A review by emmaspaperbacks
No One Cares about Crazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America by Ron Powers

dark emotional informative slow-paced

3.0

hard to rate because obviously this book is a mixed account of history and the author’s own experience with his schizophrenic sons (one, the main focus of his memoir portions, killed himself). 

the account of history is fairly well compiled, yet clearly had an air of personal passion which makes complete sense (just be aware of this). unfortunately i got bored with his personal encounters (ahh terrible given the circumstances but true). i wonder if this would have been better split into a book for his personal memoir and a book for the history of psychiatric treatment. 

what the author is saying is of course true and evident - humankind has yet to find a solution for housing and treating people with mental illness. so far, we’ve gone through institutionalization, psychiatric drugs, psychosurgery, and other forms of de-institutionalization. the author’s explanation of how prisons are essentially the new asylum in many ways reigns true today, years after the publication of the book. i did feel as though the author’s only reference for someone experiencing mental illness was his own sons and their specific diagnosis of mental illness. for example, i think he could have included personal encounters of people who experienced institutionalization both forced and voluntary for various mental illness like ocd, depression, bipolar, anxiety, etc. to create a more well rounded perspective of psychiatric hospitals. 

lastly, when looking up this book i saw that the author’s wife was recently murdered. i can’t even imagine the author’s thoughts on this book’s subject matter now. this is a side note but i felt like the author realllly wanted us to feel bad for his son who drove too fast and nearly killed that girl?? that was kinda confusing to me (especially bc it doesn’t sound like he was exhibiting schizophrenia symptoms at that point in time)
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