The Mad Among Us: A History of the Care of America’s Mentally Ill - Softcover

Grob, Gerald N.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 067454112X ISBN 13: 9780674541122

Publisher: Harvard University Press, 1995

Synopsis

In the first comprehensive one-volume history of the treatment of the mentally ill, the foremost historian in the field compellingly recounts our various attempts to solve this ever-present dilemma from colonial times to the present.

Gerald Grob charts the growth of mental hospitals in response to the escalating numbers of the severely and persistently mentally ill and the deterioration of these hospitals under the pressure of too many patients and too few resources. Mounting criticism of psychiatric techniques such as shock therapies, drugs, and lobotomies and of mental institutions as inhumane places led to a new emphasis on community care and treatment. While some patients benefited from the new community policies, they were ineffective for many mentally ill substance abusers. Grob's definitive history points the way to new solutions. It is at once an indispensable reference and a call for a humane and balanced policy in the future.

About this title

From the Back Cover:

In the first comprehensive one-volume history of the treatment of the mentally ill, the foremost historian in the field compellingly recounts out various attempts to solve this ever-present dilemma from colonial times to the present.

About the Author:

Gerald N. Grob is the Henry E. Sigerist Professor of the History of Medicine Emeritus at Rutgers University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Harvard University Press
• Publication date: 1995
• ISBN 10: 067454112X
• ISBN 13: 9780674541122
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416