. 70 years ago state mental hospitals were snake pits, largely due to cost considerations, and there are severe cost considerations today with the near certainty of cost cutting and snake pits for hospitals if Torrey's program is effected. With these very, very expensive hospital beds and increased social service bureacracies and no Federal grants to the mentally ill what is going to happen? There are 3 million people people with schizophrenia. Massive homelessness would be the result. This isn't rocket science. People have to ask if they are for people with schizophrenia who have been harrassed in the past camping out in the backyard or car and for what? Crime isn't going to be reduced. Of course, mandatory treatment for people who are violent and mentally ill is required but the demanded statutes are on the books now. What happens with one of these E. Fuller Torrey books? Do caring social services spring forth to assist the mentally ill? No. Torrey's social services program is Kafkasque. No actual social services are delivered by Torrey's social service program. The estranged mentally ill become radically estranged. The hassle factor of being seriously mentally ill which is already sky high now reaches to the next star. The current system is the child of E. Fuller Torrey so if everything is hunky dory now listen carefully and follow the advice of Torrey.
Anyone who works in behavioral health should read this August 31, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
I am a psychiatric social worker and have been in the field for years. I think anyone who works in behavioral health should read this book. It clearly explores the relationship between the "deinstitutionalization" of the 1950s and 1960s and the relationship as those in mental hospitals were set free to fend for themselves in the community. The relationship unfolkds as the author explains how the population decline in state mental hospitals has been off-set by the soaring number of mentally ill men and women who are wandering the streets homeless, or are locked away in jails and prisons with little to no treatment.
By now, 50 or so years on, it's obvious shutting down mental hospitals was not the solution -- rather, improving conditions and quality of life in the hospitals was what was needed. The author cites hundreds of specific cases in which institutionalized men and women are set free -- to become victims, or to victimize. The community mental health clinic concept works for a certain segment of the mentally ill population. But, as I have seen and experienced on an almost daily basis, there are far too many chronically mentally ill people who have no insight into their illness and the need to take medication consistently, and thus suffer in poverty, filth, and psychic ghettos in the inner cities of America.
The once-hospitalized men and women have achieved the "freedom" lawyers and psychiatrists a generation ago sought. Sadly, to quote from "Me and Bobby McGee" -- freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose. Those of you who work with the men and women who live in run-down housing, eat out of trash cans, are a revolving door in emergency rooms and jail cells will know what I talking about. This book paints a grave picture of the state of public behavioral health's state of the union in the early part of the 21st Century. It's not an easy book to read, but perhaps it will inspire a few people to push for some changes, because the system's broken and it needs fixing -- bad!
Informative July 24, 2008
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
I knew nothing about Schizophrenia or the disaster well intended liberals and fiscal conservatives created when they released the mentally ill onto America's streets,before reading this most informative book.
Long ovedue and too nice... June 23, 2008
16 out of 19 found this review helpful
This author is not kidding...he really tells it as it is, but with a light touch that may miss the mark. State legislators need to be slammed up side the head to get their attention and I fear he is a little too politically correct. As the father of a middle-aged bi-polar daughter, I was blindsided by the impact of her disease. She is one of the lucky ones who found a qualified psychiatrist and medications that are working to keep her off the streets, but barely. Unless you experience the family impact of mental illness most people just walk on by. The civil rights lawyers and courts who curtailed mandatory treatment are the real criminals in this crisis and the author is too easy on them. Mental illness still is a great social taboo in this culture of control and cure. When neither are possible our government seems paralized to respond. Unfortunately, I fear that it will take a lot more homeless people and mentally ill criminal behavior to get the needed attention and reforms. But, hey, never forget that a few highly dedicated people can change things. Meantime, you suffer and hope. Read this book and get involved.
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