voluntary madness lost and found in the mental healthcare system

But what do you do with a population that has no money to spend and a budget that constantly shrinks? Oh wait, we throw those people out on the streets, or in state hospitals, where overworked nurses and therapists for the most part do the best they can. Sure, it would be great if everyone could retreat to luxury 'bins' where the emphasis is on therapy, not meds. So from the very start her disdain for psychological research ('I don't accept the terms by which mental illness is currently defined' - and your background is in what? Just because a layman doesn't understand or believe something *coughevolutioncoughglobalwarmingcough* doesn't mean it's not true) and for people seeking the best help they can afford rubbed me the wrong way. Maybe I'm just as biased as the author, one of the 'well-loved children of the upper middle class' - I majored in psychology, and I work with predominately indigent populations. According to Norah Vincent, people like me who suffer from depression of no apparent origin just need to suck it up :p She questions the current medical literature which encourages the patient to feel that depression is a chemical imbalance and not an issue of weakness.

The author admits she can't battle her depression without Prozac, but also feels that overcoming her condition is all about willpower and 'pushing through it'. Vincent makes this assessment after spending a whopping 10 days (or fewer) with a handful of other mentally ill people in three different facilities. I resent the author's continued suggestions that the mentally ill are ill of their own choosing, and that they've 'given up' and are 'spoiled' (the theory being, it's easier to be institutionalized than to be a contributing member of society). Speaking as someone who's suffered depression for the past decade, I can assure you that it's not particularly exciting or interesting. I think the book would have been more interesting if it really had been an outsider's account of life in a mental institution, but instead, the book quickly becomes an account of Vincent's own battle with depression.

Not nearly as interesting as the premise suggests, and probably the only memoir I've ever read where the author exhibits absolutely no sense of humour.

Voluntary madness lost and found in the mental healthcare system