When Jonathan Foiles was a graduate student in social work, he had to
choose between a mental health or policy track. But once he began
working, he found it impossible to tell the two apart. While helping
poor patients from the South and West sides of Chicago, he realized
individual therapy could not take into account the importance
unemployment, poverty, lack of affordable housing and other policy
decisions that impact both individual and community well-being. It is
easy to be depressed if you live in a neighborhood that has few
supportive resources available, or is marred by gun violence. We are
able to diagnose people with depression, but how does one heal a
neighborhood?
This City Is
Killing Me: Community Trauma and Toxic Stress in Urban America,
brings policy and psychology together. Through a remarkable set of
case studies, Foiles opens up his therapy door to allow us to
overhear the stories of Jacqueline, Frida, Robert, Luis, Anthony, and
other poor Chicagoans. As we listen, Foiles teaches us how he
diagnoses, explains how therapists before him would analyze these
patients, and, through statistics and the example of Chicago, teaches
us how policy decisions have contributed to these individuals’
suffering. The result is a remarkable, unique work with an urgent
political call to action at its core.