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Breaking Points: Youth Mental Health Crises and How We All Can Help (Ethnographic Studies in Subjectivity)
268 pages, Paperback
Published October 15, 2024
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
November 29, 2024
In Breaking Points, anthropologist Neely Laurenzo Myers makes the case that a change is needed in the way we view and treat young people who undergo mental health treatment following an experience of psychosis. She envisions and maps out a fundamental shift in our understanding. This insightful, compelling and useful ethnography opens up a new way forward to better support recovery.
In a multi-year study of 47 youth in Texas, the majority Latina/o and Black, Myers and her team gained a new understanding of mental health crises by learning from their perspectives: what they were experiencing in the time leading up to the “breaking point,” how they characterized mental health services, and what happened after. Myers argues that the young people undergo a loss of what she calls “moral agency,” and what is needed for recovery is a recuperation of that agency. Moral agency encompasses three dimensions: “autobiographical power … of one’s own life story, […] social bases of respect, […] peopled opportunities by practicing one’s desired social role with intimate others who are willing to let one try and fail and try again” (2024, 15).
Each chapter offers in-depth, thoughtful discussions of research findings based on closely tracking the young people’s experiences. The chapter “Into the Mythos” Myers’ account illustrates how listening respectfully to the young person’s account of what was going on for them up to and including the breaking point supports their moral agency. The work then examines what leads people and their families to delay seeking treatment. While understandable such delays in care can mean poorer outcomes. “Disorientation” makes vivid how deeply upsetting, alienating and further traumatizing emergency hospitalization was for the youth. Such demoralizing intake practices may propel young people away from pursuing mental health services. Case study examples show various pathways to recovery in which the young people recuperate moral agency. “Homecoming” clearly describes how difficult a mental health crisis and diagnosis is for the family and how resources in support of care families provide are needed that are informed by a fuller understanding of the young person’s health needs, including ones relating to moral agency.
As the subtitle to Breaking Points says, “We All Can Help.” Myers concludes that we all can build capacity in the community among faith providers, police, peer health support specialists, and families, so that emerging adulthood for young people beset with psychotic experiences is not a breaking point but a “turning point” where we step up as allies to aid young people’s recovery. Written in a direct and accessible way with a fresh, sound argument that supports for moral agency should be centered in youth mental health treatment and recovery services, this book should be mandatory reading for all professionals interfacing with these young people. It would be an excellent resource to family members, and to the broader community, since mental illness touches all our lives and, as Myers reminds us, all our young people deserve support in their paths to adulthood.
In a multi-year study of 47 youth in Texas, the majority Latina/o and Black, Myers and her team gained a new understanding of mental health crises by learning from their perspectives: what they were experiencing in the time leading up to the “breaking point,” how they characterized mental health services, and what happened after. Myers argues that the young people undergo a loss of what she calls “moral agency,” and what is needed for recovery is a recuperation of that agency. Moral agency encompasses three dimensions: “autobiographical power … of one’s own life story, […] social bases of respect, […] peopled opportunities by practicing one’s desired social role with intimate others who are willing to let one try and fail and try again” (2024, 15).
Each chapter offers in-depth, thoughtful discussions of research findings based on closely tracking the young people’s experiences. The chapter “Into the Mythos” Myers’ account illustrates how listening respectfully to the young person’s account of what was going on for them up to and including the breaking point supports their moral agency. The work then examines what leads people and their families to delay seeking treatment. While understandable such delays in care can mean poorer outcomes. “Disorientation” makes vivid how deeply upsetting, alienating and further traumatizing emergency hospitalization was for the youth. Such demoralizing intake practices may propel young people away from pursuing mental health services. Case study examples show various pathways to recovery in which the young people recuperate moral agency. “Homecoming” clearly describes how difficult a mental health crisis and diagnosis is for the family and how resources in support of care families provide are needed that are informed by a fuller understanding of the young person’s health needs, including ones relating to moral agency.
As the subtitle to Breaking Points says, “We All Can Help.” Myers concludes that we all can build capacity in the community among faith providers, police, peer health support specialists, and families, so that emerging adulthood for young people beset with psychotic experiences is not a breaking point but a “turning point” where we step up as allies to aid young people’s recovery. Written in a direct and accessible way with a fresh, sound argument that supports for moral agency should be centered in youth mental health treatment and recovery services, this book should be mandatory reading for all professionals interfacing with these young people. It would be an excellent resource to family members, and to the broader community, since mental illness touches all our lives and, as Myers reminds us, all our young people deserve support in their paths to adulthood.
March 11, 2025
This book is a must read if you are at all interested in the mental health crisis currently facing young people. Instead of just regurgitating the same stuff that has been said about mental health over and over (too much phone usage, youth are crippled socially, etc.) this book dives so much deeper into the complexities of American culture and how these have perpetuated the problems that plague our youth. As someone currently at the age most of the people interviewed were around during their mental break this book really is so much more honest in its depiction of this generation than anything I have previously read/seen on this topic. I could literally go on for hours about how interesting this book is and highly recommend reading it!
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews