Psychward

I really enjoyed this book. Once I started reading, I couldn't put it down. An honest and compassionate look at mental illness...the mentally ill themselves, how we (society and individuals) treat them, the institutions in which we house and treat them, the political neglect, etc. An excellent read.

I actually bought this book after reading one of those lists of disgruntled interns talking about the guys that come in after swallowing cocaine to elude the cops. This definitely didn't fit the gallows humor of those web sites, but overall it's a good book about the front lines in the fight against mental illness - a fight that is constantly being undercut by societal fears. Much of the book is set up to give maximum story potential and hence, it feels melodramatic. When the fellow intern that sees the good in everyone and volunteers for the hard luck cases goes to see a patient that gives the narrator worries, he says she'll probably be ok. You just KNOW that she won't be. When the "perfect" 3rd year resident comes into the ward, you know that he'll eventually show his vulnerabilities in a big and dangerous way. And when the psychotic seems to be coming around, it's just too easy to guess that he will go off his meds and turn violent. Still, this is a very enjoyable book for all it's hokiness. While some of it feels dramaticized, it is done in a good way - kind of like the 3rd - 6th episodes of ER, when it stopped being so hardbitten but before it plunged into dangerously saccharine melodrama.

This book is probably not what you think it is. The title might conjure up dangerous psychotics on the loose. Or patients treated brutally by psychotic staff, gone berserk on neuroleptic drugs. Instead, the author simply finds the best in people in very difficult circumstances. He finds the humanity and decency in each of the lost souls who turn up on an LA city hospital ward. One of the most touching and haunting tales is that of the janitor on the ward. There is a need to take a highly critical look of psychiatric--especially psychopharmocologic--treatment, and I think we have such a book in Robert Whitaker's Mad in America (2002). But there is also a need for a book like Psychward to show another side.Edward C GreenHarvard School of Public Health 2004

I worked in the Psych Hospital he is describing and everything he talks about is true! The book is so well written, it reads like a novel. I couldn't put it down