- ISBN13: 9781594868818
- Condition: NEW
- Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.
Product Description
In Within Our Reach: Ending the Mental Health Crisis, Rosalynn Carter and coauthors Susan K. Golant and Kathryn E. Cade render an insightful, unsparing assessment of the state of mental health. Mrs. Carter has been deeply invested in this issue since her husband’s gubernatorial campaign when she saw firsthand the horrific, dehumanizing treatment of people with mental illnesses.
Using stories from her 35 years of advocacy to springboard into a discussion of the larger issues at hand, Carter crafts an intimate and powerful account of a subject previously shrouded in stigma and shadow, surveying the dimensions of an issue that has affected us all. She describes a system that continues to fail those in need, even though recent scientific breakthroughs with mental illness have potential to help most people lead more normal lives.
Within Our Reach is a seminal, searing, and ultimately optimistic look at how far we’ve come since Carter’s days on the c… More >>
Within Our Reach: Ending the Mental Health Crisis
May 17th, 2010 at 4:50 am
Rosalynn Carter’s “Within Our Reach” is well written argument for common sense reforms of the US mental health system. Based on her over 35-years of mental health reform advocacy she presents a range of reforms (based on research and model programs) that she convincingly argues would lead to better results at less cost. As her long history as mental health reform advocate shows this is a hard problem and one that requires a degree of political will that we have not been able to summon as a society.
The book is well organized and thoughtful in presenting a range of excellent arguments to break down the stigma encountered by those with mental illness and for better mental health care for vulnerable populations such as children and the elderly. The chapter discussing how the trauma of military combat or natural disaster can lead to mental illness such as PTSD and how poorly the military has dealt with some of these mental health issues delivers an appropriate emotional punch. Her discussion of the many mentally ill who are jailed or homeless shows that our current system is a failure. Carter argues for a variety of improved mental health programs such as crisis intervention teams, mental health courts, mental health case management and better police training in ways that will make you say “of course we need to do this.”
Rating: 5 / 5
May 17th, 2010 at 6:12 am
If only some of these suggestions were widely implemented in our country. After reading about mental health care resources under Obamacare it looks like many essential services will be cut.
Many mentally ill people can be helped and can lead full lives. It is really sad that a country as rich as ours essentially ignores these people.
Mrs. Carter did a great job with personal stories and possible solutions. I will keep this book for the references which are thorough.
Rating: 4 / 5
May 17th, 2010 at 6:47 am
Now to get Health Care passed so everyone with Mental Illness can be helped!
This subject is near and dear to my heart, as I have an 18 year old son with bi-polar disorder. It is difficult to watch ones you love suffer. Especially with an illness that is hard to diagnose, Hard to get the help they need and the Meds are so darn expensive!
Rosalynn Carter has some terrific ideas in this book. Now to get Insurance and our government to read this book!
Rating: 5 / 5
May 17th, 2010 at 7:32 am
Former First Lady Rosalynn Carter has long been a staunch advocate for the mentally ill. In “Within Our Reach,” she details some of the reasons that improvements for their care recommended more than 30 years ago still have not been implemented, and why the mental health crisis has escalated.
One cannot watch the news or read the papers without seeing stories about returning veterans suffering with post-traumatic stress disorder in numbers greater than ever seen before, and how their promised safety net fails them. TV dramas portray the mentally ill as dangerous (despite the fact that one in four people suffers mental illness and only a tiny minority of such patients are dangerous at all). There is enormous stigma aimed at the mentally ill, which impacts their ability to seek treatment.
Carter talks about programs that are helping (she acknowledges that not all people are helped by medication and that psychotherapy is not always available), as well as new technologies that show the hyperactive prefrontal cortex (where thinking occurs) in those with clinical depression. She also talks about the importance of peer support advocacy, where people who have experienced mental illness help others in the same situation.
It’s not all dry and clinical, though; Carter shares stories from her own childhood, as well as personal histories that mentally ill people have bravely shared with her.
This book is an important one to read if you care about the mentally ill in your community, your family and the world.
(Review based on uncorrected advance proof.)
Rating: 5 / 5
May 17th, 2010 at 9:27 am
Rosalynn Carter has an informed, intelligent, and well-documented overview of what happens to people described as having mental health problems. The irony of her title lies in the fact that she spends considerable time demonstrating the U.S. has no mental health ’system’ and that people who suffer from various non-physical disorders that interfere with developing into personhood, yet titles her book ‘Within Our Reach.’ Yes, greatly improving mental health care is within our reach, but many alarming statistics show that the ‘reach’ may be very far, and beyond our abilities as a society to get there any time soon. With a rather anarchic system of treating people in need of mental health care-whether it’s minor such as a problem of ‘adjustment’ or serious, like bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, etc., there seems very little predictive ability to figure out just who will get better and who won’t. Access is one problem, of course. But even with facilities and staff, and money, there doesn’t seem to be a ‘national will’ to do anything about this serious problem as levels of depression, suicide and the rest increase. R. Carter focuses in part of stigma, and while it is not as bad as it was, it’s still there. It also seems that we are not training enough mental health professionals. According to the book, the average age of an AMerican psychiatrist is 57. What’s going on? Is it that the mental health professions don’t pay enough? Or is it that people entering medicine, health care, etc., have the same attitudes as much of the rest of the population, i.e., “It’s yukky to have patients with mental health problems.” Carter cites numerous experts and policy makers (or should we say policy recommenders?) since there’s lots of policy but not much listening to it, it seems. If it’s true that only 1/3rd of children with mental health problems get treated for them; if there’s a wide gap between quality mental health care among the affluent and the poor, if people still think “mental illness” is a word to be used in whispers, there’s still a lot of reaching to do. R. Carter does note many well-known Americans from politicians to CEO’s who have made their mental health problems known. This is very important. For a general assessment of the major issues, this is a good layperson’s book. Thankfuly Rosylann Carter’s name is on the book, which will encourage sales. Maybe Oprah will promulgate it. However, the title of the book should not be taken as an optimistic rave; rather a declarative statement: improvements are within our reach. But we have to reach!
Rating: 4 / 5