"Sailing Directions" is a novelized memoir of grief and recovery set aboard a luxurious sailing yacht traveling the Greek Islands, based on the personal experience of the author. Is it possible that taking a job as cook on a luxurious sailing yacht, and getting away from her own small town can help Nina get over the death of her beloved husband, Jake? Her friend Alex thinks so, and convinces her to come to Greece where he's captain of Desiree, a one hundred foot beauty owned by a ruthless American financier known to his crew as the Boss. It's a small world, with intense dynamics. The Boss is demanding, and prone to tantrums. Seasickness, heat, exhaustion and grief threaten to defeat Nina, and ultimately, the Boss's willfulness nearly destroys his lovely toy and puts them all in danger. However, Nina finds a stock of resilience, humor, and even romance that lightens her darkest moments. The settings are wonderfully and carefully researched and detailed. Sailing under the stars, stormy seas, gourmet meals, visits to remote harbors and ancient sites; the reader is in for some serious vicarious pleasure while at the same time relating to the timeless struggle of recovery from loss.

An era has come and gone in the history of he care and treatment of the mentally ill, the Aslyum era. Close to two centuries ago the first institutions were erected. They proliferated throughout the Western world holding ever-increasing numbers of those deemed to be insane. They reached their limit of expansion in the 1950s and since that time have gradually diminished until they all but disappeared at the end of the 20th century. The early chapters of this book discuss the defining boundaries of psychiatric histories and the need for an historical understanding to be included in the education of mental health professionals. They are followed by a brief overview of the mental illnesses and the various theories that attempt to explain the growth of asylums. The ]traditional path] of psychiatric histories is visited as I look at the evidence of madness in the Ancient World through until the period defined as ]Modern Psychiatry] from the Enlightenment and the advent of moral treatment until recent times. Later chapters trace the development of the large institutions for the insane drawing on records of the then Lunacy Department and later Department of Mental Hygiene.