Making It Crazy: An Ethnography of Psychiatric Clients in an American Community

Rating:
Summary: Fascinating look into the lives of the severely mentally ill
Review: It has been quite awhile since I've read this book, but I want to tell students, professors, and other people with mental illness like me (I suffer from recurrent depression) that this book gives an excellent description of what it is like to be among the mentally ill and what it is like to deal with chronic mental illness.

The author immerses herself in the lives of a group of patients (clients) at a day treatment setting (which would probably now be horribly called "partial hospitalization") in a Northern city. She shows compassion for the clients, but, as I remember it, she really tells it like it is: there is no glorification of mental health treatment, there is direct honesty about the tough lives of the clients.

I, myself, have been in a very similar setting to the one that Estroff describes, and I know the sense of cameraderie that is fostered, as well as, sadly, for most people, the lack of increased or better functioning that occurs.

Overall, I think that Estroff's book, even though it is deeply descriptive (and meant to be such), nevertheless points out the desperate need for such programs in our society.