Review: The Best Minds, by Jonathan Rosen
There are so many points in this review that I absolutely despise because this is less of a review and more of a soapbox, but I&#x27;ll sum it up with these two points:<p>&gt; Consider deinstitutionalization. Few things could be less popular or esteemed in the public imagination than long-term mental healthcare facilities. People with no personal experience with mental illness themselves often have a visceral reaction to the very idea of institutions, assuming them to universally be houses of horror. And so deinstitutionalization, in a crude sense, is quite popular.<p>This review ignores the incredibly sordid history of institutionalization in the US and why it&#x27;s so strongly hated. Many crimes were committed on otherwise innocent people under the guise of curing their mental illnesses. Lobotomies were popular to &#x27;cure&#x27; people. Cocktails of drugs, inhumane experiments. You can look at what was done at Willowbrook State School to understand why this rapidly took the case. And it was not that long ago that things like &#x27;being gay&#x27; was considered a mental illness.<p>&gt; As Rosen unsparingly documents, the efforts to “destigmatize” mental illness have created a perverse scenario in which mental health advocates - who will tell you that their goal is to make mental illness more visible - push the darkest parts of mental illness deeper and deeper into the closet. You see, the fact that mental illness indisputably increases the odds of committing certain acts of violence could be said to stigmatize the mentally ill, so it must not be mentioned; that some mentally ill people commit sexual offenses could be said to stigmatize the mentally ill, so that must not be mentioned; that some people with mental illness commit hideously brutal acts of self-injury could be said to stigmatize the mentally ill, so it must not be mentioned; that some people with mental illness play with and eat their own excrement could be said to stigmatize the mentally ill, so it must not be mentioned.<p>I shouldn&#x27;t need to mention how absolutely stupid this whole paragraph is. But the point is that not all mental illness is equal, someone with different problems is going to be more prone to certain issues than others. That should be obvious, but the problem is when you conflate everyone and assume that &#x27;well XYZ has ABC, so its obvious why he did [Thing]&quot;. Not only that, but in this paragraph the author cites a study [1] which they say &quot;You see, the fact that mental illness indisputably increases the odds of committing certain acts of violence could be said to stigmatize the mentally ill&quot;. But the study they quote says nothing of the sort! In fact it says the exact opposite: It says and I quote: &quot;The popular belief is that people with mental illness are more prone to commit acts of violence and aggression. The public perception of psychiatric patients as dangerous individuals is often rooted in the portrayal of criminals in the media as “crazy” individuals.  A large body of data suggests otherwise. People with mental illness are more likely to be a victim of violent crime than the perpetrator. This bias extends all the way to the criminal justice system, where persons with mental illness get treated as criminals, arrested, charged, and jailed for a longer time in jail compared to the general population.&quot; and &quot;Currently, there is scant evidence to suggest that mental illness can independently predict criminal behavior. On the contrary, there is ample evidence that shows that persons with mental illness are far more likely to be the victim of violent crime rather than the perpetrator.&quot;. They manage to somehow completely misread the study they cited in favor of their soapbox points.<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;books&#x2F;NBK537064&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&#x2F;books&#x2F;NBK537064&#x2F;</a>