Download or read book Medication Madness written by Peter Roger Breggin and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2009-05-26 with total page 404 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dr. Breggin presents this fascinating, frightening, and dramatic look at people driven to suicide, murder, and other violent behaviors by the psychotropic medications that were meant to help them.
Download or read book Medication Madness written by Peter R. Breggin and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2009-05-26 with total page 605 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Medications for everything from depression and anxiety to ADHD and insomnia are being prescribed in alarming numbers across the country, but the "cure" is often worse than the original problem. Medication Madness is a fascinating, frightening, and dramatic look at the role that psychiatric medications have played in fifty cases of suicide, murder, and other violent, criminal, and bizarre behaviors. As a psychiatrist who believes in holding people responsible for their conduct, the weight of scientific evidence and years of clinical experience eventually convinced Dr. Breggin that psychiatric drugs frequently cause individuals to lose their judgment and their ability to control their emotions and actions. Medication Madness raises and examines the issues surrounding personal responsibility when behavior seems driven by drug-induced adverse reactions and intoxication. Dr. Breggin personally evaluated the cases in the book in his role as a treating psychiatrist, consultant or medical expert. He interviewed survivors and witnesses, and reviewed extensive medical, occupational, educational and police records. The great majority of individuals lived exemplary lives and committed no criminal or bizarre actions prior to taking the psychiatric medications. Medication Madness reads like a medical thriller, true crime story, and courtroom drama; but it is firmly based in the latest scientific research and dozens of case studies. The lives of the children and adults in these stories, as well as the lives of their families and their victims, were thrown into turmoil and sometimes destroyed by the unanticipated effects of psychiatric drugs. In some cases our entire society was transformed by the tragic outcomes. Many categories of psychiatric drugs can cause potentially horrendous reactions. Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Adderall, Ritalin, Concerta, Xanax, lithium, Zyprexa and other psychiatric medications may spellbind patients into believing they are improved when too often they are becoming worse. Psychiatric drugs drive some people into psychosis, mania, depression, suicide, agitation, compulsive violence and loss of self-control without the individuals realizing that their medications have deformed their way of thinking and feeling. This book documents how the FDA, the medical establishment and the pharmaceutical industry have over-sold the value of psychiatric drugs. It serves as a cautionary tale about our reliance on potentially dangerous psychoactive chemicals to relieve our emotional problems and provides a positive approach to taking personal charge of our lives.
Download or read book Anatomy of an Epidemic written by Robert Whitaker and published by Crown. This book was released on 2010-04-13 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Updated with bonus material, including a new foreword and afterword with new research, this New York Times bestseller is essential reading for a time when mental health is constantly in the news. In this astonishing and startling book, award-winning science and history writer Robert Whitaker investigates a medical mystery: Why has the number of disabled mentally ill in the United States tripled over the past two decades? Interwoven with Whitaker’s groundbreaking analysis of the merits of psychiatric medications are the personal stories of children and adults swept up in this epidemic. As Anatomy of an Epidemic reveals, other societies have begun to alter their use of psychiatric medications and are now reporting much improved outcomes . . . so why can’t such change happen here in the United States? Why have the results from these long-term studies—all of which point to the same startling conclusion—been kept from the public? Our nation has been hit by an epidemic of disabling mental illness, and yet, as Anatomy of an Epidemic reveals, the medical blueprints for curbing that epidemic have already been drawn up. Praise for Anatomy of an Epidemic “The timing of Robert Whitaker’s Anatomy of an Epidemic, a comprehensive and highly readable history of psychiatry in the United States, couldn’t be better.”—Salon “Anatomy of an Epidemic offers some answers, charting controversial ground with mystery-novel pacing.”—TIME “Lucid, pointed and important, Anatomy of an Epidemic should be required reading for anyone considering extended use of psychiatric medicine. Whitaker is at the height of his powers.” —Greg Critser, author of Generation Rx
Download or read book Medication for Madness written by Peter R. and published by . This book was released on 2017-10-21 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NOTHING LIKE THIS BOOK has ever before been written. I have evaluated hundreds of cases of drug-induced mental and emotional disturbances, some in my clinical practice as a psychiatrist treating patients, some as a consultant to patients injured by drugs, and many in my role as medical expert in criminal cases, in malpractice suits against doctors and hospitals, and in product-liability suits against drug companies. The stories in this book are about children and adults who have been emotionally injured and sometimes driven mad by psychiatric medications, many committing horrific crimes. Psychiatric drugs can and do transform the lives of otherwise well-meaning, ethical people, sometimes causing them to act in ways they would ordinarily find reprehensible. Although I have studied and written about these adverse drug effects for several decades, only in the last year have I grasped and described the unifying concept of the spellbinding effects of psychiatric drugs. Many people