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Being a Therapist in a Time of Climate Breakdown

This book introduces readers to the known psychological aspects of climate change as a pressing global concern and explores how they are relevant to current and future clinical practice.Arguing that it is vital for ecological concerns to enter the therapy room, this book calls for change from regulatory bodies, training institutes and individual practitioners. The book includes original thinking and research by practitioners from a range of perspectives, including psychodynamic, eco-systemic and integrative. It considers how our different modalities and ways of working need to be adapted to be applicable to the ecological crises. It includes Voices from people who are not practitioners about their experience including how they see the role of therapy. Chapters deal with topics from climate science, including the emotional and mental health impacts of climate breakdown, professional ethics and wider systemic understandings of current therapeutic approaches. Also discussed are the practice-based implications of becoming a climate-aware therapist, eco-psychosocial approaches and the inextricable links between the climate crises and racism, colonialism and social injustice. Being a Therapist in a Time of Climate Breakdown will enable therapists and mental health professionals across a range of modalities to engage with their own thoughts and feelings about climate breakdown and consider how it both changes and reinforces aspects of their therapeutic work.

The Psychopath Test: A Journey Through the Madness Industry (Picador Collection #108)

What if society wasn't fundamentally rational, but was motivated by insanity? This thought sets Jon Ronson on an utterly compelling adventure into the world of madness.Along the way, Jon meets psychopaths, those whose lives have been touched by madness and those whose job it is to diagnose it, including the influential psychologist who developed the Psychopath Test, from whom Jon learns the art of psychopath-spotting. A skill which seemingly reveals that madness could indeed be at the heart of everything . . .Combining Jon Ronson's trademark humour, charm and investigative incision, The Psychopath Test is both entertaining and honest, unearthing dangerous truths and asking serious questions about how we define normality in a world where we are increasingly judged by our maddest edges.'The belly laughs come thick and fast – my God, he is funny . . . provocative and interesting' – Observer

Love, Learning Disabilities and Pockets of Brilliance: How Practitioners Can Make a Difference to the Lives of Children, Families and Adults

This is a book written to celebrate the humanity of people, and to share experiences of what brilliant care and support can look like for families with learning disabled or autistic children and adults.Sara Ryan steers clear of jargon and 'doublespeak' to conjure authentic experiences of families. Speaking with families and professionals, she conveys the love, laughter and joy which binds families and the harsh realities many face; of separation from loved ones, substandard care and frustration and helplessness in the face of inflexible services. From their experiences, Sara looks to capture those pockets of brilliance that families have encountered, and which outstanding practitioners have pioneered, for us all to learn from.We know so much about what support and services should look like in order to enable flourishing lives - this book aims to help families and professionals to achieve it, together.

Art Psychotherapy and Innovation: New Territories, Techniques and Technologies

Art Psychotherapy and Innovation captures the range of activity at the vanguard of practice and research in the field.Reflecting the sector's increasing focus on ways of fostering psychological health, wellbeing and social engagement in a wider context, it examines how to adapt to an increasing demand for therapeutic interventions worldwide. This includes collaboration with arts and health practitioners to ensure evidence-based practice with safe and ethical therapeutic boundaries and which draws on art psychotherapists' intensive clinical training.Tethered to the wider context for innovation in art psychotherapy through theoretical discussion, this edited collection presents case studies of innovative work in relation to new territories (client groups and locations), new techniques in approaches to practice, and engagement with contemporary technologies and cross-disciplinary working.

Asperger's Syndrome and Jail: A Survival Guide

Will Attwood was finishing a three-year sentence in prison when he was formally diagnosed with Asperger's syndrome for the first time. After his diagnosis he recognised just how much it had been affecting his life behind bars.This is a practical advice guide for people with autism who have been sentenced to time in prison. Will shares his first-hand knowledge of what to expect and how to behave within the penal system. He sheds light on topics that are important for people with autism, answering questions such as: How should you act with inmates and guards? How do you avoid trouble? What about a prison's environmental stimuli may cause you anxiety?His thoughtful, measured writing debunks rumours about daily life in prison, and the useful tips and observations he offers will help anyone with autism prepare for the realities of spending time incarcerated, and be enormously helpful to those working with offenders on the autism spectrum.

Cool Connections with CBT for Groups, 2nd edition: Encouraging Self-Esteem, Resilience and Wellbeing in Children and Teens Using CBT Approaches (Cool Connections with CBT)

Cool Connections is an early intervention programme for young people aged 9-14, focusing on preventing anxiety and depression. Through using CBT principles, skills adapted from behavioural activation, acceptance and commitment therapy and compassion-based therapies and therapeutic exercises, it encourages the development of resilience, self-esteem and wellbeing, to reduce feelings of anxiety and depression.This new and updated edition gives professionals working with groups everything they need to improve the wellbeing of children. With photocopiable and downloadable illustrated worksheets, it is clearly structured and straightforward to put into practice, and contains new sessions on self-regulation, identifying support networks and mindfulness.

Understanding and Treating Anxiety in Autism: A Multi-Disciplinary Approach (Understanding and Treating in Autism)

Anxiety is a prevalent and often debilitating condition for individuals on the autism spectrum. This book promotes a multidisciplinary approach to intervention and treatment of the condition, providing professional understanding of the underlying causes and available treatments. With chapters co-authored by well-known advocates and pioneering researchers, contributors examine factors including sensory processing issues, sleep impairments and the crossover between the autonomic nervous system and immune system. The book expands upon current areas of research, including immune activation and the role of environmental toxicants, dietary and nutritional support, the treatment of gastrointestinal disorders and individualised methods of managing stress and anxiety. Providing an invaluable resource for professionals and academics seeking further insight into anxiety and autism, this book explores contemporary research and sets the groundwork for the most effective methods of treatment for individuals of all ages.

The Carer's Guide to Schizophrenia: A Concise, Problem-Solving Resource for Family and Friends

This book will equip carers, family members and friends with the skills to support a person with schizophrenia or other psychoses. Concise language and practical problem-solving exercises throughout make this an ideal resource to easily digest and dip in and out of as needed. It begins by describing the condition in detail, going on to cover the types of treatment available, how to deal with problems and common challenges, and promoting the person's wellbeing, as well as lots of information on carer wellbeing and available help from support services.When caring for someone with schizophrenia or other psychoses, it's important to be highly knowledgeable about the person's mental health condition, how it affects them and how to help in different situations. This positive book will assist carers in every aspect of this challenging, rewarding process.

The Twentysomething Treatment

Our twenties can be challenging. Today, so many twentysomethings are struggling, especially with anxiety and depression, and yet we’re not sure what to think or do about it. In The Twentysomething Treatment psychologist Dr. Meg Jay explores why and unveils a ground-breaking approach that prioritizes skills over pills.

Transdisciplinary Teaching in Inclusive Schools: Promoting Transdisciplinary Education for Learners with Special Needs (Transdisciplinary Perspectives in Educational Research #8)

This book offers opportunities for better understanding teachers’ unique challenges when planning teaching sessions for learners with special needs, based on the transdisciplinary approach. The work also presents some of the core learning strategies teachers may incorporate into their teaching processes in order to promote transdisciplinary learning among learners with special needs.From a theoretical perspective, this book discusses a variety of advantages and disadvantages transdisciplinary educators may encounter, and promotes educators' development of their own vision of this area. Although the concept of special needs is often over-generalized, this book relates to the most common types of special needs among learners who study in inclusive schools: learners from different cultural background, learners with Attention Deficit Hyperactive Disability (ADHD), learners with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and learners with sensory or motor challenges. A special chapter is dedicatedto each of those groups in order to closely examine how teachers can teach those learners according to the transdisciplinary approach in practice, in inclusive classrooms. While each chapter presents different perspectives of learners with special needs, the book’s summary integrates them all and highlights the commonalities between the various needs.

Mental Health in Sport and Physical Activity: Selected Writings from the ISSP Academy of Science (ISSP Key Issues in Sport and Exercise Psychology)

Bringing together the most prestigious writings on mental health in sport and physical activity from the International Society of Sport Psychology’s flagship journal, International Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, this volume provides an essential reference for the field of sport and exercise psychology.Carefully selected for their popularity and impact on the field, the chapters in this volume feature an international range of contributions. Each chapter has been closely updated to ensure its relevance in current research and maintain its position as a piece of state-of-the-art scholarship. Chapters cover a range of topics, including the mental health of high-performance athletes, assessment methods and screening tools, adjustment patterns in the junior to senior transition, the role of perfectionism, body shaming, mindfulness, and exercise addiction. The book concludes with a discussion of key takeaways from the preceding chapters and suggestions for future opportunities. Endorsed by the Society’s Academy of Science, this volume is an authoritative series of writings on mental health in sport and physical activity.Brought together in a single volume for the first time, the book is a must-have for graduate students, scholars, and professions in sport and exercise psychology.

