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The no-holds-barred and crucial call to action for America’s broken mental health system, by a prize-winning investigative journalist

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 and the failures of the pharmaceutical industry, including the overdrugging of children with antipsychotics and the disastrous maltreatment of veterans with PTSD by the scandal-wracked VA.

Levine provides compelling narrative portraits of victims who needlessly died and some mentally ill people who won unexpected victories in their lives by getting smart, personalized help from “pyschosocial” programs that incorporate safe and appropriate prescribing, along with therapy and social support. He contrasts their stories with corrupt Big Pharma executives and researchers who created fraudulent marketing schemes. Levine also tells the dramatic David vs. Goliath stories of a few brave reformers, including Harvard-trained psychiatrist and researcher Dr. Stefan Kruszewski, who has acted as a whistleblower in several major cases, leading to important federal and 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 and dangerous, ineffective practices as well as pointing toward solutions for creating a system for effective, proven and compassionate care, Art Levine’s essential Mental Health, Inc. is a call to action for politicians and citizens alike?needed now more than ever. 

The interventions described can be applied in a variety of settings ranging from primary care to specialty care in the context of psychological, psychiatric, nursing, or social work settings. Treatment is organized around a weekly prescribed activity program, with an emphasis on teaching patients strategies for staying motivated and organized in order to ensure adherence to the program. In addition to the actual exercise prescription, treatment is directed toward helping individuals get the most out of exercise by programming post-exercise cognitive processing and exercise-friendly activities.

Introductory chapters of this guide describe the intervention and how to initiate it with patients, while later chapters focus specifically on using exercise to combat depression, including bipolar disorder, as well as stress, worry, and panic. This manual provides an integrated approach to establish exercise programs targeting mood and anxiety disorders and also provides useful cognitive and behavioral interventions designed to support these programs.