Facing the Unseen

The Struggle to Center Mental Health in Medicine

By: Damon Tweedy MD

Narrated by: Damon Tweedy M.D.

This program is read by the author.

From the New York Times bestselling author of Black Man in a White Coat comes a powerful and urgent call to center psychiatry and mental health care into the mainstream of medicine

As much as we all might wish that mental health problems, with their elusive causes and unsettling behaviors, simply did not exist, millions of people suffer from them, sometimes to an extreme extent. Many others face addiction to alcohol and other drugs, as overdose and suicide deaths abound. Yet the vast majority of doctors receive minimal instruction in treating these conditions during their lengthy medical training. This mismatch ignores the clear overlap between physical and mental distress, and too-often puts psychiatrists on the outside looking in as the medical system continues to fail many patients.

In Facing The Unseen, bestselling author, professor of psychiatry, and practicing physician Damon Tweedy guides us through his days working in outpatient clinics, emergency rooms, and hospitals as he meets people from all walks of life who are grappling with physical and psychological illnesses. In powerful, compassionate, and eloquent prose, Tweedy argues for a more comprehensive and integrated approach where people with mental illness have a health care system that places their full well-being front and center.

A Macmillan Audio production from St. Martin’s Press.

©2024 Damon Tweedy (P)2024 Macmillan Audio

Critic reviews

“Tweedy offers a moving reminder that no individual is merely ordinary and calls for more available and comprehensive mental health care.”—Booklist

“With both empathy and expertise, Damon Tweedy demonstrates why mental health cannot be siloed away from the rest of healthcare. Facing the Unseen is a rallying cry to reimagine how we care for patients, for centering mental health within “regular" medical care. A unified approach to care will not only address the urgent needs of patients, it will also help ease the burden on overstretched primary-care clinicians. Absolutely timely!”—Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, author of When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error

“Brims with insight and rare empathy. Damon Tweedy has written an essential book for this time of national and global mental health crisis. Facing the Unseen reads like a good novel while offering a much-needed corrective to our current systems of medical training and healthcare.”—Louise Aronson, author of Elderhood: Redefining Aging, Transforming Medicine, Reimagining Life

Hopeful message despite overall systemic inequities.

I appreciate Dr Tweedy's stories and the way he weaves racial realities in his narratives.

Powerful and engaging read

Dr Tweedy offers his personal account of navigating through medical school training and decision to dedicate his life’s work in centering mental health in general medicine. Through down-to-earth, relatable, heart wrenching stories of patients he personally encountered in various medical settings, Dr. Tweedy is both humble and knowledgeable in weaving his own experience with medical history confounded by race, economics, and politics. He builds a powerful call to action, chapter by chapter, for the importance of bridging the divide between mental and physical health for the benefit of every human being. Truly remarkable and touching book.