Approaches to Offender Rehabilitation in Asian Jurisdictions (International Perspectives on Forensic Mental Health)

This book aims to understand how Asian jurisdictions conceptualise rehabilitation within both the correctional and forensic mental health sectors.Little has been written about rehabilitation practices for people in criminal justice and forensic mental health services in Asia. Although there is some recognition of the need to develop and/or adjust rehabilitation practices for non-white/non-western peoples in Western jurisdictions, the extent to which Western-derived practices have been considered, adjusted, or adopted in Asian countries is not well known. This book includes contributions from an international team who explore the ways in which history, culture, religion, and resources impact how rehabilitation is conceptualised and offered in multiple Asian countries. It aims to provide an understanding of the relative merits of contemporary Western practices across different Asian countries and consider how these practices have been adopted and adapted within correctional and forensic mental health sectors.This book is essential for administrators who are developing rehabilitation strategies and for practitioners working with people who have a history of offending behaviour.

Mental Health and Well-being Interventions in Sport: Research, Theory and Practice (Routledge Psychological Interventions)

Now in its second edition, this book provides a focused, comprehensive overview of up-to-date mental health research, models, and approaches in sport, with expertise from global experts in the field.Mental health remains a widely growing area in the field of sport psychology, which requires expert guidance and care in promoting effective well-being for athletes, coaches and sport officials. Fully updated throughout, Mental Health and Well-being Interventions in Sport is an indispensable guide for researchers, practitioners and students wanting to understand and implement sport-based intervention processes. This important book adopts an evidenced based approach, discussing the context of the intervention, its design and implementation, and its evaluation and legacy. Exploring areas such as injury, rehabilitation, depression, eating disorders, verbal and physical abuse, and athletic burnout, this insightful volume dissects emerging research into straightforward accessible chapters. Offering a cutting-edge overview of the key issues involved in this burgeoning area, as well as example cases of how sport has been used in extreme environments such as prisons as a method to improve mental health, the book will benefit practitioners, policy makers and researchers.Written for newcomers and established practitioners across a variety of sports setting and contexts, the authors highlight the need for "another call to action" to support the mental health and wellbeing of all involved in sport. Presenting current research, theory and practice in the field, the text is an essential read for researchers, practitioners, and coaches to better understand sport-based intervention processes.

Mental Health and Well-being Interventions in Sport: Research, Theory and Practice (Routledge Psychological Interventions)

Now in its second edition, this book provides a focused, comprehensive overview of up-to-date mental health research, models, and approaches in sport, with expertise from global experts in the field.Mental health remains a widely growing area in the field of sport psychology, which requires expert guidance and care in promoting effective well-being for athletes, coaches and sport officials. Fully updated throughout, Mental Health and Well-being Interventions in Sport is an indispensable guide for researchers, practitioners and students wanting to understand and implement sport-based intervention processes. This important book adopts an evidenced based approach, discussing the context of the intervention, its design and implementation, and its evaluation and legacy. Exploring areas such as injury, rehabilitation, depression, eating disorders, verbal and physical abuse, and athletic burnout, this insightful volume dissects emerging research into straightforward accessible chapters. Offering a cutting-edge overview of the key issues involved in this burgeoning area, as well as example cases of how sport has been used in extreme environments such as prisons as a method to improve mental health, the book will benefit practitioners, policy makers and researchers.Written for newcomers and established practitioners across a variety of sports setting and contexts, the authors highlight the need for "another call to action" to support the mental health and wellbeing of all involved in sport. Presenting current research, theory and practice in the field, the text is an essential read for researchers, practitioners, and coaches to better understand sport-based intervention processes.

