The Myth of the Chemical Cure: A Critique of Psychiatric Drug Treatment |  | Author: Joanna Moncrieff
Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
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Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 150289
Media: Paperback
Edition: Revised
Pages: 256
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 8.4 x 5.4 x 0.9
ISBN: 0230574327
Dewey Decimal Number: 616
EAN: 9780230574328
ASIN: 0230574327
Publication Date: October 15, 2009
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Product Description
This controversial book overturns the claim 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.
Book Description
This book exposes the traditional view that psychiatric drugs correct chemical imbalances as a dangerous fraud. It traces the emergence of this view and the way it supported the vested interests of the psychiatric profession, the pharmaceutical industry and the modern state. Instead it is proposed that psychiatric drugs 'work' by creating abnormal brain states, which are often unpleasant and impair normal intellectual and emotional functions along with other harmful consequences. Research on antipsychotics, antidepressants and mood stabilisers is examined to demonstrate this thesis and it is suggested that acknowledging the real nature of psychiatric drugs would lead to a more democratic practice of psychiatry. |
| Customer Reviews:
A well bakanced review September 12, 2009
Anthony Dillon (Australia)
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
This book provides a well balanced critique of psychiatric drugs. While those who prescribe these drugs claim that they know a lot about them, the reality is, that there is much that they don't know. It is very well written. The author is to be congratualted for her research.
Dissecting a medical myth February 23, 2008
Ben Hansen (Traverse City, Michigan)
20 out of 22 found this review helpful
Depression was once viewed as a state of mind caused by stressful life factors, but today the majority of Americans believe depression is a biological disease caused by chemical imbalance in the brain. This shift in the way "mental disorders" like depression and anxiety are viewed has resulted in profound social and cultural changes. Antidepressants are now the most widely prescribed class of medications in the U.S., and many states have enacted parity legislation requiring insurance coverage for mental illness equal to physical illness. Soldiers returning from the war in Iraq are encouraged to seek treatment for post-traumatic stress, and Congress may pass a "Mothers Act" to promote screening new moms for postpartum depression. In many classrooms more than half the students are on medications for attention deficit and similar disorders, and the number of U.S. children diagnosed with bipolar disorder has risen an astounding 4,000% in the past ten years. Almost weekly we hear of yet another school shooting, with headlines clamoring for early intervention and mandatory treatment of "at risk" individuals.
Against this backdrop of a seemingly rampant epidemic of mental illness, Joanna Moncrieff has written a brilliant new book calling into question nearly everything commonly believed about the nature of psychiatric illness and psychiatric medication. First and foremost, this book shatters the myth that psychiatric drugs restore chemical balance. Page by page and chapter by chapter, Dr. Moncrieff systematically exposes the shoddy science, flawed research and deceptive marketing campaigns which have led us down a sadly mistaken path that has nothing to do with science and everything to do with profit.
Among the most interesting chapters, Moncrieff methodically examines what happens to patients on different classes of psychiatric drugs. The so-called antipsychotics such as Zyprexa and Risperdal achieve their therapeutic effects by causing a form of Parkinson's disease, while the so-called SSRI antidepressants such as Prozac and Zoloft have comparatively little effect on the brain but often cause nausea and seem to work mostly as active placebos, barely outperforming inactive placebos such as simple sugar pills.
Because the author follows strict scientific methods and carefully documents every step of her work, this is not a book that will appeal to a mass audience, but for anyone seriously interested in genuine medical research unfettered by special interests dedicated to maximizing pharmaceutical profits, I cannot recommend this book too highly. Joanna Moncrieff's The Myth of the Chemical Cure: A Critique of Psychiatric Drug Treatment belongs on the reference shelf alongside Grace E. Jackson's Rethinking Psychiatric Drugs: A Guide for Informed Consent and Peter R. Breggin's Brain Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry: Drugs, Electroshock, and the Psychopharmaceutical Complex.
Superb Expose of How Psych Drugs don't Work Well February 17, 2008
Charles Whitfield
9 out of 12 found this review helpful
This is one of the most important books to come out in the last few years that exposes the truth about the toxicity and innapropriate claims and marketing of most of the currently used psychiatric drugs, from anti-depressants to "mood stabilizers" [actually only anti-epilepsy drugs], including Lithium, to anti-psychotics.
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