In the last half-century, there have been major changes in the treatment of mental illness: physicians are more responsive, hospitals and treatment centers are more humane, and insurance companies are beginning to help lift the financial burden that mental illness causes. These changes, however, are not enough for the 20 percent of the general population who have mental illness. The U.S. Surgeon General reported in 1999 on the rich array of effective treatments for mental illness, but also pointed out that many people never receive these treatments and that the quality of treatment is highly uneven. Frank and Glied explore the changes occurring over the last fifty years in the lives of people with mental illness and assess the factors that generated these changes. State the authors, "Stressing only the deficiencies of the present -- without an understanding of how these relate to the past -- can lead to a replay of prior unproductive efforts to improve the situation.
We believe that by carefully analyzing the forces that have guided the past transformation of mental health care, America will be better equipped to steer public policy in a direction that results in further gains for a most disadvantaged segment of Americans." This book will appeal to professionals and students in mental health care and health policy.