Mental Health Inc: How Corruption, Lax Oversight, and Failed Reforms Endanger Our Most Vulnerable Citizens

The mental health system in America is hardly the front-burner issue it should be, despite lip service about reform after each new tragic mass killing. Yet every American should care deeply about fixing a system a presidential commission reported was in “shambles.” By some measures, 20 percent of Americans have some sort of mental health condition, including the most vulnerable among us—veterans, children, the elderly, prisoners, the homeless.

With Mental Health, Inc., award-winning investigative journalist Art Levine delivers a Shock Doctrine-style exposé of the failures of our out of control, profit-driven mental health system, with a special emphasis on dangerous residential treatment facilities & the failures of the pharmaceutical industry, including the overdrugging of children with antipsychotics & the disastrous maltreatment of veterans with PTSD by the scandal-wracked VA.

Levine provides compelling narrative portraits of victims who needlessly died & some mentally ill people who won unexpected victories in their lives by getting smart, personalized help from “psychosocial” programs that incorporate safe & appropriate prescribing, along with therapy & social support. He contrasts their stories with corrupt Big Pharma executives & researchers who created fraudulent marketing schemes. Levine also tells the dramatic David vs. Goliath stories of a few brave reformers, including Harvard-trained psychiatrist & researcher Dr. Stefan Kruszewski, who has acted as a whistleblower in several major cases, leading to important federal & state settlements; in addition, the book spotlights pioneering clinicians challenging outmoded, drug-and-sedate practices that leave 90 percent of people with serious mental illness too disabled to work.

By taking a comprehensive look at mental health abuses & dangerous, ineffective practices as well as pointing toward solutions for creating a system for effective, proven and compassionate care, Art Levine’