American Madness: Fighting for Patients in a Broken Mental Health System [Paperback]

In this clinical memoir, Alice Feller brings the reader into the world of serious mental illness using patient vignettes and personal accounts of her work, drawn from medical school, hospital wards, private practice, public clinics, and beyond, spanning a career from the 1970s to the present. Individual chapters are devoted to cases illustrating the impact on treatment outcomes of homelessness, substance abuse, racism, family involvement, and early intervention for schizophrenia cases. Feller identifies specific barriers to care and advocates for reparative strategies that would make the most meaningful and immediate improvements. This book is meant for anyone whose life is touched by mental illness, whether as a patient, in the family, or as a professional, and it is a must-read for policy makers in this field.Alice Feller, MDis a writer and a clinical psychiatrist. She has worked in private practice, hospital emergency rooms, psychiatric wards, chemical dependency programs and public clinics in East Oakland and beyond. Her writing, focused on mental health, addiction and homelessness, has appeared in theEast Bay Express, theLaney Tower,CalMatters,fort daandInterconnecting Circles, as well as the opinion pages of theSan Francisco Chronicleand theNew York Times. She has served two terms on the City of Berkeley Homeless Commission and is an analyst member of the San Francisco Center for Psychoanalysis. She lives with her husband and daughter in Berkeley, California.

Alice FellersAmerican Madnessis a personal memoir of her experience spanning almost 50 years of psychiatric practice. This is an important book that documents the collapse of effective mental health care in America, which has led to inadequate treatment for a large part of the American population. The mental health system has become an ineffective treatment provider of the severely ill, the substance dependent, the poor, and racial minoritl3ª