Facing the Unseen: The Struggle to Center Mental Health in Medicine

Damon Tweedy, M.D.

$30.00

Publication Date: April 9th, 2024

Publisher:

St. Martin's Press

ISBN:

9781250284891

Pages:

304

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Description

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.

About the Author

DAMON TWEEDY, MD is a professor of psychiatry at Duke University School of Medicine and staff physician at the Durham Veteran Affairs Health System. His first book, Black Man in a White Coat, was a New York Times Bestseller, selected by TIME magazine as one of the Top 10 Non-fiction books of that year. He has also published articles about race, medicine, and mental health in medical journals and print publications including The New York Times and The Washington Post.

Praise for Facing the Unseen: The Struggle to Center Mental Health in Medicine

“The personal anecdotes will help readers understand the view from the doctor’s chair, and the argument for a ‘collaborative care’ model convinces. It’s an edifying proposal for overhauling psychiatric treatment.”—Publishers Weekly

“A charged, earnest argument for relaxing the distinction between body and mind in the treatment of both.”—Kirkus Reviews

“Tweedy offers a moving reminder that no individual is merely ordinary and calls for more available and comprehensive mental health care.”—Booklist

“With both empathy and expertise, Damon Tweedy demonstrates why mental health cannot be siloed away from the rest of healthcare. Facing the Unseen is a rallying cry to reimagine how we care for patients, for centering mental health within “regular" medical care. A unified approach to care will not only address the urgent needs of patients, it will also help ease the burden on overstretched primary-care clinicians. Absolutely timely!”—Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, author of When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error

“Brims with insight and rare empathy. Damon Tweedy has written an essential book for this time of national and global mental health crisis. Facing the Unseen reads like a good novel while offering a much-needed corrective to our current systems of medical training and healthcare.”—Louise Aronson, author of Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life

“Facing the Unseen is a coming of age story, a psychiatry primer, and a policy brief all rolled into one. Riveting case studies. Compelling, honest prose. A strong battle cry for a more holistic approach to mental health treatment. Dr. Tweedy is one of the most important voices in psychiatry today.”—Anna Lembke, MD, author of Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance in the Age of Indulgence