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Heads Up: Changing Minds on Mental Health
★ “Informative, diverse, and highly engaging; a much-needed addition to the realm of mental health.”― Kirkus Reviews , starred review Featuring real-life stories of people who have found hope and meaning in the midst of life’s struggles, Heads Changing Minds on Mental Health is the go-to guide for teenagers who want to know about mental health, mental illness, trauma and recovery. For too long, mental health problems have been kept in the shadows, leaving people to suffer in silence, or worse, to be feared, bullied or pushed to the margins of society where survival is difficult. This book shines a light on the troubled history of thinking about and treating mental illness and tells the stories of courageous pioneers in the field of psychiatry who fought for more compassionate, respectful and effective treatments. It provides a helpful guide to the major mental health diagnoses along with ideas and resources to support those who are suffering. But it also moves beyond a biomedical focus and considers the latest science that shows how trauma and social inequality impact mental health. The book explores how mental health is more than just “in our heads” and includes the voices of Indigenous people who share a more holistic way of thinking about wellness, balancing mind, body, heart and spirit. Highlighting innovative approaches such as trauma-informed activities like yoga and hip-hop, police mental health teams, and peer support for youth, Heads Up shares the stories of people who are sparking change.
- GenresNonfictionMental Health
192 pages, Paperback
Published April 21, 2020
8 people are currently reading
116 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 1, 2020
There is no other book like this out there. It’s a fresh, moving, stereotype-defying take on mental health. The writing and images are bright and inclusive. Packed with stories, history, science and ways to wellness. Must have for: youth, teachers, parents, libraries and schools.
May 9, 2020
A well-written gloss of the current attitudes and practices in mental health. The stories of a number of young adults who have dealt with issues such as schizophrenia and intergenerational trauma make the book very accessible and the tone of the writing echoes this.
Thank you to Orca Books for the free review copy.
Thank you to Orca Books for the free review copy.
December 19, 2020
This is YA book on mental health that explains the history of mental services and gives examples of different diagnoses in terms that easily understandable. This book should be read by any young person, as well as their parents.
April 16, 2020
Review to follow in Library Media Connection.
May 9, 2020
I received a copy of this book through LibraryThing's Early Reviewers program, and I'm grateful for the publishers for the opportunity to read this. Also as a kind of disclaimer, I am a mentally ill person with a variety of diagnoses around trauma.
This was a fairly basic introduction, a little bit scattershot in how much it tried to cover, though the parts about Indigenous healing and culturally competent care were interesting. There were a couple gaps in this, the biggest one for me being around police and police work. Siebert talks about the rate of police violence against people with mental illness, but then goes in to talk about how police are being trained to be better and the good work they're doing. Given that most of the mentally ill people killed by police are BIPOC, it seems to me disingenuous and dangerous to represent police as anything other than incredibly dangerous, and I don't think putting in a single cop doing "good work" outweighs just how horrific interactions between police and folks with mental illness, especially racialized folks, are. Another gap for me was a lack of discussion around racialization and diagnosis; it seems significant to me that the Black people whose experiences she wrote about/talked to were diagnosed as schizoaffective, especially given the history of using the diagnosis of schizophrenia to incarcerate Black people and invalidate their experiences of racism.
There were still some good parts, though I think the most interesting parts of this book were literally sidelined; I deeply appreciated the inclusion of sections about harm reduction and mad pride, as I think those are things that it's very important for teenagers to learn about early on, as it could be life-saving; I think taking them more seriously, especially speaking to someone who identifies as mad or is a psychiatric survivor about involuntary hospitalization might have helped address some of the ambivalence that Siebert herself expressed in the book. Finally, I think an actual look inside at what hospitalization might look like could help demystify that process for teenagers, and might make them more likely to consider it as an option in a time when their agency is already so limited and giving up even more of it is often a terrifying process.
Overall it wasn't a bad book, and I think could be a useful starter to a larger conversation, but there were definitely parts that I had serious misgivings about and would adjust or supplement if using this book with actual teenagers.
This was a fairly basic introduction, a little bit scattershot in how much it tried to cover, though the parts about Indigenous healing and culturally competent care were interesting. There were a couple gaps in this, the biggest one for me being around police and police work. Siebert talks about the rate of police violence against people with mental illness, but then goes in to talk about how police are being trained to be better and the good work they're doing. Given that most of the mentally ill people killed by police are BIPOC, it seems to me disingenuous and dangerous to represent police as anything other than incredibly dangerous, and I don't think putting in a single cop doing "good work" outweighs just how horrific interactions between police and folks with mental illness, especially racialized folks, are. Another gap for me was a lack of discussion around racialization and diagnosis; it seems significant to me that the Black people whose experiences she wrote about/talked to were diagnosed as schizoaffective, especially given the history of using the diagnosis of schizophrenia to incarcerate Black people and invalidate their experiences of racism.
There were still some good parts, though I think the most interesting parts of this book were literally sidelined; I deeply appreciated the inclusion of sections about harm reduction and mad pride, as I think those are things that it's very important for teenagers to learn about early on, as it could be life-saving; I think taking them more seriously, especially speaking to someone who identifies as mad or is a psychiatric survivor about involuntary hospitalization might have helped address some of the ambivalence that Siebert herself expressed in the book. Finally, I think an actual look inside at what hospitalization might look like could help demystify that process for teenagers, and might make them more likely to consider it as an option in a time when their agency is already so limited and giving up even more of it is often a terrifying process.
