Bedlam: A Year in the Life of a Mental Hospital - Hardcover

Bosco, Dominick

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1559721138 ISBN 13: 9781559721134

Publisher: Birch Lane Pr, 1992

Synopsis

A revealing look inside the nation's mental hospitals presents the institutions, patients, and professionals that make up this often overlooked aspect of our society

About this title

From Kirkus Reviews

Life within a ``hell and heaven, dungeon and sanctuary'' for the mentally ill, here given the fictitious name of Bedloe State Hospital. Bosco (coauthor, Alone with the Devil, 1989) disguises names throughout, not only to protect the privacy of individuals but also to ensure that his story is not seen as simply an expos‚ of a specific institution--for he would have us know that there are a multitude of ``Bedloes'' in the land. A few statistics and trends are cited, but Bosco tells his story largely by getting inside the heads of people. Leading these is Bedloe's medical director, who has recurring dreams of being the first Psychiatrist General of the US with a wonderful program that takes care of everyone--except his own schizophrenic daughter. At work, he struggles with Bedloe's superintendent, a small-minded bureaucrat promoted above his level of competence. The staff includes humane, skilled doctors as well as ones who are a disgrace to their profession, compassionate attendants as well as sadistic ones. At the bottom of the pyramid are the patients themselves, mostly helpless and often hopeless. Neglect and abuse are commonplace, and murder, rape, and suicide are not unusual. Even more shocking--because of its acceptance as policy--is ``treatment by bus ticket,'' i.e., getting rid of patients by declaring them ``stabilized'' and putting them on a bus to another state. Keeping watch on all this horror are only an accreditation committee that permits Bedloe to exist but keeps it on probation, and the patients' families--some of which, driven by the failure of the system, have organized themselves into a force for change. In the ugly world Bosco describes, they are the brightest ray of hope. A grim and gripping report. -- Copyright ©1992, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

From Library Journal

Following his earlier Confessions of a Medical Heretic ( LJ 5/1/79), Bosco presents a biographical expose of conditions within a state mental hospital along the lines of Ivan Illich's Medical Nemesis ( LJ 5/1/76). By providing an outsider's view of the situation, he offers a valuable counterpoint to books by former patients (such as Kate Millett's The Loony-Bin Trip, LJ 4/15/90) and guards (Tom Ryan's Screw: A Guard's View of Bridgewater State Hospital, South End Pr., 1981). Bosco's descriptions of violence, horror, filth, and gallows humor, plus portraits of caring but demoralized staff working against inept bureaucrats more concerned with their own comfort than that of their patients, make this an eye-opening experience. A troubling book, difficult to put down, this belongs in psychology and social work collections.
- Scott Johnson, Meridian Community Coll. Lib., Miss.
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Birch Lane Pr
• Publication date: 1992
• ISBN 10: 1559721138
• ISBN 13: 9781559721134
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 323