The Insanity Offense, E. Fuller Torrey, M.D.’s latest book, describes in detail one of the greatest social disasters in recent American history. Over the past five decades, hundreds of thousands of patients with severe psychiatric disorders have been discharged from public mental hospitals. At the same time, as our readers are well aware, changes in state commitment laws have made it impossible to treat nearly half of discharged patients after they have left the hospital.
“The emptying of the psychiatric hospitals was a policy conceived by and born to parents with the best of intentions, but who then badly neglected their offspring,” writes Dr. Torrey. “Once patients were released from hospitals, essential aftercare in most places varied from inadequate to invisible.”
This new release from W.W. Norton publishers provides Dr. Torrey and the Treatment Advocacy Center with a new opportunity to open the eyes of more Americans to important policy changes that will save lives. In addition to a tremendous opportunity to educate the public and policy makers, Dr. Torrey is donating the royalties for the book sales to TAC.
“The Insanity Offense accurately addresses the sad truth that in many part of the country there is no mental health system,” says Michael J. Fitzpatrick, executive director of NAMI. “Dr. Torrey’s book is a powerful call to action that challenges and offers concrete solutions to both policymakers and the mental health community.”
Dr. Torrey makes his case using compelling statistics and often tragic and moving stories from his work around the nation. In each of the preventable tragedies told in the book, there is a solution.
“Dr. Torrey’s unflinching analysis shows that caring for severely mentally ill people is not impossible,” notes author Sally Satel, M.D. “It should be required reading on Capitol Hill and in state houses across the country.”
Copies of The Insanity Offense can ordered directly from Amazon.com for a discounted price of $16.47 and in book stores for $24.95 list price.