The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a State Hospital Attic

Penney, Darby; Stastny, Peter; Whitaker, Robert; Rinzler, Lisa

ISBN 10: 1934137073 / ISBN 13: 9781934137079

Verlag: Bellevue Literary Press, 2008

Condition Notes: Moderate edge wear. Binding good. May have marking in text. We sometimes source from libraries. We ship in recyclable American-made mailers. 100% money-back guarantee on all orders. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 1738937

Inhaltsangabe:

By the time it closed in 1995 after 126 years of operation, Willard Psychiatric Center, overlooking Seneca Lake in upstate New York, had been home to over 54,000 people. Some were released to their former communities after years of institutionalization, but many more died there. If not for the discovery of more than 400 suitcases filled with patients' belongings in the hospital attic (which led to a 2004 exhibit at the NewYork State Museum in Albany that attracted more than 300,000 visitors and now to this book), their lives would have been lost to history.
In The Lives They Left Behind, the contents of 10 of these suitcases are skillfully examined and compared to the written record to create a moving - and devastating - group portrait of 20th century American psychiatric care. The stories of rich and complex lives not hinted at in the hospital records emerge from a wide array of personal effects - letters to loved ones, photographs of school days and foreign travels, knickknacks, religious tracts, a christening gown, professional photographic equipment, a delicate hand-painted bone china teacup and saucer.
Here are the personal dramas of new immigrants and native-born Americans coping with a host of problems in times of war and economic hardship. They are men and women of different races and ethnicities, among them a young dispossessed German nun, a Scottish nurse and an African-American World War II veteran. The confusion following displacement; the rage or despair that resulted from illness, loss of loved ones or work; and the experience of hearing disembodied voices were only some of the misfortunes that put them on the path to institutionalization, from which most would never escape alive. As it restores the humanity of the individuals it so poignantly evokes, The Lives They Left Behind reveals the vast historical inadequacies of a psychiatric system that has yet to heal itself.

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor:

Darby Penney is an accomplished poet, a national leader in the human rights movement for people with psychiatric disabilities and a former state mental health official who has experienced the mental health system inside and out. Peter Stastny, author of numerous publications, is a psychiatrist and documentary filmmaker. Lisa Rinzler is a prize-winning cinematographer (Three Seasons, Menace II Society, No Direction Home: Bob Dylan) whose photographs illustrate the book alongside reproductions of excerpted medical records and images found among the suitcase contents. Robert Whitaker is the author of Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill.

Bibliografische Details

Titel: The Lives They Left Behind: Suitcases from a...
Verlag: Bellevue Literary Press
Erscheinungsdatum: 2008
Einband: hardcover
Zustand: Good