DJ Jaffe - Insane consequences: how the mental health industry fails the mentally ill

ADDITIONAL PRAISE FOR INSANE CONSEQUENCES

Insane Consequences does an amazing job explaining the impact of the failed mental health system on the criminal justice system. Every advocate, police chief, sheriff, district attorney, and mayor should read it.

Chief (ret.) Michael Biasotti, author of the International Association Chiefs of Police resolution on Assisted Outpatient Treatment in the care of the severely mentally ill, and a past Distinguished Fellow, US Department of Homeland Security

DJ Jaffe has written a readily accessible and up-to-date book on serious mental disorders that should be a must-read for laypersons interested in mental disorders, family members of mentally ill persons, and patients themselves. A wide variety of mental disorders are described with clarity and graphic case examples. Moreover, the author points out clearly that lack of treatment facilities for the seriously mentally ill has led to their criminalization, with many more of these individuals now in jails than in psychiatric hospitals.

Robert Paul Liberman, MD, Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry, UCLA School of Medicine, and director of the UCLA Psychiatric Rehabilitation Program

In this important, thoroughly researched book, Jaffe exposes what is probably the largest, most audacious bait and switch operation in US history: unbeknownst to the public, what Jaffe calls the mental health industry siphons off billions of taxpayer dollars each year, designed to serve the seriously mentally ill, to scientifically baseless or irrelevant programs (like prevention, when no one has the faintest idea of how to prevent major mental illness). Worse still, the small proportion of funds that go to the seriously ill are used to prevent treatment (under the false flag of civil rights) rather than to provide it.

Rael Jean Isaac, coauthor of Madness in the Streets: How Psychiatry and the Law Abandoned the Mentally Ill

Jaffe's book is to the mental health industry what Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth was to climate change. We can no longer afford to ignore the most seriously ill. My son and all people living with mental illness have a right to treatment. This book provides real solutions that will save money and lives.

Liza Long, author of The Price of Silence: A Mom's Perspective on Mental Illness, a 2015 Books for a Better Life award winner

Jaffe gives us vital answers. There is no other book that so completely identifies, specifically, how the United States is condemning tens of millions of seriously mentally ill citizens to tragic lives of extreme isolation, homelessness, incarceration, violence, suicide, and the lost chance of recovery. Much more than a screed against the mental health industry, lawmakers, the justice system, and an apathetic public, this book provides science-based commonsense answers that work. It should be mandatory reading for all involved in mental illness treatment, public safety, healthcare legislation, the justice system, and helping family caregivers.

Xavier Amador, PhD, author of the international bestseller I Am Not Sick, I Don't Need Help! How to Help Persons with Mental Illness Accept Treatment; former director of Psychology and professor in the Department of Psychiatry, Columbia University; and past member of the board of directors, the National Alliance on Mental Illness

I am proud that Jaffe, a constituent and member of the Harlem chapter of National Alliance on Mental Illness, has been tirelessly advocating to help the seriously mentally ill. Through increased awareness and improved public policy as outlined in this book, we can combat the challenges we face to ameliorate mental health.

Charles Rangel, former representative from New York

In the complicated and often crazy world of mental illness, Jaffe provides important guidance to journalists seeking a sound bite while he conveys controversial information.

Eleanor Clift, Washington correspondent, Daily Beast

Insane Consequences is a thorough accounting of the innumerable tragedies and lost opportunities brought about by America's broken mental health system. This book is the culmination of Jaffe's long history of speaking truth to power and provides a compelling counterargument to those who would attempt to maintain the current status quo.

John Snook, executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center

In Insane Consequences, Jaffe marshals compelling case accounts and empirical data to show how America's mental health systemsuch as it isgrossly misallocates resources by focusing on the worried well at the expense of those with serious brain disorders. One result is that our nation's jails have become de facto psychiatric institutions. This is a serious ethical transgression that Jaffe's hard-hitting account makes impossible to ignore.

Dominic Sisti, PhD, director of the Scattergood Program for Applied Ethics of Behavioral Health Care and assistant professor of medical ethics and health policy at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania

Want to know what's wrong with America's disastrous mental health system? Look no further than Jaffe's thoughtful, clear, and insightful presentation on the shortfalls in a system that tolerates abuse, neglect, and suffering as a matter of official policy. Want to fix the system? Jaffe discusses this in the same straightforward, head-on manner. Insane Consequences is a must for any mental health library. It is a how-to manual for mental health advocates, and a road map for legislators implementing much-needed changes. Well done, Mr. Jaffe.

Stephen B. Seager, MD, producer/director of the award-winning documentary Shattered Families: The Collapse of America's Mental Health System, and author of Behind the Gates of Gomorrah: A Year with the Criminally Insane

Insane Consequences is the first candid book about mental illness that I have read. It really pulls no punches. It speaks the truth about our system, instead of the usual sugar-coated version. You should read this book, even if you are not affected by mental health issues. It's time to start educating the public about mental illness.

Mia St. John, five-time World Boxing Council champion

Published 2017 by Prometheus Books

Insane Consequences: How the Mental Health Industry Fails the Mentally Ill. Copyright 2017 by Mental Illness Policy Org. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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