Recovery's edge: an ethnography of mental health care and moral agency PDF
Preview Recovery's edge: an ethnography of mental health care and moral agency
RECOVERY’S EDGE an ethnography of mental health care and moral agency Neely Laurenzo Myers “Choice, moral agency, empowerment, ‘patient-centered’ care, user-run services, peer staff, recoveries! All so easily envisioned on paper, in mental health policies, and at conferences. As Myers shows us, doing the work to make these ideas happen in daily life is inestimably trying, unpredictable, unruly, and tumultuous for all concerned.” —Sue E. Estroff, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, author of Making It Crazy: An Ethnography of Psychiatric Clients in an American Community “Well written and morally compelling, this rich ethnography details both the new promise of recovery from schizophrenia and its pitfalls in an American context. In the process, it explains how the experience of schizophrenia is shaped for so many by American values of individualism, independence, and work.” —Tanya M. Luhrmann, Stanford University, author of Of Two Minds: An Anthropologist Looks at American Psychiatry “In public mental health, no term is more troubled and unsettled than recovery—and with the onset of ‘managed behavioral care’ matters are likely to get worse. But one of its versions, in one of its trial stagings, has been graced with an attentive chronicler. Neely Myers has captured the thrilling promise, rampant misunderstandings, mundane messiness, and institutional inertia occasioned (or exposed) by recovery. . . . This is public- interest ethnography with head and heart fiercely engaged.” —Kim Hopper, Nathan Kline Institute for Psychiatric Research, author of Reckoning with Homelessness RECOVERY’S EDGE RECOVERY’S EDGE AN ETHNOGRAPHY OF MENTAL HEALTH CARE AND MORAL AGENCY Neely Laurenzo Myers VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY PRESS NASHVILLE © 2015 by Vanderbilt University Press Nashville, Tennessee 37235 All rights reserved First printing 2015 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Manufactured in the United States of America Recipient of the Norman L. and Roselea J. Goldberg Prize from Vanderbilt University Press for the best book in the area of medicine. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data on file LC control number 2015010083 LC classification number RA790.55 Dewey class number 362.2΄2—dc23 ISBN 978-0-8265-2079-1 (hardcover) ISBN 978-0-8265-2080-7 (paperback) ISBN 978-0-8265-2081-4 (ebook) For Allen, and love that knows no bounds CONTENTS Acknowledgments ix A Note on Contested Terms xiii 1. Orientation 1 2. No Direction Home 15 3. Step One: Take Your Medications 57 4. Step Two: Self-Advocate 87 5. Step Three: Work for Intimacy 121 6. Recovery’s Edge 141 7. Over the Edge 155 Appendix. Comparison of Traditional and Recovery-as-Advocated Care 165 Notes 167 References 169 Index 187
The list of books you might like
