Jonathan Rosen has spent the last few years trying to understand the story of his closest childhood friend, Michael Laudor.
Michael Laudor was, by all accounts, a genius. Maybe even a prodigy. Academically, he excelled beyond belief. Things that are hard for most young students, like reading and comprehending large volumes of material, came easily for him. His charm was infectious, and seemed to immediately attract the attention of any room he entered. As he navigated young adulthood and college, and eventually law school at Yale, one thing was clear: everyone was drawn to Michael.
Then Michael did something unimaginable: he killed his fiancée.
The tragedy of Michael’s story is captured in Jonathan’s new book, The Best Minds: A Story of Friendship, Madness, and the Tragedy of Good Intentions. It’s a breathtaking account of friendship, the harrowing and insidious nature of mental illness as it takes over someone’s life, and most of all, it investigates the invisible forces—cultural, political, and ideological—that shaped Michael’s terrible fortune, and America’s ongoing failure to get people like Michael the help that they so desperately need.
On today’s episode, Jonathan shares this personal story of extreme tragedy. Which is also, as we discuss, an American tragedy.
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Immensely validating to me as a psychiatrist at the end of my career. I trained in NYC. I have spanned the generations of brutal evolution in psychiatry, which has been hijacked by political ideologues even from within professional organizations. The term “evidence based” needs to be reclaimed by the mathematicians and scientists who are adherents to the power of good math. I lament the closing of state hospitals. Instead of reform, we have outsourced the care and management of the chronically mentally ill to the mercy of the streets and carpetbagging for profit psychiatric hospitals as general hospitals jettison their psychiatric units. We have also seen the expansion in the definition of psychiatric illness with the DSM5 as a continuation of science by committee. There is an explosion in the diagnosis of autism, ADHD, bipolar disorder, and transgenderism, and yet those diagnoses which demand accountability for behaviors have become much rarer: borderline, narcissistic, or antisocial personality disorders. Anything construed as pejorative is bad; anything that might fit into a protected class is good. These days anyone who calls an emperor naked may be professionally tarred and feathered. I know.
Bari - this is an incredible episode, perhaps one of my favorites. It delves into so many topics of great import. Many of which I have thought deeply about, but have no answer to. Thank you, I cannot wait to read Mr. Rosen's book.