PSYCHIATRIC TALES

My local library system continues to supply be with great comics material. Most recently, I read Darryl Cunningham's Psychiatric Tales: Eleven Graphic Stories About Mental Illness [Bloomsbury USA; $17]. Published in 2011, the book is informative and moving. It was Cunningham's first book and here's what Amazon says about it:

 

Psychiatric Tales draws on Darryl Cunningham's time working in a psychiatric ward to give a reasoned and sympathetic look into the world of mental illness. In each chapter, Cunningham explores a different mental health problem, using evocative imagery to describe the experience of mental illness, both from the point of view of those beset by illness and their friends and relatives. As Cunningham reveals this human experience, he also shows how society's perceptions of and reactions to mental illness perpetuate needless stigma, for example, the myth that schizophrenic people are more likely to commit crimes than non-schizophrenic people. Psychiatric Tales is a groundbreaking graphic work; it deftly demythologizes and destigmatizes the disorders that 26.2 percent of American adults live with every day.

Concluding with a reflection on how mental illness has affected his own life, Darryl Cunningham's Psychiatric Tales is a moving, engaging examination of what is, at its root, the human condition.

Cunningham has been doing some terrific work with his non-fiction graphic novels. I've like all the ones I've read to date, but I particularly recommend this one to you.

ISBN 978-1-60819-278-6