My Life in Mental Health: A Nurse’s Story relates – honestly and without pretense – the journey of a man who grew up in a family who struggled with mental health issues. John Nugent, the memoirist, tells how those early experiences led him to explore psychology to better understand both himself and his often-chaotic family.
His hands-on work in mental health nursing provides the grounding for his narrative that explores the development of modern mental health care. In just a few decades mental health treatment transformed from a “doctor knows best” discipline and arrived where the best treatments tend to emerge from the expressed needs and desires of clients.
My Life in Mental Health: A Nurse’s Story will inform and inspire anyone who has felt the impact of mental illness in his or her family or who cares about people with mental illness. The author makes a compelling case for putting to rest the enduring stigma toward people who live with mental illness.