You Are Not Alone: The NAMI Information to Navigating Psychological Well being by Ken Duckworth, NAMI’s medical director, is the primary guide launched by the Nationwide Alliance on Psychological Sickness. The guide consists of excerpts from interviews with 130 individuals who both self-identify as having a psychological sickness or have a liked one who does, and the writer writes, “Psychological sickness and restoration are human experiences, so I contemplate experience-based proof an authoritative supply for this guide.”
The guide opens with the writer speaking about his historical past with NAMI and his household’s expertise together with his father’s bipolar sickness. All through the guide, he comes throughout as speaking with readers on the identical degree somewhat than being an skilled speaking at readers.
The guide is split into 4 elements. The primary half seems at psychological well being circumstances and psychological well being care, the second half focuses on individuals’s experiences with their restoration journeys, the third half focuses on relations, and the ultimate half is dedicated to conventional specialists answering generally requested questions.
The writer acknowledges the failings with the DSM diagnostic system, and he’s additionally practical in regards to the issues with the psychological well being care system, or lack thereof: “The psychological well being ‘system’ all through the USA is chaotic and stuffed with gaps. It has lengthy been damaged and fragmented, and when you attempt to anticipate the system to be much less complicated and irritating, you’ll be ready a really very long time.” The guide talks about medical mannequin and restoration mannequin methods (specializing in signs and residing an excellent life, respectively), and the writer encourages a each/and somewhat than an both/or method.
Subjects lined within the guide included peer assist, cultural points, changing into an advocate, and authorized points round issues like involuntary remedy, privateness, and police and legal justice system involvement. The ultimate part included an FAQ chapter with varied specialists answering questions, in addition to a chapter with clinicians and researchers addressing questions on look after melancholy, OCD, borderline persona dysfunction, trauma, co-occurring issues, bipolar dysfunction, and psychosis. It felt like lots of disparate issues to cram into two chapters.
There was a chapter on making which means of suicide loss, and there have been a few feedback I discovered fairly fascinating. An interviewee who had misplaced a brother to suicide stated “The final engagement he had was with one other one that was speaking to a classmate about methods to divide homework issues, and I discovered him twenty minutes later. Should you’re battling suicidal ideation, you’re not speaking about homework issues.” The writer, whose brother died by suicide, wrote “My brother ordered a pc monitor the day he died, and it arrived the day of his funeral. People who find themselves considering suicide don’t do this.” Besides they do; if the motion hasn’t occurred but, there may be a point of ambivalence, and duties of residing proceed in that house of ambivalence.
Whereas the objective was to be complete, I discovered the guide sort of unfocused, and I felt like that detracted from the general usefulness. I’m all for sharing individuals’s tales, however the best way excerpts from the interviews had been pulled collectively (typically a paragraph or two at a time) created a little bit of a hodgepodge that made it arduous to really feel linked to the people. Whereas I can see the potential worth of interviewing 130 individuals and interspersing bits of their feedback all through the guide, I believe it does make it more durable for readers to really feel like they’re actually getting a way of who these individuals are.
As you would possibly count on from a NAMI guide, there’s a NAMI promotional factor. Though it wasn’t sudden, I did assume it was just a little overdone. One other factor that wasn’t sudden was optimism about restoration and tales of individuals doing rather well. There was loads of acknowledgement that issues have been arduous up to now tense, however there wasn’t lots of current tense struggling conveyed. As a present-tense-struggler myself, I discovered it a bit unbalanced, however I believe most likely lots of the individuals who find yourself studying this guide will just like the restoration emphasis.
At over 400 pages, this guide is a severe dedication. The size and the dearth of focus and construction don’t make an important mixture; it tends to advertise skimming, which takes away from the ability of among the interviewees’ contributions.
I can see this guide being helpful for relations who wish to study as a lot as they will about what this complete psychological sickness factor is about, and that’s most likely the primary audience that NAMI is aiming for. It’s most likely going to be much less helpful for individuals who’ve been across the block a couple of instances coping with their very own sickness.
You Are Not Alone is obtainable on Amazon (affiliate hyperlink).
I acquired a reviewer copy from the writer via Netgalley.
You could find my different evaluations on the MH@H guide evaluation index or on Goodreads.