who take the drugs become desperately depressed and suicidal, violently aggressive, or wildly out of control without realizing that their medication is causing them to think, to feel, and to act in unusual and otherwise abhorrent ways. There are no secondhand stories in this book. I have personally evaluated each and every one of the dozens of detailed cases, as well as the many additional cases that are scattered throughout the book. The stories in this book are accurate down to the details. I have not taken dramatic license with any of them. Nothing has been fictionalized to make them more interesting; the truth is dramatic enough. Although the book is written for the public, health professionals can rely on the stories as valid case studies of medication-induced adverse effects on the brain, mind, and behavior. In those cases where the victims of medication madness have survived their adverse drug effects, I have personally interviewed each one at length, usually on more than one occasion. In nearly every instance, I have interviewed other surviving participants in the tragedies described here. Often, I have gathered additional information from friends, family, and coworkers. In all cases, I have sought and nearly always obtained any relevant medical, police, educational, and employment records. Sometimes, I have visited the crime scene and I have always had access to any coroner's reports, autopsy findings, and toxicology results. I have often read depositions given under oath by doctors and by others involved in the case. For most of the cases, I have written lengthy medical-legal reports, and on many occasions I have testified in depositions, hearings, and trials...Get a copy
Download or read book Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal written by Peter Roger Breggin and published by Springer Publishing Company. This book was released on 2012-07-19 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Print+CourseSmart
Download or read book Medication for Madness written by Peter R. and published by . This book was released on 2017-12-19 with total page 234 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: NOTHING LIKE THIS BOOK has ever before been written. I have evaluated hundreds of cases of drug-induced mental and emotional disturbances, some in my clinical practice as a psychiatrist treating patients, some as a consultant to patients injured by drugs, and many in my role as medical expert in criminal cases, in malpractice suits against doctors and hospitals, and in product-liability suits against drug companies. The stories in this book are about children and adults who have been emotionally injured and sometimes driven mad by psychiatric medications, many committing horrific crimes. Psychiatric drugs can and do transform the lives of otherwise well-meaning, ethical people, sometimes causing them to act in ways they would ordinarily find reprehensible. Although I have studied and written about these adverse drug effects for several decades, only in the last year have I grasped and described the unifying concept of the spellbinding effects of psychiatric drugs. Many people who take the drugs become desperately depressed and suicidal, violently aggressive, or wildly out of control without realizing that their medication is causing them to think, to feel, and to act in unusual and otherwise abhorrent ways.
Download or read book Toxic Psychiatry written by Peter R. Breggin and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2015-12-22 with total page 636 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Prozac, Xanax, Halcion, Haldol, Lithium. These psychiatric drugs--and dozens of other short-term "solutions"--are being prescribed by doctors across the country as a quick antidote to depression, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and other psychiatric problems. But at what cost? In this searing, myth-shattering exposé, psychiatrist Peter R. Breggin, M.D., breaks through the hype and false promises surrounding the "New Psychiatry" and shows how dangerous, even potentially brain-damaging, many of its drugs and treatments are. He asserts that: psychiatric drugs are spreading an epidemic of long-term brain damage; mental "illnesses" like schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety disorder have never been proven to be genetic or even physical in origin, but are under the jurisdiction of medical doctors; millions of schoolchildren, housewives, elderly people, and others are labeled with medical diagnoses and treated with authoritarian interventions, rather than being patiently listened to, understood, and helped. Toxic Psychiatry sounds a passionate, much-needed wake-up call for everyone who plays a part, active or passive, in America's ever-increasing dependence on harmful psychiatric drugs.
Download or read book Mad in America written by Robert Whitaker and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2019-09-10 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An updated edition of the classic history of schizophrenia in America, which gives voice to generations of patients who suffered through "cures" that only deepened their suffering and impaired their hope of recovery Schizophrenics in the United States currently fare worse than patients in the world's poorest countries. In Mad in America, medical journalist Robert Whitaker argues that modern treatments for the severely mentally ill are just old medicine in new bottles, and that we as a society are deeply deluded about their efficacy. The widespread use of lobotomies in the 1920s and 1930s gave way in the 1950s to electroshock and a wave of new drugs. In what is perhaps Whitaker's most damning revelation, Mad in America examines how drug companies in the 1980s and 1990s skewed their studies to prove that new antipsychotic drugs were more effective than the old, while keeping patients in the dark about dangerous side effects. A haunting, deeply compassionate book -- updated with a new introduction and prologue bringing in the latest medical treatments and trends -- Mad in America raises important questions about our obligations to the mad, the meaning of "insanity," and what we value most about the human mind.
