The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic - Softcover

Penney, Darby; Stastny, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1934137146 ISBN 13: 9781934137147

Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press, 2009

Synopsis

"The Lives They Left Behind is a deeply moving testament to the human side of mental illness, and of the narrow margin which so often separates the sane from the mad. It is a remarkable portrait, too, of the life of a psychiatric asylum--the sort of community in which, for better and for worse, hundreds of thousands of people lived out their lives. Darby Penney and Peter Stastny's careful historical (almost archaeological) and biographical reconstructions give us unique insight into these lives which would otherwise be lost and, indeed, unimaginable to the rest of us."-Oliver Sacks, M.D., Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry, Columbia University Medical Center, Columbia University Artist, and author of Musicophilia "The haunting thing about the suitcase owners is that it's so easy to identify with them."-Newsweek "In their poignant detail the items helped rescue these individuals from the dark sprawl of anonymity."-The New York Times "[The authors] spent 10 years piecing together ...the lives these patients lived before they were nightmarishly stripped of their identities." -Newsday More than four hundred abandoned suitcases filled with patients' belongings were found when Willard Psychiatric Center closed in 1995 after 125 years of operation. They are skillfully examined here and compared to the written record to create a moving-and devastating-group portrait of twentieth-century American psychiatric care.

About this title

About the Author:

Coauthor of The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic, Darby Penney is a national leader in the human rights movement for people with psychiatric disabilities and a former state mental health official. An experienced trainer and qualitative researcher with a background in state mental health planning, Darby has written, presented and consulted nationally and internationally on a wide range of issues concerning empowerment, inclusion, rights, and other topics. She is the President and Executive Director of the Community Consortium.

Coauthor of The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic, Peter Stastny is a psychiatrist and documentary filmmaker who has advocated for radical changes in the mental health system and worked on several transformative demonstration projects in New York and around the world. He has collaborated with Darby Penney and other experts-by-experience on spreading self-help and empowerment programs, spearheaded the employment of ex-patients in alternative services, and is a founder of the International Network for Alternatives and Recovery (INTAR). Peter was on the faculty of the Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Columbia University and continues to teach and work in New York City.

About this edition

• Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 1934137146
• ISBN 13: 9781934137147
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208