“For the Mentally Ill, It’s Worse”

The New York Times’ Joe Nocera notes the republication of “Is There No Place on Earth for Me?”, Susan Sheehan’s 1982 book about Maxine Mason’s journey. It is appalling, he writes, “to see what she goes through as a mental patient: the hospitals that overmedicate; the misdiagnoses by doctors after the briefest of examinations; the lack of any kind of safety net when she is not hospitalized. But here’s the worst part: Even though the story Sheehan tells is more than 30 years old, there is only one real difference between then and now for the mentally ill. It’s worse today.”

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