This is the most intensive and thorough study of case management practice that I have ever read.

Rich in theory and compelling and illuminating description, Meds, Money, and Manners challenges conventional understanding about the working and effect of disciplinary power as it guides readers through the confusing and contradictory landscape of deinstitutionalization. Social workers and policymakers, as well as historians and sociologists of mental illness and its treatment will find much of interest in this engaging book

Anthropologists will find this ethnographic and historical study of social workers and their practices in mental health an invaluable contribution to our understanding of how Foucauldian disciplinary knowledge and power operates in the everyday lives of human service workers.

Paying close attention to language and meaning, Jerry Floersch's study documents how practitioners find ways to work around the limitations and inconsistencies of practice models to meet unique service needs while seeking to stay within the spirit of the model. The book is vivid and astute, wonderful as history, as critique, and as a framework for future research.

This work provides essential insights into the helping process, identifying those elements that are fundamental but often are not incorporated into our intervention models.