Mad in America
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Based on exhaustive research culled from old patient medical records, historical accounts, and government documents, this haunting book raises important questions about our obligations to the mad, what it means to be "insane." and what we value most about the human mind.

"In Mad in America, medical journalist Robert Whitaker reveals an astounding truth: Schizophrenics in the United States currently fare worse than patients in the world's poorest countries, and quite possibly worse than asylum patients did in the early 19th century. With a muckraker's passion, Whitaker argues that modern treatments for the severely mentally ill are just old medicine in new bottles, and that we as a society are deeply deluded about their efficacy." "Tracing over three centuries of "cures" for madness, Whitaker shows how medical therapies have been used to silence patients and dull their minds. In the 18th and 19th centuries, the insane were routinely "spun" until they grew so weak and dizzy they couldn't move, subjected to systematic surgical extractions of their teeth, ovaries and intestines, and often submerged in water or chilled to the point of hypothermia." "Based on exhaustive research culled from old patient medical records, historical accounts, numerous interviews, and hundreds of government documents, Mad in America at last gives voice to generations of patients, demonstrating how the "cures" for severe mental illness have regularly served to deepen their suffering and impair their hope of recovery."--BOOK JACKET.