Mental Health Reform


Book Description

Provides divergent views on issues involving mental health reform in the United States.




Mental Health, Inc.


Book Description

The mental health system in America is hardly the front-burner issue it should be, despite lip service about reform after each new tragic mass killing. Yet every American should care deeply about fixing a system a presidential commission reported was in “shambles.” By some measures, 20 percent of Americans have some sort of mental health condition, including the most vulnerable among us—veterans, children, the elderly, prisoners, the homeless.With Mental Health, Inc., award-winning investigative journalist Art Levine delivers a Shock Doctrine-style exposé of the failures of our out of control, profit-driven mental health system, with a special emphasis on dangerous residential treatment facilities and the failures of the pharmaceutical industry, including the overdrugging of children with antipsychotics and the disastrous maltreatment of veterans with PTSD by the scandal-wracked VA.Levine provides compelling narrative portraits of victims who needlessly died and some mentally ill people who won unexpected victories in their lives by getting smart, personalized help from “pyschosocial” programs that incorporate safe and appropriate prescribing, along with therapy and social support. He contrasts their stories with corrupt Big Pharma executives and researchers who created fraudulent marketing schemes. Levine also tells the dramatic David vs. Goliath stories of a few brave reformers, including Harvard-trained psychiatrist and researcher Dr. Stefan Kruszewski, who has acted as a whistleblower in several major cases, leading to important federal and state settlements; in addition, the book spotlights pioneering clinicians challenging outmoded, drug-and-sedate practices that leave 90 percent of people with serious mental illness too disabled to work.By taking a comprehensive look at mental health abuses and dangerous, ineffective practices as well as pointing toward solutions for creating a system for effective, proven and compassionate care, Art Levine’s essential Mental Health, Inc. is a call to action for politicians and citizens alike—needed now more than ever.




Health Care Reform


Book Description

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, which was passed in March 2010, includes provisions to expand the scope of mental health care available to most Americans. What do psychiatrists need to know about the provisions of the health reform law to practice most effectively and best serve their patients? Health Care Reform: A Primer for Psychiatrists is a compilation of resources designed to educate psychiatrists and other mental health professionals about key elements of the reform law. At its core are three articles from a special section on health reform that appeared in the November 2010 issue of Psychiatric Services. Each article addresses a key question for the organization and financing of mental health and substance abuse care under health care reform: How should states set up their health exchanges to ensure that the needs of people with mental illness are addressed? Will coverage of mental health services be adequate under the law's provisions? Can integration of mental and physical health care -- a particular focus of health reform -- improve the quality and efficiency of care for people with mental illness? This book also provides a list of additional readings, with links to the source documents. These include "backgrounder" articles published in Psychiatric News, analyses and commentaries from the American Journal of Psychiatry and Psychiatric Services, and white papers and other useful documents compiled by staff of the APA Department of Government Relations.




Fighting for Recovery


Book Description

An essential history of the recovery movement for people with mental illness, and an inspiring account of how former patients and advocates challenged a flawed system and encouraged mental health activism This definitive people’s history of the recovery movement spans the 1970s to the present day and proves to readers just how essential mental health activism is to every person in this country, whether you have a current psychiatric diagnosis or not. In Fighting for Recovery, professor and mental health advocate Phyllis Vine tells the history of the former psychiatric patients, families, and courageous activists who formed a patients’ liberation movement that challenged medical authority and proved to the world that recovery from mental illness is possible. Mental health discussions have become more common in everyday life, but there are still enormous numbers of people with psychiatric illness in jails and prisons or who are experiencing homelessness—proving there is still progress to be made. This is a book for you A friend or family member of someone with serious psychiatric diagnoses, to understand the history of mental health reform A person struggling with their own diagnoses, to learn how other patients have advocated for themselves An activist in the peer-services network: social workers, psychologists, and peer counselors, to advocate for change in the treatment of psychiatric patients at the institutional and individual levels A policy maker, clinical psychologist, psychiatric resident, or scholar who wants to become familiar with the social histories of mental illness




Improving the Quality of Health Care for Mental and Substance-Use Conditions


Book Description

Each year, more than 33 million Americans receive health care for mental or substance-use conditions, or both. Together, mental and substance-use illnesses are the leading cause of death and disability for women, the highest for men ages 15-44, and the second highest for all men. Effective treatments exist, but services are frequently fragmented and, as with general health care, there are barriers that prevent many from receiving these treatments as designed or at all. The consequences of this are seriousâ€"for these individuals and their families; their employers and the workforce; for the nation's economy; as well as the education, welfare, and justice systems. Improving the Quality of Health Care for Mental and Substance-Use Conditions examines the distinctive characteristics of health care for mental and substance-use conditions, including payment, benefit coverage, and regulatory issues, as well as health care organization and delivery issues. This new volume in the Quality Chasm series puts forth an agenda for improving the quality of this care based on this analysis. Patients and their families, primary health care providers, specialty mental health and substance-use treatment providers, health care organizations, health plans, purchasers of group health care, and all involved in health care for mental and substanceâ€"use conditions will benefit from this guide to achieving better care.




The Mental Hygiene Movement


Book Description







Mental Health Care Financing in the Process of Change


Book Description

Originally presented as the author's thesis (doctoral)--Wirtschaftsuniversiteat Wien, 2004.







The Dilemma of Federal Mental Health Policy


Book Description

Severe and persistent mental illnesses are among the most pressing health and social problems in contemporary America. Recent estimates suggest that more than three million people in the U.S. have disabling mental disorders. The direct and indirect costs of their care exceed 180 billion dollars nationwide each year. Effective treatments and services exist, but many such individuals do not have access to these services because of limitations in mental health and social policies. For nearly two centuries Americans have grappled with the question of how to serve individuals with severe disorders. During the second half of the twentieth century, mental health policy advocates reacted against institutional care, claiming that community care and treatment would improve the lives of people with mental disorders. Once the exclusive province of state governments, the federal government moved into this policy arena after World War II. Policies ranged from those focused on mental disorders, to those that focused more broadly on health and social welfare. In this book, Gerald N. Grob and Howard H. Goldman trace how an ever-changing coalition of mental health experts, patients' rights activists, and politicians envisioned this community-based system of psychiatric services. The authors show how policies shifted emphasis from radical reform to incremental change. Many have benefited from this shift, but many are left without the care they require.