Managing Madness in the Community: The Challenge of Contemporary Mental Health Care (Critical Issues in Health and Medicine) - Softcover

Dobransky, Kerry Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0813563089 ISBN 13: 9780813563084

Publisher: Rutgers University Press, 2014

Synopsis

While mental illness and mental health care are increasingly recognised and accepted in today’s society, awareness of the most severely mentally ill - as well as those who care for them - is still dominated by stereotypes. Managing Madness in the Community dispels the myth. Readers will see how treatment options often depend on the social status, race and gender of both clients and carers; how ideas in the field of mental health care - conflicting priorities and approaches - actually affect what happens on the ground; and how, amid the competing demands of clients and families, government agencies, bureaucrats and advocates, the fragmented American mental health system really works - or doesn’t.

In the wake of movies like One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest and Shutter Island, most people picture the severely or chronically mentally ill being treated in cold, remote and forbidding facilities. But the reality is very different. Today the majority of deeply troubled mental patients get treatment in nonprofit community organisations. And it is to two such organisations in the Midwest that this study looks for answers. Drawing upon a wealth of unique evidence - five months of ethnographic observations, 91 interviews with clients and workers and a range of documents - Managing Madness in the Community lays bare the sometimes disturbing nature and effects of our overly complex and disconnected mental health system.

Kerry Michael Dobransky examines the practical strategies organisations and their clients use to manage the often-conflicting demands of a host of constituencies, laws and regulations. Bringing to light the challenges confronting patients and staff of the community-based institutions that bear the brunt of caring for the mentally ill, his book provides a useful broad framework that will help researchers and policymakers understand the key forces influencing the mental health services system today.

About this title

Review:

"Beyond being readable and engaging, this book is unique in its use of organizational theory to elucidate key features of the mental health system. The focus on institutional fragmentation is very original, and important from a policy perspective."--Teresa L. Scheid "University of North Carolina at Charlotte "

"In this interesting new book, Dobransky carefully explores the often contradictory institutional logics of community-based psychiatric care and offers fresh insights on how these competing views shape our fragmented system of community mental healthcare."
--Eric R. Wright "professor of sociology and public health, Georgia State University "

"Dobransky's willingness to question the currently received wisdom about the value of currently popular service approaches and his use of a rich dataset both attest to the book's potential."
--Russell K. Schutt "University of Massachusetts Boston "

"Managing Madness in the Community is a timely read, presenting severe persistent mental illness (SPMI) and the delivery of community mental health in clear, understandable terms. Recommended."--Choice

"Provides important insights into the mental health system in the United States."--American Journal of Sociology

"Provides important insights into the challenges workers and clients face in the mental health care system. Sociologists and mental health care professionals, including policy makers, will find Dobransky's work of particular interest."--The Oral History Review

About the Author:

Kerry Michael Dobransky is an assistant professor of sociology at James Madison University.

About this edition

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0813563089
• ISBN 13: 9780813563084
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 192