Between Two Worlds
A Psychiatrist and Her Son’s Quest for Compassionate Mental Health Care
Between Two Worlds
A Psychiatrist and Her Son’s Quest for Compassionate Mental Health Care
Description
For four decades, Ellen Bassuk has navigated the worlds of psychiatry, advocacy, and motherhood-shaped by her son Daniel Schoonover's lifelong struggle with mental illness, especially schizophrenia. Between Two Worlds is their deeply personal and captivating memoir, chronicling Daniel's journey through a broken health care system that often fails those who are different, and the consequent parenting challenges.
From early childhood, Daniel's developmental milestones were unusual, leading to hospitalizations and rejections from schools and institutions ill-equipped to see beyond diagnoses. As a single mother and psychiatrist, Bassuk fought to protect her son from a system that prioritized efficiency over humanity, forging an alternative path that allowed Daniel to reclaim his life.
Drawn from hospital and school reports as well as firsthand accounts, Between Two Worlds offers an unflinching look at systems that marginalize the vulnerable. Bassuk calls for a shift in mental health care, emphasizing the power of recovery principles and person-centered approaches to healing that is focused on relationships, empathy, and individual needs.
Close to forty years old, Daniel has found independence, purpose, and community. Their story is a beacon of hope and a call to action-urging transformation from institutionalization to connection, from labels to lived experience, and from stigma to compassion.
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Table of Contents
Preface: Welcome to the Hotel with No Vacancy
Introduction: Our Mental Health System Is Broken
Part I: Growing Up in an Unfriendly World
1. Mother of a Marginalized Child
2. Setting My Moral Compass
3. Becoming a Doctor
4. The Best Laid Plans
5. Where Did My Sister Go?
6. How the System Failed Daniel
7. “I Didn't Go to School; I Only Went to Timeout.”
Part II: Descent into Psychosis
8. Isolated and Lonely
9. Boas, Fish, and Bees
10. What Did Daniel Have?
11. Reign of Terror
12. A Community of Spirits
13. Florid Psychosis
14. Our Broken Mental Health System: How Did We Get Here?
15. Transforming Psychiatry
Part III: Journey Back to Personhood
16. Tortuous Uphill Road
17. The Recovery Process
18. Real People, Real Empathy, Real Connection
19. Glimmers of Purpose and Hope
About the Authors
References
Index
Product details
| Published | 11 Dec 2025 |
|---|---|
| Format | Ebook (Epub & Mobi) |
| Edition | 1st |
| Pages | 224 |
| ISBN | 9798216200628 |
| Imprint | Bloomsbury Academic |
| Illustrations | 11 bw illus |
| Publisher | Bloomsbury Publishing |
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