Download or read book Mind Fixers Psychiatry s Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness written by Anne Harrington and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2019-04-16 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mind Fixers tells the history of psychiatry’s quest to understand the biological basis of mental illness and asks where we need to go from here. In Mind Fixers, Anne Harrington, author of The Cure Within, explores psychiatry’s repeatedly frustrated struggle to understand mental disorder in biomedical terms. She shows how the stalling of early twentieth century efforts in this direction allowed Freudians and social scientists to insist, with some justification, that they had better ways of analyzing and fixing minds. But when the Freudians overreached, they drove psychiatry into a state of crisis that a new “biological revolution” was meant to alleviate. Harrington shows how little that biological revolution had to do with breakthroughs in science, and why the field has fallen into a state of crisis in our own time. Mind Fixers makes clear that psychiatry’s waxing and waning biological enthusiasms have been shaped not just by developments in the clinic and lab, but also by a surprising range of social factors, including immigration, warfare, grassroots activism, and assumptions about race and gender. Government programs designed to empty the state mental hospitals, acrid rivalries between different factions in the field, industry profit mongering, consumerism, and an uncritical media have all contributed to the story as well. In focusing particularly on the search for the biological roots of schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder, Harrington underscores the high human stakes for the millions of people who have sought medical answers for their mental suffering. This is not just a story about doctors and scientists, but about countless ordinary people and their loved ones. A clear-eyed, evenhanded, and yet passionate tour de force, Mind Fixers recounts the past and present struggle to make mental illness a biological problem in order to lay the groundwork for creating a better future, both for those who suffer and for those whose job it is to care for them.
Download or read book Handbook of Psychiatric Drugs written by Jeffrey A. Lieberman and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 2006-05-16 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Handbook of Psychiatric Drugs is a comprehensive, clear, concise and quick reference to psychiatric drug therapies, designed to guide the clinician on the selection and implementation of treatment for mental illness. Each chapter is organised by drug class and follows a standard format for ease of use. Concise sections on pharmacology and indications for use are followed by detailed information on drug selection, initiation and maintenance of treatment and withdrawal. Adverse effects, contraindications and drug interactions are also reviewed in detail, along with issues such as treatment resistance and treatment evaluation. A handy pocket-sized drug reference, the Handbook of Psychiatric Drugs makes it easy to keep up-to-date with new developments. It is an invaluable resource for all clinicians who use psychiatric drugs to treat medical and psychiatric illness, and an informative read for all those with an interest in the subject.
Download or read book Inheriting Madness written by Ian Dowbiggin and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 1991-05-14 with total page 228 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historically, one of the recurring arguments in psychiatry has been that heredity is the root cause of mental illness. In Inheriting Madness, Ian Dowbiggin traces the rise in popularity of hereditarianism in France during the second half of the nineteenth century to illuminate the nature and evolution of psychiatry during this period. In Dowbiggin's mind, this fondness for hereditarianism stemmed from the need to reconcile two counteracting factors. On the one hand, psychiatrists were attempting to expand their power and privileges by excluding other groups from the treatment of the mentally ill. On the other hand, medicine's failure to effectively diagnose, cure, and understand the causes of madness made it extremely difficult for psychiatrists to justify such an expansion. These two factors, Dowbiggin argues, shaped the way psychiatrists thought about insanity, encouraging them to adopt hereditarian ideas, such as the degeneracy theory, to explain why psychiatry had failed to meet expectations. Hereditarian theories, in turn, provided evidence of the need for psychiatrists to assume more authority, resources, and cultural influence. Inheriting Madness is a forceful reminder that psychiatric notions are deeply rooted in the social, political, and cultural history of the profession itself. At a time when genetic interpretations of mental disease are again in vogue, Dowbiggin demonstrates that these views are far from unprecedented, and that in fact they share remarkable similarities with earlier theories. A familiarity with the history of the psychiatric profession compels the author to ask whether or not public faith in it is warranted.
