Street Crazy : America's Mental Health Tragedy

by Stephen B. Seager

STREET CRAZY recounts one psychiatrist's experience with the mentally ill, who have often become homeless because of their disease. Using clear, straight-forward language, Dr. Stephen B. Seager explains brain disease, tells the often disturbing history of the mentally ill, and shows how, through a series of well-meaning legal mishaps, our most vulnerable citizens have been abandoned to the streets. By following Dr. Seager as he unravels the mystery behind John Doe, a sick young man brought to the hospital by the police, the reader will come to understand the degradation and suffering of the chronically mentally ill and their families, as well as the frustration and confusion experienced by those most intimately involved with caring for the homeless mentally ill. Finally, the author suggests some real action that we, as U.S. citizens, can take to solve this morally untenable but seemingly insurmountable dilemma.

Genres: Nonfiction, Mental Illness

216 pages, Paperback

First published November 30, 2000

About the author

Stephen Seager was born in Ogden, Utah, descended from Mormon pioneers. He grew up in Daly City, California, a San Francisco suburb. Seager graduated from University of California at Davis and received his MD degree from Hahnemann Medical College in Philadelphia. He worked as an Emergency Room physician for ten years which inspired his first two books, and then returned to residency training for four years and became a psychiatrist. Seager wrote of his internship in Psychward: A Year Behind Locked Doors. Seager is a board-certified psychiatrist employed at Napa State Hospital in Napa, California. From this experience comes his newest book to be released September 16, 2014, entitled "Gates of Gomorrah; A Year with the Criminally Insane".
He lives in Northern California with his wife and son; they are all competitive badminton players. Four dogs and two cats have kindly consented to share their lovely home with Seager and his family.

Reviews

[Rebecca · Rating 2 out of 5]

As a psychiatrist reading this book, I have mixed feelings about it. The book is at its best when Dr. Seager explores the mental health care history and current system, explaining why things work (or don't) and what can be done to change the system. The melodramatic, bombastic writing gets in the way. The patient stories seem picked for shock value, and while it is effective for layman readers, it is tedious. I was hoping for more systems information and discussion about change. I also didn't see a disclaimer that patient names were changed; I hope they were, as it seems opportunistic if they were not. Some of the medication references are off (Neurontin is not used as monotherapy in bipolar disorder), but this was written seven years ago, so he deserves some slack. It's an interesting read and would have been much better had it been more about the American Mental Health Tragedy and less about Dr. Seager's countertransference, family issues, and titillating case stories.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

My employer offers a monthly book club and the topics vary but usually revolve around business best practices and leadership. A colleague, also a mental health professional, suggested this one. It's a very easy and quick read and was actually quite interesting. The author is a psychiatrist and he weaves the history of mental health care with medical information and his personal story as a doctor working in a public sector hospital in Los Angeles County. It's not a pretty picture. Consider the book in the same vein as Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" or Upton Sinclair's "The Jungle". The information is probably now somewhat dated but the point of it remains clear and salient: how the seriously mentally ill homeless population is being treated in this country is not only a failure, but morally repugnant. In my opinion, any efforts to help this population that falls short of housing and weekly case/medical management is nothing more than a spit against the wind.

[Sydney Bannach · Rating 2 out of 5]

while at first i kinda figured it would be a super compelling and intriguing read, the language used throughout the entire book really really pushed me away from continuing reading. it felt strangely self centered and once i hit the half way mark more or less, i put it down.

[Cheryl Madsen · Rating 5 out of 5]

People w mental health disorders can be healed; 60% with long term care- staying on their medication can live normal, healthy lives. Just like heart disease or diabetes, you take your medication and get regular check ups.
A person with a mental health disorder who gets help wants to shower, eat healthy, live in a home, not live on the streets, eating out of the garage bin, but if they don’t receive long term care and stay on their prescriptions they think they are “fine” and stop taking their medications, then they do end up back on the streets because of “episodes” and family or friends can’t have them living with them & their unstable personality.

It’s a hard and fine line between requiring hospitalization & freedom, but it isn’t a hard, fine line when we give people the decency to live as a human should & not as a wild animal on the streets!

Schizophrenia is a disease of the brain

It can be genetically passed down:
Brother or sister 8%
Non- identical twin 12%
One parent 12%
Both parents 40%
Identical twin 48%

It can b caused by brain damage
pg 150
“The mental health system is wrong. The idea of being sick & homeless isn’t tolerable. No amount of $, studies or adjusting the scheme is going to change that. Our discussing how to improve the lives of the homeless mentally ill would be like people in 1850 discussing how to better the living conditions of slaves in the south. This is absurd when the institution of slavery was wrong to begin w, just like the idea of sick people being homeless is wrong. We don’t need to fix the system, we need to scrap it & start over again.
“Slavery & chronic mental illness are both forms of bondage,” “but we got the solutions confused. One needs freedom, the other treatment.”

[MaryAlice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Street Crazy: The tragedy of the homeless mentally ill by Stephen Seager, MD is more a memoir of the psychiatrists adventures with homeless mentally ill while working at a Los Angeles hospital as an expose of the sad state of affairs leading to mentally unstable are left to roam the streets.

Despite being a short book ~ 197 pages ~ Street Crazy includes a lot of info which includes a bit of history of both homelessness, mental disorders and their treatment. An excellent read.

[Ellen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Provocative insights, compelling story, horribly typeset. The author discusses a fascinating and heartbreaking history of mental illness but his lack of sources and end notes gives the whole book a questionable, "is there another side to this?" feel.

[Cali · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this for nursing school, but ended up really enjoying it. It contains many good stories that unveiled many emotions within me. I laughed, cried, and even became furious at times. There is such a negative stigma against mental health, and this book really brings that to light.

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

It did give me another perspective of the mentally ill and how messed up our system is!