Did you know that 50% of all people with "mental" disorders had symptoms present before age 14? And, nearly 90% have more than one "mental" disorder. A whopping 1 in 10 college students have some issue affecting brain function, and many more do not even make it into college.
Although the target audience of this book, for marketing purposes, is parents of children, if YOU or your loved one is an ADULT diagnosed with one or more "mental" illnesses, this book is for YOU, too.
Otherwise mentally healthy people can experience sleep problems and/or symptoms of depression, bipolar mood swings, and/or psychosis.
Both my daughters were ill with what is termed "severe and persistent mental illness"--SPMI. They are both fine now - completely recovered - but that did not happen until they were adults and each had been in psychiatric treatment for over a decade. That's why I say that this book is about, and for, ADULTS with illness, and not just children.
When we started on this journey with my daughters, I completely did not understand that DSM (psychiatric) diagnoses are NOT at all like medical diagnoses. They are simply labels based purely on whether the person has symptoms which match a portion of a set of symptoms for that label. These labels are helpful to clinicians when talking about the patient, but the labels say absolutely nothing about what might be causing those symptoms.
And when that very first psychiatrist told me my younger daughter had a non-psychological problem - something in her BIOLOGY was causing her symptoms - but there were no tests to determine what, I only understood that this was biological. What I didn't realize was there WERE tests! Of course, over the years since her very initial diagnosis, more tests have become readily available, but to our chagrin, psychiatric doctors STILL do not run them! They do not even try some easy, benign treatments which have been in psychiatric literature for nearly half-a-century.
This book is just a starting point for you. I encourage you to read it and get ideas for thinking outside-the-psychiatric-box to help YOURSELF or your loved one, whether adult, adolescent, or child. Then explore this website, follow the links, and read more books suggested.
Here are links to articles, information, interviews, and reviews about the book: "It's not Mental"
- Audio Excerpt from Book and Short Chat with Author
- About the book: Part 1
- About the book: Part 2 (from a doctor)
- Author Interview about BOTH Daughters
- Book Awards for "It's Not Mental" (Categories: Biography, Education/Academic, and Best cover design - Non-Fiction)
- Independent Book Review on "Special Needs Parenting"
Property of http://www.itsnotmental.com/
Last Updated: 12 March 2012
No comments:
Post a Comment