Breaking Points

"This book explores the stories and decisions of a diverse group of young people experiencing psychosis. Neely Myers brings an anthropological perspective to these stories. Reading these heartbreaking and heartwarming narratives makes us more human and connected. I highly recommend it."—Lisa Dixon, Professor of Psychiatry, Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons

"Through compassionate ethnographic storytelling, Neely Myers's Breaking Points makes first-episode psychosis legible as a startling fissure in the young person's quest for acceptance and autonomy. Featuring a series of compelling case studies detailing the onset and aftermath of psychosis as experienced by youth, families, and clinicians, Breaking Points richly explains why so many distressed young people would be motivated to avoid mental health services. It masterfully explores the meaning of these crises, examining the moral dimension of the psychotic experience by foregrounding young people's desires, aspirations, and struggles to find a good life and an authorial self. Myersbrilliantly advances her theory of moral agency as a force critical to fulfillment, peopled opportunities, and social place. Shining a light on the family processes, intersectional disparities, and cultural patterns that shape psychosis, Breaking Points shows youth at their most vulnerable yet with their most comprehensible hopes and ambitions. By never simplifying the person with psychosis, Myers raises tough questions about the contemporary American conditions that produce so much isolation and alienation for young adults. Vibrant with observational detail, the book also proposes incisive solutions that are salient for policymakers, clinicians, and families. A must-read for scholars of youth culture, medicine, and mental health alike, Myers's Breaking Points exemplifies the anthropological nuances of holding space and listening deeply."—Elizabeth Bromley, Professor in Residence of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and Anthropology, and Director, UCLA-DMH Public Mental Health Partnership, University of California, Los Angeles

"Neely Myers's Breaking Points is an utterly critical account of young people in a highly diverse American community whose developmental transitions to adulthood are complicated by strange, unexpected experiences that come to be diagnosed as psychosis. A beautifully written study of the complexity of first-episode psychoses that challenge comprehension by individual youth, their friends and families, and emergency care providers, the book is an indictment of the inadequacies of entire service systems that too often produce trauma rather than care, resulting in long-term alienation from mental health services for the most vulnerable. Myers concludes with the steps needed to develop early identification and support and to improve systems of crisis management and hospitalization using evidence-based early interventions that can help these young people reclaim their lives."—Byron J. Good, Professor of Medical Anthropology, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School