Breaking Points

Unprecedented numbers of young people are in crisis today, and our health care systems are set up to fail them.

Breaking Points explores the stories of a diverse group of American young adults experiencing psychiatric hospitalization for psychotic symptoms for the first time and documents how patients and their families make decisions about treatment after their release. Approximately half of young people refuse mental-health care after their initial hospitalization even though better outcomes depend on early support.

In attempting to determine why this is the case, Neely Laurenzo Myers identifies what matters most to young people in crisis, passionately arguing that health care providers must attend not only to the medical and material dimensions of care but also to a patient’s moral agency.

“Reading the heartbreaking and heartwarming narratives in Breaking Points 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 makes first-episode psychosis legible as a startling fissure in the young person’s quest for acceptance and autonomy. A must-read for scholars of youth culture, medicine, and mental health alike, Breaking Points exemplifies the anthropological nuances of holding space and listening deeply.” — ELIZABETH BROMLEY, Director, UCLA- DMH Public Mental Health Partnership, University of California, Los Angeles

“A beautifully written study of the complexity of first-episode psychoses that challenge youth, their friends and family, and care providers, Breaking Points is an indictment of the inadequacies of entire service systems.” — BYRON J. GOOD, Professor of Medical Anthropology, Harvard Medical School

NEELY LAURENZO MYERS is Professor of Anthropology and Director of the Mental Health Equity Lab at Southern Methodist University and author of Recovery’s Edge. She is also Editor in Chief of Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry.