Watch the video:
The 13th Annual Prechter Lecture was held on Tuesday, October 15th, 2019 from 6:00 – 9:00 pm at the Kahn Auditorium, A. Alfred Taubman Biomedical Science Research Building, 109 Zina Pitcher Place, Ann Arbor, MI 48109
We were pleased to present:
- Pete Earley (keynote speaker)
Author of Crazy - A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness - PANEL DISCUSSION: "Mental health care in the justice system & the present and future of research in bipolar disorder"
Moderator: Melvin McInnis, M.D., Prechter Program Director
Panelists:
- Pete Earley
- Debra Pinals, M.D., medical director of behavioral health and forensic programs for the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry; Director, Program in Psychiatry, Law and Ethics, University of Michigan Medical School Department of Psychiatry and Adjunct Clinical Professor, University of Michigan Law School
- Maria Bastida, MS, APRN, Nurse Practitioner
- Charles Graham Jr., PhD, LMSW, MA, Therapist and Psychologist
- Wendy, Prechter Program research participant who lives with bipolar disorder
About the Author & Book:
A former Washington Post reporter, Pete Earley is the author of 11 nonfiction books, including four New York Times bestsellers, and six novels. He is best known for his nonfiction book, CRAZY: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness, which was one of two finalists for the 2007 Pulitzer Prize.
CRAZY describes Earley’s struggle to get his adult son help after he develops a severe mental illness (bipolar disorder) and is arrested. As part of his research, Earley spent ten months inside the Miami-Dade County jail where he followed persons with mental disorders through the criminal justice system and out onto the streets to see what happened to them. His book has won awards from the American Psychiatric Association, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, Mental Health America, and prompted CNN to name him one of nation’s top “Mental Wellness Warriors.”
Earley serves as the lone parent member of the Department of Health and Human Service’s Interdepartmental Serious Mental Illness Coordinating Committee, composed of 14 public members who advise Congress about mental health reform.
Earley has testified five times before the U.S. Congress about the need for mental health reform. He serves on the board of the Corporation for Supportive Housing, which finances projects to eliminate homelessness. The Chief Justice of the VA Supreme Court appointed him to a task force that recommended changes to the state's involuntary commitment laws after a horrific shooting on the campus of Virginia Tech University.
Earley writes regularly for USA TODAY and the Washington Post about mental health issues. He also writes a weekly blog at www.peteearley.com about topics of mental health that often is quoted by the media.
In a Washingtonian Magazine cover story entitled "Top Journalists: Washington's Media Elite," he was described as one of a handful of journalists in America who "have the power to introduce new ideas and give them currency."
“Parents of the mentally ill should find solace and food for thought in [this book’s] pages.”
- Publishers Weekly
“Explores the mind-boggling mess that America’s mental health system has become and champions the case for reform.”
- Rocky Mountain News
Sponsored by:
• A gift in memory of James Munro Leaf
• Frederick S. Upton Foundation