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Profiles in Mental Health Courage Audiobook
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Profiles in Mental Health Courage portrays the dramatic journeys of a diverse group of Americans who have struggled with their mental health. This book offers deeply compelling stories about the bravery and resilience of those living with a variety of mental illnesses and addictions.
Several years ago, Patrick J. Kennedy shared the story of his personal and family challenges with mental illness and addiction—and the nation’s—in his bestselling memoir, A Common Struggle. Now, he and his Common Struggle coauthor, award-winning healthcare journalist Stephen Fried, have crafted this powerful new book sharing the untold stories of others—a special group who agreed to talk about their illnesses, treatments, and struggles for the first time.
When Kennedy’s uncle, President John F. Kennedy, published his classic book Profiles in Courage, he hoped to inspire “political courage” by telling the stories of brave U.S. senators who changed America.
In Profiles in Mental Health Courage, former Congressman Kennedy adapts his uncle’s idea to inspire the “mental health courage” it takes for those with these conditions to treat their illnesses, and risk telling their stories to help America face its crisis in our families, our workplaces, our jails, and on our streets. The resounding silence surrounding these illnesses remains persistent, and this book takes an unflinching look at the experience of mental illness and addiction that inspires profound connection, empathy, and action.
In this book, you’ll meet people of all ages, backgrounds, and futures, across politics and government, Hollywood and the arts, tech and business, sports and science—some recovering, some relapsing, some just barely holding on, but all sharing experiences and insights we need to better understand. You’ll also meet those trying to help them through—parents, siblings, spouses, therapists, bosses, doctors, and friends who create the extended families needed to support care and wellness.
The personal stories they share with Kennedy and Fried are intimate, sometimes shocking, always revealing. And they are essential reading for caregivers, family members, policymakers, and the general public—just as they are for those who often feel alone in experiencing these challenges themselves.
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"I assumed that nothing in a book of essays about people struggling with their mental health could surprise me. Then I read … Patrick J. Kennedy’s Profiles in Mental Health Courage, written with Stephen Fried … about the complicated relationship between addiction and mental health … a former congressman with his own history of substance abuse and bipolar disorder, [he] introduces readers introduces readers to … people living with mental illness who are not only functioning, but helping others."
— Judith Newman, New York Times Book Review
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A collection of individual stories that could alter perception of addiction, mental health, and treatment in the U.S…. compelling, heartbreaking, and inspiring.
— Kirkus -
An insightful, compelling book … that could alter perception of addiction, mental health and treatment in the U.S. … heartbreaking and inspiring.
— Kirkus -
Profiles in Mental Health Courage is a miracle, a book that will help and heal and inspire. I honestly do not know how the authors did it, but their ability to get the participants to lay their souls bare in such intimate detail, is both remarkable and profound. So many books profess to help in the woefully misunderstood area of mental health: this one does in a way that is unprecedented, riveting, readable and rooted in humanity.
— Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights -
An insightful, compelling book … that could alter perception of addiction, mental health and treatment in the U.S. … heartbreaking and inspiring.
— Kirkus -
A heartrending portrait of mental illness and substance abuse disorder in America… [Patrick J. Kennedy and Stephen Fried] fulfill their mission to improve visibility for those struggling to get help, and take a step toward rectifying the widespread lack of understanding about mental illnesses and substance disorders, which they argue is ‘as big an epidemic as the diseases themselves’…a revealing window into an important and timely issue.
— Publishers Weekly (starred review) -
Profiles in Mental Health Courage is a miracle, a book that will help and heal and inspire. I honestly do not know how the authors did it, but their ability to get the participants to lay their souls bare in such intimate detail, is both remarkable and profound. So many books profess to help in the woefully misunderstood area of mental health: this one does in a way that is unprecedented, riveting, readable and rooted in humanity.
— Buzz Bissinger, author of Friday Night Lights -
Teachers encounter students and families facing a variety of mental health conditions, including addiction. They’ll benefit from exploring the stories in this book, hopefully gaining empathy and understanding instead of feeling fear and dismissiveness.
— We Are Teachers -
An insightful, compelling book … that could alter perception of addiction, mental health and treatment in the U.S. … heartbreaking and inspiring.
— Kirkus -
Richly informative, harrowing, and moving, these courageously shared tales cast much-needed light on the many obstacles to mental health.
— Booklist
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About the Authors
The Honorable Patrick J. Kennedy is a former member of the US House of Representatives and the nation’s leading political voice on mental illness, addiction, and other brain diseases. During his sixteen-year career representing Rhode Island in Congress, he fought a national battle to end medical and societal discrimination against these illnesses, highlighted by his lead sponsorship of the Mental Health Parity and Addictions Equity Act of 2008—and his brave openness about his own health challenges. The son of Senator Edward “Ted” Kennedy, he decided to leave Congress not long after his father’s death to devote his career to advocacy for brain diseases and to create a new, healthier life and start a family. He has since founded the Kennedy Forum, which unites the community of mental health, and co-founded One Mind for Research, which sponsors brain research and open science collaboration. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, Amy, and their children.
Stephen Fried is an award-winning magazine journalist, a bestselling author, and an adjunct professor at Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He is the author of two books on healthcare, mental health, and addiction—Bitter Pills: Inside the Hazardous World of Legal Drugs and Thing of Beauty: The Tragedy of Supermodel Gia—as well as The New Rabbi, Husbandry, and his recent historical biography Appetite for America: Fred Harvey and the Business of Civilizing the Wild West—One Meal at a Time, which was a New York Times bestseller. Fried lives in Philadelphia with his wife, author Diane Ayres.
About Johnny Heller
Johnny Heller, winner of numerous Earphones and Audie Awards, was named a “Golden Voice” by AudioFile magazine in 2019. He has been a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award winner from 2008 through 2013 and he has been named a top voice of 2008 and 2009 and selected as one of the Top 50 Narrators of the Twentieth Century by AudioFile magazine.