Black Women’s Stories of Everyday Racism: Narrative Analysis for Social Change

Black Women’s Stories of Everyday Racism puts literary narrative theory to work on an urgent real-world problem. The book calls attention to African American women’s everyday experiences with systemic racism and demonstrates how four types of narrative theory can help generate strategies to explain and dismantle that racism. This volume presents fifteen stories told by eight midwestern African American women about their own experiences with casual and structural racism, followed by four detailed narratological analyses of the stories, each representing a different approach to narrative interpretation. The book makes a case for the need to hear the personal stories of these women and others like them as part of a larger effort to counter the systemic racism that prevails in the United States today.Readers will find that the women’s stories offer powerful evidence that African Americans experience racism as an inescapable part of their day-to-day lives—and sometimes as a force that radically changes their lives. The stories provide experience-based demonstrations of how pervasive systemic racism is and how it perpetuates power differentials that are baked into institutions such as schools, law enforcement, the health care system, and business. Containing countless signs of the stress and trauma that accompany and follow from experiences of racism, the stories reveal evidence of the women’s resilience as well as their unending need for it, as they continue to feel the negative effects of experiences that occurred many years ago. The four interpretive chapters note the complex skill involved in the women’s storytelling. The analyses also point to the overall value of telling these stories: how they are sometimes cathartic for the tellers; how they highlight the importance of listening—and the likelihood of misunderstanding—and how, if they and other stories like them were heard more often, they would be a force to counteract the structural racism they so graphically expose.The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.

Black Women’s Stories of Everyday Racism: Narrative Analysis for Social Change

Black Women’s Stories of Everyday Racism puts literary narrative theory to work on an urgent real-world problem. The book calls attention to African American women’s everyday experiences with systemic racism and demonstrates how four types of narrative theory can help generate strategies to explain and dismantle that racism. This volume presents fifteen stories told by eight midwestern African American women about their own experiences with casual and structural racism, followed by four detailed narratological analyses of the stories, each representing a different approach to narrative interpretation. The book makes a case for the need to hear the personal stories of these women and others like them as part of a larger effort to counter the systemic racism that prevails in the United States today.Readers will find that the women’s stories offer powerful evidence that African Americans experience racism as an inescapable part of their day-to-day lives—and sometimes as a force that radically changes their lives. The stories provide experience-based demonstrations of how pervasive systemic racism is and how it perpetuates power differentials that are baked into institutions such as schools, law enforcement, the health care system, and business. Containing countless signs of the stress and trauma that accompany and follow from experiences of racism, the stories reveal evidence of the women’s resilience as well as their unending need for it, as they continue to feel the negative effects of experiences that occurred many years ago. The four interpretive chapters note the complex skill involved in the women’s storytelling. The analyses also point to the overall value of telling these stories: how they are sometimes cathartic for the tellers; how they highlight the importance of listening—and the likelihood of misunderstanding—and how, if they and other stories like them were heard more often, they would be a force to counteract the structural racism they so graphically expose.The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 license.

Binnie the Baboon Anxiety and Stress Activity Book: A Therapeutic Story with Creative and CBT Activities To Help Children Aged 5-10 Who Worry (Therapeutic Treasures Collection)

Binnie is an energetic baboon, who bounces around the lush green mountains of Rwanda in East Africa. But like many of us, Binnie often feels worried and stressed, and these worries can get in her way! What if she gets lost in the jungle, or her family gets sick? What if no one likes her? Sometimes she even worries about the fact she's worried; and if she isn't worried, well why not?! This activity book has been developed by expert child psychologist Dr Karen Treisman. The first part of the book is a colourful illustrated therapeutic story about Binnie the Baboon, with a focus on worry and anxiety. This is followed by a wealth of creative activities and photocopiable worksheets for children to explore issues relating to anxiety, worry, fears, and stress, and how to find ways to understand and overcome them. The final section of the book is full of advice and practical strategies for parents, carers, and professionals on how to help children aged 5-10 to start to understand why they experience feelings of anxiety, and what they can do to help reduce and navigate it.This activity book is complemented by a standalone picture book of Binnie's story, also available from Jessica Kingsley Publishers (Binnie the Baboon, ISBN 9781839970252).

How to Be Ace: A Memoir of Growing Up Asexual

PRISM AWARDS FINALIST 2021GREAT GRAPHIC NOVELS FOR TEENS - YOUNG ADULT LIBRARY SERVICES ASSOCIATION (YALSA) 2022"When I was in school, everyone got to a certain age where they became interested in talking about only one thing: boys, girls and sex. Me though? I was only interested in comics."Growing up, Rebecca assumes sex is just a scary new thing they will 'grow into' as they get older, but when they leave school, start working and do grow up, they start to wonder why they don't want to have sex with other people.In this brave, hilarious and empowering graphic memoir, we follow Rebecca as they navigate a culture obsessed with sex - from being bullied at school and trying to fit in with friends, to forcing themselves into relationships and experiencing anxiety and OCD - before coming to understand and embrace their asexual identity.Giving unparalleled insight into asexuality and asexual relationships, How To Be Ace shows the importance of learning to be happy and proud of who you are.

Tripped: Nazi Germany, The Cia And The Dawn Of The Psychedelic Age

This Isn't Going to End Well: The True Story of a Man I Thought I Knew

In this powerful memoir, the bestselling author of Big Fish tries to come to terms with the life and death of his multi-talented longtime friend and brother-in-law, who had been his biggest hero and inspiration, in a poignant, lyrical, and moving memoir. If we&’re lucky, we all encounter at least one person whose life elevates and inspires our own. For acclaimed novelist Daniel Wallace, he had one hero and inspiration for so much of what followed: his longtime friend and brother-in-law William Nealy. Seemingly perfect, impossibly cool, William was James Dean, Clint Eastwood, and MacGyver all rolled into one, an acclaimed outdoorsman, a famous cartoonist, an accomplished author, a master of all he undertook, William was the ideal that Daniel sought to emulate. But when William took his own life at age 48, Daniel was left first grieving, and then furious with the man who broke his and his sister&’s hearts. That anger led him to commit a grievous act of his own, a betrayal that took him down a dark path into the tortured recesses of William&’s past. Eventually, a new picture of William emerged, of a man with too many secrets and too much shame to bear. This Isn&’t Going to End Well is Daniel Wallace&’s first foray into nonfiction. Part love story, part true crime, part a desperate search for the self and how little we really can know another, This Isn&’t Going to End Well tells an intimate and moving story of what happens when we realize our heroes are human.

Reimagining Poverty through Social Contextual Analyses: Finding New Ways to Understand ‘Getting By’ (Exploring the Environmental and Social Foundations of Human Behaviour)

This book is the first of its kind to apply social contextual analysis to the issue of poverty. It sets out detailed accounts of poverty based on original research and shows how understanding life contexts can give us a deeper understanding of the issue.The book highlights detailed life contexts from a project exploring the everyday experience of poverty, including what poverty is and what psychology has to say about poverty. It showcases work from an original study in Australia that uses on-the-ground participatory interview research, integrating this with international literature to provide a comprehensive analysis of poverty. The chapters explore the complexity, and often the simplistic reductions used in answering questions that try to define poverty, the psychological understanding of the phenomena, how individuals experience it, and the general opinion of the status-quo regarding poverty. However, most importantly the book tries to investigate why we have not solved poverty in modern, capitalist life, and sets out recommendations for research, practice, and policy in addressing issues of poverty.Showing the need for rigorous and on-the-ground approaches to addressing poverty and its many complications, the book will be highly relevant to students and researchers in the fields of social psychology, critical psychology, community psychology, social work, and social policy. It will also be relevant for anyone interested in the application of social psychological research techniques to the understanding and intervention of social issues, by showing pathways to better explore and understand human behaviour.

Reimagining Poverty through Social Contextual Analyses: Finding New Ways to Understand ‘Getting By’ (Exploring the Environmental and Social Foundations of Human Behaviour)

This book is the first of its kind to apply social contextual analysis to the issue of poverty. It sets out detailed accounts of poverty based on original research and shows how understanding life contexts can give us a deeper understanding of the issue.The book highlights detailed life contexts from a project exploring the everyday experience of poverty, including what poverty is and what psychology has to say about poverty. It showcases work from an original study in Australia that uses on-the-ground participatory interview research, integrating this with international literature to provide a comprehensive analysis of poverty. The chapters explore the complexity, and often the simplistic reductions used in answering questions that try to define poverty, the psychological understanding of the phenomena, how individuals experience it, and the general opinion of the status-quo regarding poverty. However, most importantly the book tries to investigate why we have not solved poverty in modern, capitalist life, and sets out recommendations for research, practice, and policy in addressing issues of poverty.Showing the need for rigorous and on-the-ground approaches to addressing poverty and its many complications, the book will be highly relevant to students and researchers in the fields of social psychology, critical psychology, community psychology, social work, and social policy. It will also be relevant for anyone interested in the application of social psychological research techniques to the understanding and intervention of social issues, by showing pathways to better explore and understand human behaviour.

