Models of mental health leaders

There are many ways to become a great leader. One can have and use a great mentor. One can have the right skills in the right place. One can learn by mistakes and get second chances.

And, among other ways, one can learn from the memoirs and autobiographies of great leaders. Even revolutionaries learn from such books. Che Guevara recommended carrying and reading "biographies" of "past heros" while in the jungle.

The same is true in the behavioral healthcare field. Here, too, there are memoirs and autobiographies of the lives and careers of our leaders to learn from. There are not an extraordinary number of these, perhaps because traditionally there was a tendency and Freudian tradition to be more of a blank screen and thereby keep our lives private. Nevertheless, there are enough. What there are come from a variety of disciplines, including consumer peer specialists, though I could find none from social workers, psychiatric nurses, or business-trained leaders. The following is an annotated bibliography of some of the best.

• Mel Sabshin (2008). Changing American Psychiatry: A Personal Perspective. American Psychiatric Press, Inc.

This book is both an autobiography and a history of psychiatry in the last half of the 21st century. During that period, following a time of conflict between biological and psychoanalytic psychiatrists, Dr. Sabshin became arguably the most consequential leader in psychiatry by leading the profession of psychiatry to focus more on a genuine scientific base. Less known is how he encountered anti-semitism in psychiatry in the former Soviet Union and institutional racism in psychiatry in the USA.

• Barry Blackwell (2012). Bits and Pieces of a Psychiatrist's Life. Xlibrus Corporation.

Dr. Blackwell is perhaps the most well-known for discovering dangerous and unexpected medication "side effects" from certain anti-depressants, a forerunner of our current concerns about the long-term side effects of many different psychiatric medications. He also describes his challenging leadership in such diverse areas as the homeless and managed care. Such work seem to have taken its personal toll on him and other similar ethically-based psychiatric leaders.

• Matthew Dumont (1994). Treating the Poor: A Personal Sojourn Through the Rise and Fall of Community Mental Health. Dymphna Press.

Dr. Dumont was a national model for community psychiatrists on how to go anywhere to build relationships with patients who usually were thought of as unreachable. He also discusses, and portrays, how an ethical leader needs to resign when standards can no longer be met.

• Donna Norris et al editors (2012). Women in Psychiatry: Personal Perspectives. American Psychiatric Publishing.

This book conveys the challenges of becoming leaders in psychiatry by women, including women from minority backgrounds.

• Kay Jamison (1995). An Unquiet Mind: A Memoir of Moods and Madness. Alfred Knopf, Inc.

Dr. Jamison is a psychologist who has become an inspirational model for recovery. She is a leading example of what some call prosumers, a combination of being both a professional and patient in psychiatry. Unfortunately, she depicts how prosumers can still be stigmatized for their mental illness, even when they are a successful professional in the field.

• Lauren Spiro (2014). Living for Two: A Daughter's Journey From Grief and Madness to Forgiveness and Peace. Trafford Publishers.

If it isn't already clear that patients who "come out" in the role of consumer advocates will lead an increasingly important leadership role in behavioral healthcare, even to the extent of causing a cultural shift in the field, read this memoir. In a most humanistic account of her own heroic journey, she gifts us with a book of prose, poetry, poetry on paintings, and even a touch of mystery with a happy ending.

• Viktor Frankl (2000). Recollections. An Autobiography. Perseus Publishers.
• Viktor Frankl (2006). Man's Search for Meaning. Beacon Press.

Exemplifying psychiatric leadership in the worst conditions possible, Dr. Frankl's memoir of finding meaning even in a concentration camp is a perennial best-seller. A later, more general autobiography expanded both on his earlier life and career after the concentration camp, including a return to the location of the belly of the Holocaust beast in Vienna, where he developed his treatment advance called logotherapy.

• Carl Jung (1989). Memories, Dreams, Reflections. Vintage Reissue edition.

Along with the less autobiographical "Interpretation of Dreams" by Sigmund Freud, Jung's autobiography explores what leaders can learn from their own nighttime dreams, a time and place that allow us to listen to our souls. Jung, of course, was most well-known for his theories of our collective unconscious archetypes.

• R.D. Laing (2001). The Making of a Psychiatrist. Canongale Classics.

Of course, there are controversial leaders in psychiatry, like R.D. Laing. He was a British psychiatrist who exemplified the leadership trait of empathy with the most disturbed patients. However, in the 1960s, perhaps brimming with overconfidence, he established a residential community where there were experiments with LSD as part of his philosophy that insanity could be a sane response to an insane world. We can all learn from our mistakes, and before he died, he took the most impressive, and unusual, step of admitting his conclusion that his treatments were not effective and thereby not to be followed.

Although most of these books are by psychiatrists, much of their messages and meanings are relevant to leaders from other disciplines in behavioral healthcare. Moreover, they depict what staff and patients can expect from the best leadership in our field. If one wants a serious read for this upcoming summer, start with any one of these.