Overall it wasn't a bad book, and I think could be a useful starter to a larger conversation, but there were definitely parts that I had serious misgivings about and would adjust or supplement if using this book with actual teenagers.
July 26, 2020
This is a great place to start if you're interested in the neurobiological aspects of mental health. The testimonials from real people on how the mentally ill are treated by society were at times truly heart-wrenching, but it's important that we raise awareness about it. I know that police brutality against POC is in the spotlight right now (and for a good reason), but I'm not sure that a lot of people are aware that the mentally ill are treated in much the same way and it seems to be swept under the rug and disregarded. Check out the recent case of Mona Wang being violently assaulted by Lacey Browning for example. Watching that video and reading the articles about it made me physically sick.
That was a tangent, but it was on topic. This book is contributing to ending the stigma. If we want the mentally ill who have been abused and assaulted to receive justice, we need to end the stigma. Browning relied on the stigma to get away with her violent assault of Mona Wang in telling hospital staff that Mona was "just crazy" when Mona tried to tell them what had just happened to her. The RCMP commissioner had the audacity to say that it's not the time to bring in a mental health practitioner when someone is in the midst of a mental health crisis. That kind of warped logic is what gets the mentally ill killed. Police and society in general need to be educated on mental illness and how to deal with it, and books like this are great places to start.
If you do have previous knowledge or education in neuroscience and mental health, you may find this book a bit slow and simplistic, but then again, that was the goal.
That was a tangent, but it was on topic. This book is contributing to ending the stigma. If we want the mentally ill who have been abused and assaulted to receive justice, we need to end the stigma. Browning relied on the stigma to get away with her violent assault of Mona Wang in telling hospital staff that Mona was "just crazy" when Mona tried to tell them what had just happened to her. The RCMP commissioner had the audacity to say that it's not the time to bring in a mental health practitioner when someone is in the midst of a mental health crisis. That kind of warped logic is what gets the mentally ill killed. Police and society in general need to be educated on mental illness and how to deal with it, and books like this are great places to start.
If you do have previous knowledge or education in neuroscience and mental health, you may find this book a bit slow and simplistic, but then again, that was the goal.
January 29, 2022
I think this is a great introduction to mental health topics for teens, and I loved the inclusion of Indigenous perspectives and the fact that so much of the content was localized as other, similar resources are typically from publishers and authors in the U.S. There were some shortcomings; a lot of the advice and information verged on a PSA tone, for example. There was a lot of "some people think this, others think this" without providing the reader sufficient information or additional resources to draw any kind of conclusion or learn more. Other reviewers have pointed out that the section on police and mental illness skewed favourably towards the police and handled the topic of police violence towards the mentally ill a little too gently and without sufficient attention to the role of race, and I agree. But, with that said, I think it's a very good resource that I can and will recommend to students and teachers looking for information on a variety of subjects beyond mental health!
July 1, 2020
A comprehensive introduction to the state of mental health today. Siebert covers the history of how mental illness has been "treated" through the ages, and discusses the various reform movements. She also addresses the effects of systemic poverty, homelessness, and police involvement that can undermine mental health initiatives.
I appreciated the inclusivity in the profiles of so many people who deal with mental health issues-- Black voices, LGBTQIA+ voices, members of First Nations.
The author is a youth and family counselor in British Columbia, so some of the specific programs she discusses are from a Canadian perspective rather than a United States perspective, but the overriding theme of dismantling the stigma of mental illness is universal.
I appreciated the inclusivity in the profiles of so many people who deal with mental health issues-- Black voices, LGBTQIA+ voices, members of First Nations.
The author is a youth and family counselor in British Columbia, so some of the specific programs she discusses are from a Canadian perspective rather than a United States perspective, but the overriding theme of dismantling the stigma of mental illness is universal.
November 16, 2023
This book was fine, it was short and included a few stories on mental health. It was only a basic overview so if you are someone just starting to learn about mental health this might be a good book but otherwise it was more boring that informative. The one really good thing that I would like to give this book is the focus they put on indigenous mental health as well as more western ideas of mental health but for how much focus there was on Indigenous mental health all other people of color were kind of forgotten in their unique circumstances. If you are new to mental health I would recommend this book otherwise I would advise against it being a waste of time.
October 25, 2020
There is great background with cognitive psychology and neuroscience and personal stories, however I found it disjointed. I think this would have been great as two separate books as there are fantastic resources and really important stories, however I think there just wasn't enough room to include both the backstory and the contemporary stories.
January 12, 2021
This is a good book to bring awareness to Mental Health. I like how it talked about how mental health was looked at from long ago to what we know today. I love all the stories of people that have suffered and there wonderful outcomes. It gives hope to those that need it. Will definitely will have my kids read it when they are teens
November 27, 2023
I read this book for a blog/review; it was very informative and answered my questions. P.S. -I am a fast reader; please don't think I finished the book that fast because it was boring or anything other than interesting and informative.
January 11, 2021
Effort to destigmatize discussing mental health.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews