It reads like an entry of a journal or blog authored by an ER nurse or doctor, a "day in the life" type of story.

It does bring awareness to how many psych patients are involuntarily commited to psych wards, it's a daily event actually.

In the ER last summer, after my daughter was found lost, unable to tell her name, shoeless and without pants on at 1am by police--they took her to the ER in the back of the police car--

I was told many stories by the ER nursing staff about other patients/clients from the local mental health group home that wandered into the ER and labeled as "Jane Doe" until an astute ER staff member would recognize them as belonging to a mental health residential facility.

The story leans heavily on medication saving the day, which is not always the case for many people, so that part of the article could have been better covered, but then again, this reads like a journal entry.

Unfortunately, I can relate to having someone be found by police in this way, and unfortunately, my daughter was under the care of a state funded mental health facility at the time. Now there's a story.

because it's breaking news that women like pink chenille slippers. And if anyone is reading, i could really really use a pair.

Was there a Seroquel XR advertisement on the same page?

Marketing. Pure and simple. It's not really about a specifit hospital but that doesn't matter. Healthcare organizations are phenomenal purchasers of advertising, so it's a win-win for the media: we publish little "puff pieces" that make you look good (in this case, an anonymous hospital saved Jane and maybe your local hospital can do the same for you), and when you like that the media makes you look like a hero, you are more likely to buy advertising. The same principle would work on puff pieces for hardware stores, if they bought space in the media to the same extent as healthcare.

My local newspaper (not the NYT, by the way) looks more like a brochure for all the doctors, hospitals, and other assorted healthcare outfits in a 250 mile radius than anything else.

Why yes, I am an old cynic, why do you ask?

re:"hallucinations and delusions" of the mentally ill.
As a paranoid schizophrenic I got a few thousand $ for my "hallucinations and delusions" from a judge. I took photos and took notes of my "hallucinations and delusions". I suggest other mentally ill do the same.

Please help make February 7 the "International Day in Memory of SSRI Fatalities".
The date was chosen because it was the day Traci Johnson was found dead because she hanged herself during Cymbalta clinical trial.
It's just a click go join Bloggers Unite:
http://www.bloggersunite.org/event/international-day-in-memory-of-ssri-fatalities

There are details at my blog too: http://justana-justana.blogspot.com/
Tell your friends.
Thank you.
Ana

There appears to be an ever growing market for hopeful stories on mental health perhaps if only to belie the broader reality. For the longest time it was and continues to be stories about new genetic findings which it is claimed will lead to new, safer, and more effective treatments. Now the hopeful stories turn on one person's potentially positive outcome. The tragedy is that that the story of one individual's personal outcome may lead to the impression that it reflects outcomes as a whole. (Admittedly, here the author wrote of the revolving door.) The press does not serve the public well if it is no longer willing or able to consider mental health issues systemically rather then individually.

The Boston Globe recently reported that the number of children on SSI by virtue of a disabling mental illness increased from approximately 24,000 in 1990 to 595,000 in 2008. This type of story, important as it is but a clear downer, didn't gain any traction elsewhere.

It seems that this woman is a medication success story. I'm not opposed to drugs, and admit that drugs have helped me in the past. As the other comments suggest, and we all know, drugs don't help everyone, and even for those they temporarily help the relapse rate is very high. It's time for a scientific leap, from the flawed biochemical model to a new electromagnetic paradigm. Watch my new educational video explaining the connection between magnetoreception and psychiatric disorders:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBxyuwGhTTA