This definitive people’s history of the recovery movement spans the 1970s to the present day and proves to readers just how essential mental health activism is to every person in this country, whether you have a current psychiatric diagnosis or not.
In Fighting for Recovery, professor and mental health advocate Phyllis Vine tells the history of the former psychiatric patients, families, and courageous activists who formed a patients’ liberation movement that challenged medical authority and proved to the world that recovery from mental illness is possible.
Mental health discussions have become more common in everyday life, but there are still enormous numbers of people with psychiatric illness in jails and prisons or who are experiencing homelessness—proving there is still progress to be made.
This is a book for you
A friend or family member of someone with serious psychiatric diagnoses, to understand the history of mental health reform
A person struggling with their own diagnoses, to learn how other patients have advocated for themselves
An activist in the peer-services network: social workers, psychologists, and peer counselors, to advocate for change in the treatment of psychiatric patients at the institutional and individual levels
A policy maker, clinical psychologist, psychiatric resident, or scholar who wants to become familiar with the social histories of mental illness
Contents
Dramatis Personae
Acronyms and Abbreviations
A Note on Language
INTRODUCTION
BJ’s Story
PART 1: SETTING THE STAGE
CHAPTER 1
Tear ’Em Down
CHAPTER 2
“Nothing About Us Without Us”
CHAPTER 3
Building Opportunities for Community Care
CHAPTER 4
Because of Our Sons
CHAPTER 5
A First Lady’s Law
PART 2: THE CHALLENGES
CHAPTER 6
With Blinders On
CHAPTER 7
Finding a Strategic Vision
CHAPTER 8
This Is America’s Shame
CHAPTER 9
The Gentlemen from Kentucky
CHAPTER 10
Dueling Diagnoses
CHAPTER 11
The Soul’s Frail Dwelling House
CHAPTER 12
The Clozapine Story—Risk-Benefit or Risky Benefits
PART 3: SOLUTIONS
CHAPTER 13
Building a Village
CHAPTER 14
Leadership in the Service of Peers
CHAPTER 15
Stand on Cue
CHAPTER 16
The Impracticalities of the Situation
CHAPTER 17
A Vintage Year
CHAPTER 18
Recovery and Wellness
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
A Note on Sources
Notes
Index
“In this essential history, Phyllis Vine recounts the long movement for liberation and recovery of people with mental illness and those who’ve led this imperative and incredible work.” —Karla J. Strand, Ms.
“As I spoke with historian and journalist Phyllis Vine, I kept thinking of Howard Zinn . . . In true Zinn-ian fashion, Vine’s book doesn’t hesitate to rip a beloved American leader down from a pedestal in order to relay the facts.” —Matthew Rozsa, Salon“[A] must-read . . . for anyone who wants to understand how the mental health field has developed and where it must go in the future.” —Ron Manderscheid, National Association of County Behavioral Health and Developmental Disability Directors
“Fighting for Recovery offers an inspiring reminder of all that it has taken to move mental health policy and public understanding from a view of permanent disability, illness, isolation, and marginalization to one of wellness, recovery, self-determination, and community success. Its historic sweep details the development of our movement over decades and provides a vivid reminder that the fight for recovery and rights requires us to stay vigilant.” —Harvey Rosenthal, CEO, New York Association of Psychiatric Rehabilitation Services
“Fighting for Recovery is an astonishing narrative of the effort to undo centuries of mistreatment of people struggling to recover from serious psychiatric struggles and disabilities. Vine captures the incredible fights, skirmishes, and out-and-out war between the players (ex-patients, families, the psychiatric establishment, other clinicians, the NIMH, legislators, presidential commissions, and scientists) over the past seventy years. Full of stories, and written in a crisp and clear fashion, it sets the reader right in the middle of the fracas. This is a one-of-a-kind guide for understanding the complex fight to create healing and caring environments, and a clarion call for the next generations to finish the job.” —Dr. Courtenay Harding, former director, Center for Rehabilitation and Recovery at the Coalition of Behavioral Health Agencies
“Phyllis Vine has assembled a long-overdue history of the mental health rights movement in America that is both poignant and scholarly. As this story makes clear, mental health reformers, starting with the patients themselves, have waged a furious struggle for decades just to earn a seat at the table. Real change, including the widespread adoption of models of care that promote hope and recovery, is a cause that continues today. Fighting for Recovery is a singular accomplishment and a clear-eyed guide for anyone who aspires to understand why we have the mental health system we have and how to repair it.” —Steve Coe, former CEO of Community Access
“As the daughter of a father who suffered from schizophrenia, I lived the challenges that Phyllis Vine documents so vividly in Fighting for Recovery. Treated with a variety of electroshock treatments and pills, he found his recovery was more dream than reality. With the passage of fifty years, Vine’s book finally gives me hope.” —Arlene Notoro Morgan, assistant dean, Klein College of Media and Communications at Temple University, and advisory member, Rosalynn Carter Journalism Fellowship on Mental Health
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