STRAITJACKETS AND LUNCH MONEY

A journalist explores children’s mental health in this memoir.

In 1986, after a few years of being shuttled between her separated parents’ homes, Cengel was 10 years old and desperate to fix her father’s unhappiness. Her solution was to save the dollars she was given for lunch money, which resulted in her feeling pride for her sacrifice as she consistently refused to eat. By September 1986, the author was dangerously underweight and admitted to the Roth Psychosomatic Unit at the Children’s Hospital at Stanford University. Cengel examines the four months she spent in the unit in close detail, recounting being force-fed, making friends with other patients, and, perhaps most importantly, interacting with the staff. The volume is not only concerned with those experiences but also covers her life in recent years, switching back and forth. The author interviewed the unit’s staff members and volunteered in youth-mentoring programs. Particularly intriguing are her conversations with Dr. Hans Steiner, who helped create Roth in the late '70s in order to bring together medicine and psychiatry for children. Cengel writes with both distance and emotion when working through her story and investigating provisions for kids’ mental and social care, resulting in an absorbing account that makes compelling points about listening closely to children. While some of the gritty details, particularly about her own time at Roth, are quite difficult to read, they’re a stark reminder of the important people working in this field as well as a troubling lack of advancement. The memoir masterfully renders a personal story that casts a light on a neglected area of public health. Cengel successfully uses her journalistic skills to revisit this part of her life: “Now I can ask the questions I couldn’t as a child.”

A harrowing but engrossing examination of pediatric care for readers interested in psychology and health.