Reviews

“The author grew up on the South Side of Chicago and seemed destined for a career in mental health. His father, Samuel, was internationally recognized for his work as a psychologist, and Beck considered his own experience as a psychotherapy patient before he went to college to be meaningful and formative. After attending prestigious schools during the 1950s and ’60s—the University of Chicago, Harvard, and Yale—he became a psychiatrist himself and largely worked at the Metropolitan State Hospital in Waltham, Massachusetts, where he’d worked as an intern. The author’s professional life was eclectic, including stints as an academic physician, a forensic psychiatrist, and a palliative care doctor. He also worked at the National Institute of Mental Health in Bethesda, Maryland. Alongside this astute, if excessively granular, account of his professional career, the author chronicles the historical arc of the field of psychiatry, beginning with the widespread incarceration of the severely mentally ill in asylums before 1920. According to the author, the field was saved by the emergence of psychoanalysis, which “breathed life into a moribund profession.” Beck persuasively argues that predatory insurance and pharmaceutical industries, and doctors who prescribe drugs excessively, have ruined psychiatric practice: “Psychiatry is failing. We are not giving our patients the time and attention they deserve. Within living memory, we were the physicians who were defined by our listening skills. Now, most psychiatric practice is limited to pushing pills [and] little else.” The author also provides a lucid and accessible account of the ways in which the “quest for scientific respectability” has pushed psychiatrists to view issues of mental health as problems to be classified and managed in chemical terms, thus generating an unfair bias against psychotherapy. As noted, Beck has a tendency to provide far more information than is strictly necessary to make his points; not many readers need to see an outline of a descriptive psychiatric assessment, for example. Nevertheless, he presents a rigorous, thoughtful, and timely discussion.”

— KIRKUS REVIEWS

“Dr. Beck’s book tells both his personal history and that of the profession of psychiatry. I especially value the Appendix: Seeking Professional Help. In just 15 pages he spells out how and what to look for in a therapist.  This chapter can be useful for mental health professionals and the general public. It is a gem.”

— JEANNE, Retired Social Worker

“James C. Beck is Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard and he has written partly an autobiography and partly an examination of some of the most important issues facing contemporary mental health care, particularly those aspects of care at the medico legal interface. The autobiographical detail candid and unpretentious, and the clinical issues are discussed in terms which are succinct and accessible. The book as a whole is engaging and lively and will be well received by both a professional and a lay readership.”

— DR. J. A. BAIRD, Retired Consultant Forensic Psychiatrist, Glasgow, UK

“Anyone interested in the possibilities available in psychiatry as a career, in exploring the roadblocks that have appeared and in reconnecting the profession to the people who need emotional support should read Jim Beck’s book. It is a fascinating personal story, an insightful commentary on problems facing psychiatry with wise suggestions about how to return psychiatry to its original purpose, namely helping those who through no fault of their own find living in the world hard.”

— JOANNA BREYER, PhD, Author of “When Your Child Is Sick: A Guide to Navigating the Practical and Emotional Challenges of Caring for a Child Who Is Very Ill”

“This is a memoire by a brilliant psychiatrist who dedicated his life to treating psychotic people through the public mental health system. Dr. Beck shows it is possible to treat poor people and at the same time do an excellent job training psychiatric residents. In addition, he does this in way that doesn’t gloss over the problems, with the public system or with his own treatment of patients. One of the great things about this book is the openness and lack of defensiveness Dr. Beck uses in describing the interaction he had with psychiatric residents and patients. In the last section of the book he takes issue with the changes in psychiatry during his lifetime. However, near the end of the book he writes, ‘If we psychiatrists no longer deliver psychotherapy, it is not through choice; it is because society has chosen others to do this work.'”

— TOM SADTLER, Executive Coach

“This remarkably engrossing book, by an MD, PhD, Harvard Professor and Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, tells a moving personal story and at the same time provides an unsparing examination of a profession ‘in trouble.’ It deals perceptively and sensitively with the interface between patient care and public policy. Exposing the now-glaring deficiencies of doctrinaire Freudian psychoanalysis, it still manages to blend the goal of scientific legitimacy with the need for emotional understanding and psychological insight. Altogether, James Beck has blended the personal and professional drama of an autobiography with a keen analysis of both the pitfalls and promise of modern psychiatry.”

— DAVID B. SACHAR, M.D. FACP, MACG, AGAF, Master Educator, Institute for Medical Education, Clinical Professor of Medicine, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai

“Dr. Beck’s professional autobiography, the lived experience of a gifted psychiatrist and psychologist over six decades, is an invaluable contribution to the history, the present and the future of the mental health professions. It culminates in his recommendation: Psychiatrists should be the specialists in understanding and caring for the seriously mentally ill in all the senses of caring! Required reading for mental health professionals, health policy professionals, and the larger public, and written to be accessible to all these audiences.”

— BENNETT SIMON, M.D., Training & Supervising Analyst, Retired, Boston Psa Soc & Institute, Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, HMS

“Dr. Beck has written a cri de coeur on the current state of American psychiatry, and on the care of persons with severe mental illness. The failure of public policy in the unfulfilled promises of the community mental health movement, as in the earlier promises of the state hospital movement are reflected in the inadequate care of persons with severe mental illness. The consequences are now obvious on the sidewalks of American cities and/or in prison. Part autobiography and part jeremiad, Dr. Beck argues for a dramatic change in the profession of psychiatry. Whether one agrees or disagrees, it is an argument worth reading.”

— ROGER MEYER, M.D., Former Professor and Chair of Psychiatry, University of Connecticut School of Medicine