Breakdown

Lynn Nanos guides readers in Breakdown: A Clinician’s Experience in a Broken System of Emergency Psychiatry through our nation’s shameful treatment of Americans with debilitating mental illnesses. Only someone with her in-the-trenches experience can articulate the flaws with such authority. Her dedication to helping throw-away patients trapped on a treadmill of hospitalizations, homelessness and jails is heroic and inspiring.—Pete Earley, Author, Crazy: A Father’s Search Through America’s Mental Health Madness 

Lynn Nanos provides a gritty and extremely candid look at our dysfunctional mental health care system. Her extensive experience in this trying environment provides a view of that world that few ever see. If you’ve ever wondered “Why don’t we do more for the mentally ill?” read this book and you’ll understand.—Chief Mark K. Leahy (retired), Executive Director, Massachusetts Chiefs of Police Association

In Breakdown, Lynn Nanos draws upon years of clinical experience to expose one of our society's most shameful injustices: the neglect of individuals with serious mental illness. By weaving together her own first-person account with historical, political, and legal background, Nanos issues a clarion call for the construction of adequate mental health services for our most vulnerable citizens.—Dominic Sisti, Ph.D., Director, Scattergood Program for Applied Ethics of Behavioral Health Care, Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania; Assistant Professor of Medical Ethics and Health Policy, Philosophy, Psychiatry, University of Pennsylvania

Lynn Nanos’ book Breakdown is a welcome addition to those that seek to educate the public about America’s mental health crisis – one that too many willfully neglect. She offers a valuable perspective from the front lines of a broken treatment system, where psychiatrists and social workers are overwhelmed by people for whom fewer and fewer inpatient treatment beds are available. Many do not even know they are sick and, after being released to the streets, will wind up behind bars. Nanos sees clearly the consequences of failing to treat the most severely ill among us, and she understands why systemic reform is so badly needed, particularly in her state of Massachusetts – one of just three states without an assisted outpatient treatment program – where there is little to prevent the most severely ill from cycling through our emergency rooms, homeless shelters, and jails. “One tragedy should be enough to sound alarms,” Nanos writes. Indeed. Yet, human tragedies continue to befall people with serious mental illness and their families at a record clip. I hope that this book will open eyes, ears, and hearts to their suffering, motivating action.—John Snook, J.D., Executive Director, Treatment Advocacy Center

Breakdown: A Clinician’s Experience in a Broken System of Emergency Psychiatry is yet another excellent example of our badly broken mental illness treatment system. The author, Lynn Nanos, is a psychiatric social worker within the Massachusetts state system which is one of the worst states. She clearly describes the failures of the system and consequent tragedies for the patients. I recommend her well-written book.—E. Fuller Torrey, M.D., Founder, Treatment Advocacy Center; Associate Director of Research, Stanley Medical Research Institute; Author, American Psychosis: How the Federal Government Destroyed the Mental Illness Treatment System; Author, The Insanity Offense: How America's Failure to Treat the Seriously Mentally Ill Endangers Its Citizens