Overview
From the New York Times bestselling author of Black Man in a White Coat comes a powerful and urgent call to center psychiatry and mental health care into the mainstream of medicine
As much as we all might wish that mental health problems, with their elusive causes and unsettling behaviors, simply did not exist, millions of people suffer from them, sometimes to an extreme extent. Many others face addiction to alcohol and other drugs, as overdose and suicide deaths abound. Yet the vast majority of doctors receive minimal instruction in treating these conditions during their lengthy medical training. This mismatch ignores the clear overlap between physical and mental distress, and too-often puts psychiatrists on the outside looking in as the medical system continues to fail many patients. In Facing The Unseen, bestselling author, professor of psychiatry, and practicing physician Damon Tweedy guides us through his days working in outpatient clinics, emergency rooms, and hospitals as he meets people from all walks of life who are grappling with physical and psychological illnesses. In powerful, compassionate, and eloquent prose, Tweedy argues for a more comprehensive and integrated approach where people with mental illness have a health care system that places their full well-being front and center.Customers Also Bought
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Details
- ISBN-13: 9781250284891
- ISBN-10: 1250284899
- Publisher: St. Martin's Press
- Publish Date: April 2024
- Dimensions: 9.31 x 6.53 x 1.08 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.05 pounds
- Page Count: 304
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Conventional wisdom has long held that mental illness is disconnected from physical health, requiring two separate courses of treatment. In Facing the Unseen: The Struggle to Center Mental Health in Medicine, psychiatrist Damon Tweedy aims to debunk this long-standing theory. The acclaimed author of the New York Times bestseller Black Man in a White Coat, Tweedy offers what feels like a personal invitation into his office, his expertise and, most of all, his hard-earned wisdom.
Tweedy straightforwardly describes his training through Duke University School of Medicine, including his growing frustrations with an unsatisfactory system of care. He is critical of his colleagues for overlooking, stereotyping or dismissing the “unseen” signs of mental illness, bringing issues of class, race and gender into focus. He also questions his own biases, first as an aspiring cardiologist, and then as a psychiatrist struggling to understand how mind and body work together.
Mostly, though, Facing the Unseen is about his patients. Tweedy is an excellent storyteller, making the people whom he treats unforgettably visible in all their complexities. Their stories embody why recognizing the mind-body connection is critical. There’s Natalie (all patients’ names are pseudonyms), an Iraq war veteran with PTSD, who came to the ER desperate for help. But treating her drug withdrawal was not considered a medical priority, and she was left to seek outpatient psychiatric care elsewhere. A passionate advocate for integrated medical and psychiatric care, Tweedy cites statistics that tally addiction and opioid abuse, PTSD, depression and anxiety, and the prevalent use of prescription pills. Throughout, he uses powerful descriptions that yield keen insights, showing us how the health care system sets doctors up to fail their patients, and offering solutions that will help.
Improving access to effective treatments by coordinated caregivers is improving, but the need for better care is also growing. Facing the Unseen sounds both an alarm and a rallying cry.
Conventional wisdom has long held that mental illness is disconnected from physical health, requiring two separate courses of treatment. In Facing the Unseen: The Struggle to Center Mental Health in Medicine, psychiatrist Damon Tweedy aims to debunk this long-standing theory. The acclaimed author of the New York Times bestseller Black Man in a White Coat, Tweedy offers what feels like a personal invitation into his office, his expertise and, most of all, his hard-earned wisdom.
Tweedy straightforwardly describes his training through Duke University School of Medicine, including his growing frustrations with an unsatisfactory system of care. He is critical of his colleagues for overlooking, stereotyping or dismissing the “unseen” signs of mental illness, bringing issues of class, race and gender into focus. He also questions his own biases, first as an aspiring cardiologist, and then as a psychiatrist struggling to understand how mind and body work together.
Mostly, though, Facing the Unseen is about his patients. Tweedy is an excellent storyteller, making the people whom he treats unforgettably visible in all their complexities. Their stories embody why recognizing the mind-body connection is critical. There’s Natalie (all patients’ names are pseudonyms), an Iraq war veteran with PTSD, who came to the ER desperate for help. But treating her drug withdrawal was not considered a medical priority, and she was left to seek outpatient psychiatric care elsewhere. A passionate advocate for integrated medical and psychiatric care, Tweedy cites statistics that tally addiction and opioid abuse, PTSD, depression and anxiety, and the prevalent use of prescription pills. Throughout, he uses powerful descriptions that yield keen insights, showing us how the health care system sets doctors up to fail their patients, and offering solutions that will help.
Improving access to effective treatments by coordinated caregivers is improving, but the need for better care is also growing. Facing the Unseen sounds both an alarm and a rallying cry.