Gracefully Insane: Life and Death Inside America's Premier Mental Hospital

"While those with severe and persistent mental illness struggle to find care, those who are from the upper echelons can be assured that there is a place for them. THAT place is brilliantly profiled in this book. Under the aegis of a ivy league college, this training hospital addresses the needs of the famously mentally ill in grand fashion. No cardboard boxes for these folks. Therapy is state of the art. Nothing is too good to address their needs, and this book should stand as a benchmark as how those who are in need of care will never experience anything like McLean Hospital just as many of the poor will never know that their illness is not so much a treatable disease as a sad social condition. "
~ Written on 2008-08-15

"This book was nothing like I expected it to be. I had no idea so many "famous" people spent time at this institution. It was very easy to read, had a few technical terms I had to look up but I finished it in two days. Very good read..."
~ Written on 2008-06-23

"Alex Beam's Gracefully Insane is written with a twofold purpose in mind. On the one hand, Beam introduces readers to the rolling hills and well-appointed grounds of a MacLean, psychiatric hospital of the rich and famous; its residents often referred to the hospital as a university, to themselves as alumni. On the other hand, through the lens of Maclean one sees the evolution of the history of psychiatric practice in America. Here, for the most part, MacClean was neither better nor worse than most. If it was fashionable to dunk patients in vats of cold water or harness them into gyrating chairs, such practices could be found. About the only fashion that could not be accomodated is that practiced today: where the emphasis is on the efficacy of pharmacological medicine. With the end of the extended observation stay, this bastion of outliers gradually loses its psychiatric niche. Still, Gracefully Insane is worth a leisurely read, if only to glimpse Ray Charles, Sylvia Plath, James Taylor and the other members of its distinguished alumni. "
~ Written on 2005-07-03

"I was bored in some parts, it was interesting in other parts. And sometimes it was almost scattered, I didn't find most of it that well put together. And towards the end, it was hard for me to stay involved.

Other then that, it talks about shock treatment, insulin therapy. The famous people who stayed there, who WANTED to stay there. And the doctors behind the scenes.

Overall I give it a 3 out of 5 stars."
~ Written on 2005-06-15

"Beam's "Gracefully Insane" is rich in anecdotal history, but poor in other areas. Makes for a light, enjoyable read, but Beam rarely teases out the interesting insights that arise from his excellent access to the inner workings of America's "Premier" mental hospital.

This book will make you think about the (troubled) history of psychiatry/ treatment of mental illness, and Beam's portrait of this institution caused me to shed no tears for the fall of this fabled refuge for blue blooded loons.

Reading interviews with "graduates", its hard not to question the assumptions that underlied McLean's very reasons for existence. Few of the individuals profiled within seem like they were ever a "danger to self or others". Indeed, when a rash of suicides hit McLean a couple of decades ago, the staff were singularly unprepared to cope. Perhaps this is because the "inmates" were not as bad off as one might suppose?

Makes an interesting companion piece for Goffman's "Asylums"."
~ Written on 2004-07-07