Download or read book The Myth of the Chemical Cure written by J. Moncrieff and published by Springer. This book was released on 2016-04-13 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book overturns the idea that psychiatric drugs work by correcting chemical imbalance and analyzes the professional, commercial and political vested interests that have shaped this view. It provides a comprehensive critique of research on drugs including antidepressants, antipsychotics and mood stabilizers.
Download or read book The Bitterest Pills written by J. Moncrieff and published by Springer. This book was released on 2013-09-15 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A challenging reappraisal of the history of antipsychotics, revealing how they were transformed from neurological poisons into magical cures, their benefits exaggerated and their toxic effects minimized or ignored.
Download or read book A Straight Talking Introduction to Psychiatric Drugs written by Joanna Moncrieff and published by Straight Talking Introductions Series. This book was released on 2020-09-24 with total page 250 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In an era when more people are taking psychiatric drugs than ever before, Joanna Moncrieff's explosive book challenges the claims for their mythical powers. Drawing on extensive research, she demonstrates that psychiatric drugs do not 'treat' or 'cure' mental illness by acting on hypothesised chemical imbalances or other abnormalities in the brain. There is no evidence for any of these ideas. Moreover, any relief the drugs may offer from the distress and disturbance of a mental disorder can come at great cost to people's physical health and their ability to function in day-to-day life. And, once on these drugs, coming off them can be very difficult indeed. This book is a wake-up call to the potential damage we are doing to ourselves by relying on chemical cures for human distress. Its clear, concise explanations will enable people to make a fully informed decision about the benefits and harms of these drugs and whether and how to come off them if they so choose.
Download or read book Blaming the Brain written by Elliot Valenstein and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2002-02 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Blaming the Brain Elliott Valenstein exposes the many weaknesses inherent in the scientific arguments supporting the widely accepted theory that biochemical imbalances are the main cause of mental illness. He lays bare the commercial motives of drug companies and their huge stake in expanding their markets. This provocative book will force patients, practitioners, and prescribers alike to rethink the causes of mental illness and the methods by which we treat it.
Download or read book The Emperor s New Drugs written by Irving Kirsch and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2010-01-26 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Do antidepressants work? Of course -- everyone knows it. Like his colleagues, Irving Kirsch, a researcher and clinical psychologist, for years referred patients to psychiatrists to have their depression treated with drugs before deciding to investigate for himself just how effective the drugs actually were. Over the course of the past fifteen years, however, Kirsch's research -- a thorough analysis of decades of Food and Drug Administration data -- has demonstrated that what everyone knew about antidepressants was wrong. Instead of treating depression with drugs, we've been treating it with suggestion. The Emperor's New Drugs makes an overwhelming case that what had seemed a cornerstone of psychiatric treatment is little more than a faulty consensus. But Kirsch does more than just criticize: he offers a path society can follow so that we stop popping pills and start proper treatment for depression.
Download or read book Depression Delusion Volume One written by Dr. Terry Lynch and published by . This book was released on 2015-04-18 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Brain chemical imbalances have been widely promoted as existing in depression for the past 50 years. In this book, Terry Lynch reveals some shocking truths. Chemical imbalances have never been found to exist in depression. The story of the rise of this falsehood is presented, a falsehood that is more prevalent in modern times then the flat earth delusion was in the past. This falsehood meets psychiatry's own criteria for a delusion. Adhering to principles of logic and science, Terry Lynch illustrates the absurdity of this widely held belief. He includes many references of doctors, other mental health professionals, the media and influential individuals espousing this falsehood as a known fact. He also included statements made by prominent doctors, scientists, psychologists and others over the past fifty years, expressing great concern that this falsehood has been widely misrepresented as if it were a fact, not least by members of the medical profession. The book addresses why drug companies are withdrawing from psychiatric research, who are the big winners and losers, and whether doctors have sufficient knowledge to justify their standing as THE foremost mental health experts. The author describes the major adverse consequences of the depression brain chemical imbalance delusion, and why this and other related mental health delusions must be removed from the mental health landscape, in the public interest. The author presents a better way of understanding and responding to depression, based on what is actually there, rather than on fanciful notions of brain chemical notions that have never been demonstrated to exist. "
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 100 Chemical Myths written by Lajos Kovács and published by Springer. This book was released on 2014-09-26 with total page 411 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 100 Chemical Myths deals with popular yet largely untrue misconceptions and misunderstandings related to chemistry. It contains lucid and concise explanations cut through fallacies and urban legends that are universally relevant to a global audience. A wide range of chemical myths are explored in these areas; food, medicines, catastrophes, chemicals, and environmental problems. Connections to popular culture, literature, movies, and cultural history hold the reader’s interest whilst key concepts are beautifully annotated with illustrations to facilitate the understanding of unfamiliar material. Chemical Myths Demystified is pitched to individuals without a formal chemistry background to fledgling undergraduate chemists to seasoned researchers and beyond.
