Mental Health in America: A Reference Handbook examines the evolution of mental health policy in America from the almshouses of colonial times and the dawn of psychoanalysis in the early 1900s to the community mental health revolution in the 1960s and the insurance problems plaguing the field today. Addressing such conditions as Alzheimerʼs disease, schizophrenia, anxiety, dementia, bipolar disorder, suicide and depression, this work explores the changing definitions and explanations of mental illness and provides detailed analyses of treatments and their effects, including electroshock therapy, lobotomy, and psychotropic drugs. Readers will meet such key players as Horace Mann, who called for the insane to be made wards of the state, and assemblywoman Helen Thomson, an involuntary-treatment advocate referred to by her opponents as ʺNurse Ratchett.ʺ

Also includes information on Covington v. Harris, Dixon v. Attorney General, Wyatt v. Stickney (Wyatt v. Aderholt, Wyatt v. Hardin), State ex rel. Hawks v. Lazaro, Schneider v. Rodeck, Jobes v. Michigan Department of Mental Health, Lessard v. Schmidt, Bartley v. Kremens, J.L. and J.R. v. Parham, Addington v. Texas, Parham v. J.R., Nelson v. Superintendent of Bridgewater State Hospital, Jackson v. Indiana, State ex rel. Matalik v. Schubert, State ex rel. Haskins v. County Court of Dodge County, State ex rel. Miller v. Jenkins, Rouse v. Cameron, Burnham v. Department of Public Health of the State of Georgia, Donaldson v. OʼConnor, Schloendorff v. Society of New York Hospital, Rivers v. Katz, etc.