Transforming Madness: New Lives for People Living with Mental Illness » (1st Edition)

Jay Neugeboren has published seven novels, two short story collections, and two memoirs, including 1997's acclaimed Imagining Robert, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. His stories and essays have appeared in more than a hundred magazines and have been reprinted in more than fifty anthologies. He has won numerous awards for his work, as well as fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. He is a professor and writer-in-residence at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

"Transforming Madness is the most uplifting, engaging, and informative story about the good news related to helping people with severe mental illness that I have ever read."—Dr. William A. Anthony, Director, Boston University Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation

Library Journal

"Drugs are not enough" might telegraph the message of this major survey of our mental health system, its virtues and sins, and its patients, therapists, and managers. Neugeboren, a novelist, guardian/biographer of his mentally ill brother (Imagining Robert, LJ 11/1/96), and teacher (Univ. of Massachusetts), brings out the possibilities for life after--and with--serious mental illness. He tells the stories of many individuals who are living well despite terrible psychiatric histories, thanks to programs that include good psychotherapy and social support along with psychiatric medication. Unfortunately, many programs lack an essential human element, and the drive for pharmaceutical research to make psychosis medically curable just like other illnesses leaves psychotherapy, rehabilitation, and follow-up care in the shadows. Neugeboren provides a literate, lively guide, rich in history, biography, and economics as well as psychology and neurochemistry. This should be on the short list of books on mental health that can be called great. Recommended for all libraries.--E. James Lieberman, George Washington Univ. Sch. of Medicine, Washington, DC Copyright 1999 Cahners Business Information.