Download or read book Coercion as Cure written by Thomas Szasz and published by Transaction Publishers. This book was released on 2011-12-31 with total page 295 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Understanding the history of psychiatry requires an accurate view of its function and purpose. In this provocative new study, Szasz challenges conventional beliefs about psychiatry. He asserts that, in fact, psychiatrists are not concerned with the diagnosis and treatment of bona fide illnesses. Psychiatric tradition, social expectation, and the law make it clear that coercion is the profession's determining characteristic. Psychiatrists may "diagnose" or "treat" people without their consent or even against their clearly expressed wishes, and these involuntary psychiatric interventions are as different as are sexual relations between consenting adults and the sexual violence we call "rape." But the point is not merely the difference between coerced and consensual psychiatry, but to contrast them. The term "psychiatry" ought to be applied to one or the other, but not both. As long as psychiatrists and society refuse to recognize this, there can be no real psychiatric historiography. The coercive character of psychiatry was more apparent in the past than it is now. Then, insanity was synonymous with unfitness for liberty. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, a new type of psychiatric relationship developed, when people experiencing so-called "nervous symptoms," sought help. This led to a distinction between two kinds of mental diseases: neuroses and psychoses. Persons who complained about their own behavior were classified as neurotic, whereas persons about whose behavior others complained were classified as psychotic. The legal, medical, psychiatric, and social denial of this simple distinction and its far-reaching implications undergirds the house of cards that is modern psychiatry. Coercion as Cure is the most important book by Szasz since his landmark The Myth of Mental Illness.
Download or read book The Myth of Mental Illness written by Thomas S. Szasz and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2011-07-12 with total page 436 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “The landmark book that argued that psychiatry consistently expands its definition of mental illness to impose its authority over moral and cultural conflict.” — New York Times The 50th anniversary edition of the most influential critique of psychiatry every written, with a new preface on the age of Prozac and Ritalin and the rise of designer drugs, plus two bonus essays. Thomas Szasz's classic book revolutionized thinking about the nature of the psychiatric profession and the moral implications of its practices. By diagnosing unwanted behavior as mental illness, psychiatrists, Szasz argues, absolve individuals of responsibility for their actions and instead blame their alleged illness. He also critiques Freudian psychology as a pseudoscience and warns against the dangerous overreach of psychiatry into all aspects of modern life.
Download or read book Chemical Misconceptions written by Keith Taber and published by Royal Society of Chemistry. This book was released on 2002 with total page 204 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part one includes information on some of the key alternative conceptions that have been uncovered by research and general ideas for helping students with the development of scientific conceptions.
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 477 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Superb… a nuanced account of biological psychiatry.” —Richard J. McNally In Mind Fixers, “the preeminent historian of neuroscience” (Science magazine) Anne Harrington explores psychiatry’s repeatedly frustrated efforts to understand mental disorder. She shows that psychiatry’s waxing and waning theories have been shaped not just by developments in the clinic and lab, but also by a surprising range of social factors. 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.
Download or read book Ceremonial Chemistry written by Thomas Szasz and published by Syracuse University Press. This book was released on 2003-10-01 with total page 316 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Responding to the controversy surrounding drug use and drug criminalization, Thomas Szasz suggests that the "therapeutic state" has overstepped its bounds in labeling certain drugs as "dangerous" substances and incarcerating drug "addicts" in order to cure them. Szasz shows that such policies scapegoat certain drugs as well as the persons who sell, buy, or use them; and 'misleadingly pathologize the "drug problem" by defining disapproved drug use as "disease" and efforts to change the behavior as "treatment." Readers will find in Szasz's arguments a cogent and committed response to a worldwide debate.
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 Environmental Illness written by Herman Staudenmayer and published by CRC Press. This book was released on 1998-09-29 with total page 408 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Environmental illness: certain health professionals and clinical ecologists claim it impacts and inhibits 15 percent of the population. Its afflicted are led to believe environmental illness (EI) originates with food, chemicals, and other stimuli in their surroundings -as advocates call for drastic measures to remedy the situation. What if relief proves elusive-and the patient is sent on a course of ongoing, costly and ineffective "treatment"? Several hundred individuals who believed they were suffering from EI have been evaluated or treated by Herman Staudenmayer since the 1970s. Staudenmayer believed the symptoms harming his patients actually had psychophysiological origins-based more in fear of a hostile world than any suspected toxins contained in the environment. Staudenmayer's years of research, clinical work-and successful care-are now summarized in Environmental Illness: Myth & Reality. Dismissing much of the information that has attempted to defend EI and its culture of victimization, Staudenmayer details the alternative diagnoses and treatments that have helped patients recognize their true conditions-and finally overcome them, often after years of prolonged suffering.
Download or read book The Book of Woe written by Gary Greenberg and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-05-02 with total page 359 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Gary Greenberg has become the Dante of our psychiatric age, and the DSM-5 is his Inferno.” —Errol Morris Since its debut in 1952, the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders has set down the “official” view on what constitutes mental illness. Homosexuality, for instance, was a mental illness until 1973. Each revision has created controversy, but the DSM-5 has taken fire for encouraging doctors to diagnose more illnesses—and to prescribe sometimes unnecessary or harmful medications. Respected author and practicing psychotherapist Gary Greenberg embedded himself in the war that broke out over the fifth edition, and returned with an unsettling tale. Exposing the deeply flawed process behind the DSM-5’s compilation, The Book of Woe reveals how the manual turns suffering into a commodity—and made the APA its own biggest beneficiary.
Download or read book Warning Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health written by William Glasser, M.D. and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2010-11-16 with total page 283 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: How psychopharmacology has usurped the role of psychotherapy in our society, to the great detriment of the patients involved. William Glasser describes in Warning: Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health the sea change that has taken place in the treatment of mental health in the last few years. Millions of patients are now routinely being given prescriptions for a wide range of drugs including Ritalin, Prosac, Zoloft and related drugs which can be harmful to the brain. A previous generation of patients would have had a course of psychotherapy without brain–damaging chemicals. Glasser explains the wide implications of this radical change in treatment and what can be done to counter it.
