#ReadUP: Reckoning with mental illness.

This post is published as part of the Association of University Press’s University Press Week blog tour. #ReadUP.

 

Mindy Greiling was a state legislator for twenty years. She helped found the nation’s first state mental health caucus, and has served on state and national boards of the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Greiling’s son, Jim, was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder in his early twenties. In Fix What You Can: Schizophrenia and a Lawmaker’s Fight for Her Son, Greiling describes challenges shared by many families. These range from the practical (medication compliance, housing, employment) to the heartbreaking—suicide attempts, victimization, and illicit drug use. Written with her son’s cooperation, Fix What You Can chronicles Greiling’s efforts to address problems in the mental health system, including obstacles to parental access to information and insufficient funding for care and research.

In the summer of 2020, the University of Minnesota Press launched a podcast to give authors an opportunity to connect with scholarly peers and experts in their fields. Greiling has been featured in multiple episodes, having invited three people to join her in conversation.


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