In the Name of Help: A Novel Exposing Psychiatric Abuse

Cathryn Silberg knew that her marriage was doomed. But as she seeks help, she finds herself betrayed by the very people who claim to have her best interests at heart. Trapped by the mental health system and the courts, she finds she is no longer struggling to save a marriage, -- now she must save her own life!

IN THE NAME OF HELP is a gripping story, chilling in its insight into the sinister motivations that can drive our social institutions. Before you, or anyone you know seek professional help, you must read this book!

IN THE NAME OF HELP is the startling story of a woman caught in the mindless, uncaring snarl of America's mental health and judicial systems, and how, with real help from two caring friends, she fights her way back to reclaim her dignity and self-respect, from an institutional insanity that cruelly only promised to do something for her. After you read this book, you'll pray that this never happens to you or anyone you love.

IN THE NAME OF HELP is about a once beautiful and intelligent woman, whose marriage evolves into a kind of fatal attraction, then she suffers years of abusive and ultimately destructive psychiatric treatment, finally becoming totally dependent on those around her for her safety and survival. This, in spite of enormous wealth that is due her.

Through a series of medical and judicial actions, which are revelatory of some startling sore spots in our current society, she finds herself at the mercy of uncaring strangers, despite efforts of her friends to remove her and prevent her from further damaging treatments, and manipulation for monetary gain. This is a story of intrigue, a battle between the forces of good and evil, and a strong tale of love. It is shocking and powerful.

Not since Ken Kesey's, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, in 1962, has a novel dealt such a formidable blow to the atrocities that exist in what we call our mental health system.

Not in the past three decades has a story dealt more straightforwardly with the criminal practices of administering electric shock treatments, which cause severe, irreversible brain damage, and treatment with psychotropic substances, which though they are called medications, alter brain chemistry, function and structure and can have devastating effects on the central nervous system.

These things are happening every day, especially to our children and our elderly; the practitioners and advocates of these actions are reaping enormous financial profits.

IN THE NAME OF HELP is one story of how these things can happen in our society, and what two decent people decided to do about these crimes.

Diane Klein grew up in Chicago, Illinois, and she attended the University of Illinois and Northwestern University on a four year Illinois State Scholarship. She majored in English and held high school teaching certificates in Illinois and Florida. Diane saw the advent of psychological programs in our schools, and the departure from teaching basics such as reading, writing, arithmetic and social studies, as confusing and ineffective. Despite a love of working with young teenagers, this troubled her, and in 1976, she stopped teaching and moved to Florida for three years.

Then Diane was offered a job in southern California in 1979 and she moved close to the Pacific Ocean, where she lived for almost twenty years. She later moved to the San Francisco area for a year with David, a software design engineer, and they were married in August of 1999 and returned to southern California, close to the Ocean. Diane has a son and two daughters, and four adored grandchildren. She tells that her children and husband have been woderfully supportive of all of her efforts to publish her heartfelt first novel, IN THE NAME OF HELP.

From the time Diane was eleven, she remembers always writing something: stories, descriptions, journals or articles for the Roosevelt high school paper. A few years ago, she won honorable mention in the Writers' Digest Contest with a non-fiction story about her younger daughter's incredible recovery from a serious car accident.

But she never felt compelled to write with the goal of publication, until she became motivated to tell the story, IN THE NAME OF HELP.

Diane feels strongly that there are things in our society that are wrong, incorrect and even evil. But these cannot be changed until we first become aware of them. Once we recognize that they are there and we become willing to take some responsibility for their existence, then we can become powerful once again and we can right the wrongs.

Diane enjoys novels from which she learns something, -- knowledge of another time or place, insight into a particular personality, or new awareness of an unknown issue, -- and that's what she hopes her readers will find in this book and in her future novels. Diane welcomes communication from her readers.