Download or read book Desperate Remedies written by Andrew Scull and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2022-05-17 with total page 513 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A Telegraph Book of the Year A Washington Post Notable Work A Times Book of the Year A Hughes Award Finalist “An indisputable masterpiece...comprehensive, fascinating, and persuasive.” —Wall Street Journal “Compulsively readable...Scull has joined his wide-ranging reporting and research with a humane perspective on matters that many of us continue to look away from.” —Daphne Merkin, The Atlantic “I would recommend this fascinating, alarming, and alerting book to anybody. For anyone referred to a psychiatrist it is surely essential.” —The Spectator “Meticulously researched and beautifully written, and even funny at times.” —The Guardian “Brimming with wisdom and brio, this masterful work spans the history of psychiatry. Exceedingly well-researched, wide-ranging, provocative in its conclusions, and magically compact, it is riveting from start to finish. Mark my words, Desperate Remedies will soon be a classic.” —Susannah Cahalan, author of Brain on Fire From the birth of the asylum to the latest drug trials, Desperate Remedies brings together a galaxy of mind doctors working in and out of institutional settings: psychologists and psychoanalysts, neuroscientists and cognitive behavioral therapists, as well as patients and their families desperate for relief. One of the most provocative thinkers writing about psychiatry today, Andrew Scull carefully reconstructs the rise and fall of state-run mental hospitals to explain why so many of the mentally ill are now on the street, and why victims of experimental therapies were so often women. He reveals how drug companies expanded their reach to treat a growing catalog of ills, while deliberately concealing the side effects of drugs now routinely prescribed from childhood through senescence. Carefully researched and compulsively readable, this passionate and compassionate account of America’s long battle with mental illness challenges us to rethink our deepest assumptions about how we think and feel.
Download or read book Psychosomatic Medicine written by Kurt Ackerman and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 2015 with total page 489 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Psychosomatic Medicine (PM) is a rapidly developing subspecialty of psychiatry focusing on psychiatric care of patients with other medical disorders. PM practitioners strive to stay current with the latest research and practice guidelines in a burgeoning field involving complex interactions and combinations of illnesses. To address these challenges, this book provides practical instruction from PM clinicians, educators and researchers, covering core clinical concepts routinely used in practice.
Download or read book Return from Madness written by Kathleen Degen and published by Jason Aronson. This book was released on 1996 with total page 266 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Shedding the lifelong identity of a mental patient, they no longer need case management but require help adjusting to major changes in their thinking and functioning. Kathleen Degen and Ellen Nasper describe group therapy that helps patients identify and cope with unexpected, intense feelings such as sadness or painful memories of childhood trauma, increase their interpersonal skills, and advance their sense of self beyond that of their label as mental patients.
Download or read book Schizophrenia written by Marvin Ross and published by Bridgeross Communications. This book was released on 2008 with total page 188 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Written by a medical writer and family member of someone suffering from schizophrenia, this book outlines all of the issues involved with schizophrenia and its treatment including stigma, history, causes, physiological changes in the brain, and best treatments. It is an ideal reference and support for family members and others interested in this disease. It is also suitable as supplementary reading for students in health care fields (including medicine and nursing), psychology, social work and any occupation that needs solid information about schizophrenia. The book is recommended by the World Fellowship for Schizophrenia and Allied Disorders on its website.
Download or read book Taking America Off Drugs written by Stephen Ray Flora and published by State University of New York Press. This book was released on 2012-02-01 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this highly provocative book, Stephen Ray Flora maintains that we have been deceived into believing that whatever one's psychological problem—from anxiety, anorexia, bulimia, depression, phobias, sleeping and sexual difficulties to schizophrenia—there is a drug to cure us. In contrast, he argues that these problems are behavioral, not chemical, and he advocates behavioral therapy as an antidote. He makes the controversial claim that for virtually every psychological difficulty, behavioral therapy is more effective than drug treatment. Not only that, but the side effects of behavioral therapy, rather than being harmful like many drugs, are actually beneficial, often facilitating self-empowerment through learning functional life skills.
Download or read book No Nonsense Guide to Psychiatric Drugs written by Moira Dolan and published by Moira Dolan. This book was released on 2017-05-05 with total page 178 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Have you ever experienced brain fog, strange moods, or suicidal thinking while on a prescription medication? Do you wonder if your doctor gave you all the necessary warnings about the mental effects of what has been prescribed? Do you sometimes think you might not need to be on all those drugs? Chances are you have not been given the opportunity for Informed Consent, because you were not told what is really known (and not known) about what the drug is doing in the body and brain, its possible side mental effects, what's known and not known about its safety, and the actual evidence regarding how well it works (or not). Any drug that causes changes in mind, mood, emotion or behavior is, by definition, a psychotropic agent, regardless of whether it is prescribed in a psychiatric setting. Psychiatric drugs have the potential to cause the very things they claim to treat, or worse. Even common, non-psychiatric medications can have profound mental effects. In today's assembly line health care with ten-minute office visits, often with only a non-physician assistant or nurse, the quick fix of dispensing a prescription almost never includes a thorough discussion of the factors you would really need to make a well-considered decision about accepting a drug. This user-friendly no-nonsense guide empowers the health care consumer with the basics in order to make informed decisions about psychiatric drugs and other meds with unsuspected mind-bending effects. Dr. Dolan is passionate about patient empowerment and believes being an informed consumer is the only protection against becoming a victim of your medications.