Integrating Spiritual Interventions in Islamic Psychology: A Practical Guide (Islamic Psychology and Psychotherapy)

This book provides Islāmic psychology practitioners a framework on integrating evidence-based approaches of spiritual interventions based on Islāmic jurisprudence (Shari’ah with therapy). Covering both the theoretical and theological underpinnings of religious coping from an Islāmic perspective while also serving as a practical guide, this text delivers an integrative approach which can be used in psychotherapy to ensure a more holistic process of healing and well-being. It outlines the positive and essential contributions that interventions rooted in Qur’ânic and Sunnah evidence can make in terms of prevention, treatment, and recovery, describing a wide variety of practices and beliefs. Chapters focus on highlighting the importance of daily supplications and prayers, as well as other Prophetic remedies as part of a comprehensive, encompassing therapeutic plan for not only psycho-spiritual, but also physiological afflictions. This book provides all Muslim mental health practitioners, trainees, and students as well as healthcare workers in Muslim communities with an accessible guide to using Islāmic spiritual interventions in therapeutic practice.

Integrating Spiritual Interventions in Islamic Psychology: A Practical Guide (Islamic Psychology and Psychotherapy)

This book provides Islāmic psychology practitioners a framework on integrating evidence-based approaches of spiritual interventions based on Islāmic jurisprudence (Shari’ah with therapy). Covering both the theoretical and theological underpinnings of religious coping from an Islāmic perspective while also serving as a practical guide, this text delivers an integrative approach which can be used in psychotherapy to ensure a more holistic process of healing and well-being. It outlines the positive and essential contributions that interventions rooted in Qur’ânic and Sunnah evidence can make in terms of prevention, treatment, and recovery, describing a wide variety of practices and beliefs. Chapters focus on highlighting the importance of daily supplications and prayers, as well as other Prophetic remedies as part of a comprehensive, encompassing therapeutic plan for not only psycho-spiritual, but also physiological afflictions. This book provides all Muslim mental health practitioners, trainees, and students as well as healthcare workers in Muslim communities with an accessible guide to using Islāmic spiritual interventions in therapeutic practice.

The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions

ONE OF BARACK OBAMA'S FAVOURITE BOOKS OF 2023ONE OF THE GUARDIAN AND PROSPECT'S BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR ONE OF THE NEW YORK TIMES, ATLANTIC, AND WALL STREET JOURNAL’S TOP TEN BOOKS OF THE YEAR'Extraordinary... Magisterial... A remarkable meditation on friendship, success, madness and violence that refuses to oversimplify' Guardian (Book of the Day)'The darkest of literary triumphs, and the most gripping of unbearable reads' Telegraph (5 stars)A novelist's gripping investigation of the forces that led his childhood best friend from academic stardom to the psychiatric hospital where he has lived since killing the woman he lovedWhen the Rosens moved to New Rochelle, New York in 1973, Jonathan Rosen and Michael Laudor became inseparable. Both children of professors, the boys were best friends and fierce rivals who soon followed each other to Yale University.Michael blazed through Yale in three years, graduating summa cum laude and landing a top-flight consulting job. Then one day, Jonathan received a devastating call: Michael had suffered a psychotic break and was in the locked ward of a psychiatric hospital.Diagnosed with schizophrenia, Michael was still in hospital when he learned he'd been accepted to Yale Law School, and living in a halfway house when he decided, against all odds, to enroll. Still battling delusions, he managed to graduate, and after his triumphant story was featured in The New York Times, sold a memoir for a vast sum. Ron Howard bought film rights, completing the dream for Michael and his tirelessly supportive girlfriend Carrie, and Brad Pitt was set to star. But then Michael, in the grip of psychosis, committed a horrific act that made him a front-page story of an entirely different sort.The Best Minds is Jonathan Rosen's powerful account of an American tragedy, set in the final decades of the American century, an era that coincided with the emptying out of state mental hospitals. It is a story about the bonds of friendship, the price of delusion and the mystery of identity. Tender, funny, and harrowing by turns, The Best Minds is both a beautifully rendered coming of age story and an indictment of the profound neglect of mental illness in our society.