You Are Not Alone: The NAMI Information to Navigating Psychological Well being by Ken Duckworth, NAMI’s medical director, is the primary guide launched by the Nationwide Alliance on Psychological Sickness. The guide contains excerpts from interviews with 130 individuals who both self-identify as having a psychological sickness or have a cherished one who does, and the writer writes, “Psychological sickness and restoration are human experiences, so I think about experience-based proof an authoritative supply for this guide.”
The guide opens with the writer speaking about his historical past with NAMI and his household’s expertise along with his father’s bipolar sickness. All through the guide, he comes throughout as speaking with readers on the identical degree fairly than being an knowledgeable speaking at readers.
The guide is split into 4 elements. The primary half appears at psychological well being circumstances and psychological well being care, the second half focuses on individuals’s experiences with their restoration journeys, the third half focuses on members of the family, and the ultimate half is dedicated to conventional specialists answering generally requested questions.
The writer acknowledges the issues with the DSM diagnostic system, and he’s additionally practical in regards to the issues with the psychological well being care system, or lack thereof: “The psychological well being ‘system’ all through the USA is chaotic and stuffed with gaps. It has lengthy been damaged and fragmented, and in the event you attempt to look ahead to the system to be much less complicated and irritating, you can be ready a really very long time.” The guide talks about medical mannequin and restoration mannequin methods (specializing in signs and dwelling an excellent life, respectively), and the writer encourages a each/and fairly than an both/or method.
Matters lined within the guide included peer help, cultural points, turning into an advocate, and authorized points round issues like involuntary remedy, privateness, and police and legal justice system involvement. The ultimate part included an FAQ chapter with numerous specialists answering questions, in addition to a chapter with clinicians and researchers addressing questions on take care of despair, OCD, borderline character dysfunction, trauma, co-occurring problems, bipolar dysfunction, and psychosis. It felt like loads of disparate issues to cram into two chapters.
There was a chapter on making that means of suicide loss, and there have been a few feedback I discovered fairly fascinating. An interviewee who had misplaced a brother to suicide mentioned “The final engagement he had was with one other one who was speaking to a classmate about divide homework issues, and I discovered him twenty minutes later. Should you’re battling suicidal ideation, you’re not speaking about homework issues.” The writer, whose brother died by suicide, wrote “My brother ordered a pc monitor the day he died, and it arrived the day of his funeral. People who find themselves considering suicide don’t do this.” Besides they do; if the motion hasn’t occurred but, there may be some extent of ambivalence, and duties of dwelling proceed in that house of ambivalence.
Whereas the aim was to be complete, I discovered the guide form of unfocused, and I felt like that detracted from the general usefulness. I’m all for sharing individuals’s tales, however the best way excerpts from the interviews have been pulled collectively (typically a paragraph or two at a time) created a little bit of a hodgepodge that made it arduous to really feel linked to the people. Whereas I can see the potential worth of interviewing 130 individuals and interspersing bits of their feedback all through the guide, I feel it does make it tougher for readers to really feel like they’re actually getting a way of who these persons are.
As you would possibly anticipate from a NAMI guide, there’s a NAMI promotional factor. Though it wasn’t sudden, I did assume it was a bit overdone. One other factor that wasn’t sudden was optimism about restoration and tales of individuals doing rather well. There was loads of acknowledgement that issues have been arduous previously tense, however there wasn’t loads of current tense struggling conveyed. As a present-tense-struggler myself, I discovered it a bit unbalanced, however I feel in all probability loads of the individuals who find yourself studying this guide will just like the restoration emphasis.
At over 400 pages, this guide is a severe dedication. The size and the shortage of focus and construction don’t make an incredible mixture; it tends to advertise skimming, which takes away from the ability of a number of the interviewees’ contributions.
I can see this guide being helpful for members of the family who want to study as a lot as they will about what this entire psychological sickness factor is about, and that’s in all probability the principle audience that NAMI is aiming for. It’s in all probability going to be much less helpful for individuals who’ve been across the block just a few occasions coping with their very own sickness.
You Are Not Alone is out there on Amazon (affiliate hyperlink).
I acquired a reviewer copy from the writer by Netgalley.
You will discover my different critiques on the MH@H guide assessment index or on Goodreads.
