Patricia Cornwell writes new chapter for McLean

Crime novelist Patricia Cornwell takes her research seriously, grounding her fiction in the real thing by visiting McLean Hospital in 2004 to learn about the mysteries of the human brain and the depression, rage, and substance abuse that affect her characters.

McLean has now recruited her to join its National Council as an ambassador for mental health around the world, the Harvard-affiliated hospital said today.

“Her outreach efforts through her novels and her willingness to push psychiatric illness to the forefront of everyday conversation is helping to eliminate the stigma of these diseases,” McLean president and psychiatrist in chief Dr. Scott L. Rauch said in a statement. “We are excited to have her as part of our advocacy team.”