Essay on Pete Earley’s Book "Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness"

Amerikāņu grāmatas pārskats un analīze par cilvēkiem ar psihiskajām saslimšanām un politiku valstī. The Pete Earley’s book “Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness” is an outstanding insight into “inside” and “outside” worlds of the mental illness. Having experienced frustrating strive to help his son with mental illness, P. Earley lets the reader go through his family’s route of struggling the illness and encourages deeper understanding and empathy. Not only he shows the world of mental illness on personal experience, but also presents the cruel reality of mental health system and “criminalization” of mentally ill based on his yearlong investigation in Miami-Dade County jail. The book highlights the central aspects of mental illness: understanding the illness as cruel destiny, rather than personal choice; the importance of treatment and medication; the dilemma of human rights for mentally ill people; and societal attitude and support versus criminalization and stigma of mentally ill. In this essay I would love to address central issues of mental illness relevant to social work sphere as human rights and social exclusion.