Beyond Schizophrenia
Living and Working with a Serious Mental Illness
By (author) Marjorie L. Baldwin
Publication date:
28 December 2017Length of book:
250 pagesPublisher
Rowman & Littlefield PublishersISBN-13: 9780810895676
The experience of living and working with schizophrenia is often fraught with challenges and setbacks. This book is a comprehensive attempt to explain why, in spite of near-miraculous advances in medication and treatment, persons with mental illness fare worse than almost any other disadvantaged group in the labor market. As a researcher of economics and disability and the mother of a son with schizophrenia, the author speaks from both professional and personal experience. First, she looks at societal factors that affect employment outcomes for persons with schizophrenia (or other serious mental illness), including stigma and discrimination, investments in human capital, the quality of mental health services, and the support of family and friends. Then she examines workplace factors that affect employment outcomes, including employer mandates in the Americans with Disabilities Act, the decision to disclose a diagnosis of mental illness at work, the interaction between job demands and functional limitations, and job accommodations for persons with a serious mental illness. Giving weight to both perspectives, the final chapter outlines a set of policy recommendations designed to improve employment outcomes for this population.
In this fascinating and personal look at mental illness, a labor economist at Arizona State, Baldwin, whose youngest son was diagnosed with schizophrenia at age 21, raises unsettling questions. Why do people with mental illness face as much discrimination as convicts? Why do they often end up unemployed and in jail? Twenty-seven years ago, Baldwin listened to her son, David, then a college junior, talk nonstop and behave erratically and thought he was experimenting with drugs. In fact, he was showing symptoms of schizophrenia, which usually starts in the late teens or early twenties. He spent three weeks in the hospital, where he told his mom he thought the TV commercials were sending messages to him. Schizophrenia is relatively rare—less than 1 percent of the population suffers from it—but Baldwin also addresses the broader issue of mental illness and employment. 'One of the great tragedies of the disease is the loss of self-reliance and self-esteem associated with being denied a productive work life,' she writes. Her son’s story ends on a positive note: he is married and runs a construction business. The personal is political in this rallying cry to help those with mental illness get stable employment, not just medical treatment.