Making It Crazy: An Ethnography of Psychiatric Clients in an American Community PDF
Preview Making It Crazy: An Ethnography of Psychiatric Clients in an American Community
Sue E. Estroff Making An Ethnography of Psychiatric Clients in an American Community Making it Craz y An Ethnography of Psychiatric Clients in an American Community Sue E. Estroff Foreword by H. Richard Lamb A recent Time magazine article refers to Sue Estroff as "the first live-in scientific observer to spend an extended period with a growing new cadre of mental patients: those who have been, in psychiatric jargon, 'deinstitutional- ized.'" This fascinating, important book is the result of her observations. It describes agroup of chronic psychiatric clients as they attempt lifeoutside amentalhospital. Howdotheyfeel about their lives as negatively different mem- bers ofour culture? What are theirsubsistence strategies? How do they experience the treat- ment program designed to prevent their hos- pitalization and enhance their quality of life? What contributions do sociocultural factors make to their healing andapparent inabilityto make any other way than "crazy"? How can it an anthropologist work in such a setting and resolve the ethical and tactical dilemmas that exist? What does the research experience re- veal aboutthisotherculture in themaking,and how can the fieldworker learn these lessons without"going native"? Theseandmanymore questions are answered about this "Catch-22" world of paradoxes and ricocheting realities that keep the clients socioculturally "crazy." The lessons to be learned from Dr. Estroff's ethnography are disturbing. Inourattempts to heal and help we may be contributingtomain- taining a way of life that we characterize as bleak and filled with anxiety and failure. The LCOjO Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2011 http://www.archive.org/details/nnakingitcrazyethOOestr MAKING CRAZY IT MAKING CRAZY IT AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF PSYCHIATRIC CLIENTS IN AN AMERICAN COMMUNITY Sue E. Estroff Foreword by H. Richard Lamb, M.D. UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA PRESS Berkeley Los Angeles London UniversityofCalifornia Press Berkeleyand Los Angeles, California University ofCalifornia Press, Ltd. London. England © Copyright 1981 by The Regentsofthe UniversityofCalifornia LibraryofCongress Cataloging in Publication Data EstrofT,Sue E Makingit crazv. Bibliography:p. 289 Includes index. 1. Mentally ill—Rehabilitation—United States. 2. Community mental health services—United States. 3. Sheltered workshops- United States. 4. Supplemental security income program—United States. 5. Psychiatric research—Field work. I. Title RC439.5.E84 362.2'2'0973 79-64660 ISBN 0-520-03963-7 Printed in the United StatesofAmerica 12 3456789
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