Voluntary Madness
My Year Lost and Found in the Loony Bin
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- £9.49
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- £9.49
Publisher Description
In Norah Vincent's acclaimed first book she described how she spent eighteen months disguised as a man, an experience that ended on a locked ward in a psychiatric hospital. She left determined to learn more about the world of psychiatry and to examine whether different mental institutions would offer different solutions to their patients, but rather than researching it as a journalist she chose to experience it as a patient.
Her journey begins in a huge inner-city hospital, before moving to the calming green carpet of St Lukes where patients are offered a room of their own and a regular jog in the park. From there she moves to Mobius, and a Buddhist-inspired brand of healing where she is forced to swim through West Coast psychobabble to some unexpected conclusions. The result is a fearless and unprecedented view of mental health care - from the inside out.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In narrating Vincent's infiltration (and expos ) of three mental health institutions, Tavia Gilbert, the very versatile performer of both children's and adult audios, strikes all the right notes. She neutrally notes the author's observations of the various environs and delivers an outraged denunciation of the subhuman living conditions and sympathy for the hapless inmates, who, unlike Vincent, rarely if ever escape the system. Gilbert's tone is firm and brisk; a perfect vessel for the depressing litany of indignities to which the mentally ill are subjected. The skillful narration will help even the queasy wend their way to the end of this important work. A Viking hardcover (Reviews, Sept. 29).
