Download Blaming the Brain: The Truth About Drugs and Mental Health
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Blaming the Brain: The Truth About Drugs and Mental Health
Download Blaming the Brain: The Truth About Drugs and Mental Health
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Over the last thirty years, there has been a radical shift in thinking about the causes of mental illness. The psychiatric establishment and the health care industry have shifted 180 degrees from blaming mother to blaming the brain as the source of mental disorders. Whereas experience and environment were long viewed as the root causes of most emotional problems, now it is common to believe that mental disturbances -- from depression and anxiety to schizophrenia -- are determined by brain chemistry. And many people have come to accept the broader notion that their very personalities are determined by brain chemistry as well. In his award-winning, meticulously researched, and elegantly written history of psychosurgery, Great and Desperate Cures, Elliot Valenstein exposed the great injury to thousands of lives that resulted when the medical establishment embraced an unproven approach to mental illness. Now, in Blaming the Brain he exposes the many weaknesses inherent in the scientific arguments supporting the widely accepted theory that biochemical imbalances are the main cause of mental illness. Valenstein reveals how, beginning in the 1950s, the accidental discovery of a few mood-altering drugs stimulated an enormous interest in psychopharmacology, resulting in staggering growth and profits for the pharmaceutical industry. He lays bare the commercial motives of drug companies and their huge stake in expanding their markets. Prozac, Thorazine, and Zoloft are just a few of the psychoactive drugs that have dramatically changed practice in the mental health profession. Physicians today prescribe them in huge numbers even though, as several major studies reveal, their effectiveness and safety have been greatly exaggerated. Part history, part science, part exposé, and part solution, Blaming the Brain sounds a clarion call throughout our culture of quick-fix pharmacology and our increasing reliance on drugs as a cure-all for mental illness. This brilliant, provocative book will force patients, practitioners, and prescribers alike to rethink the causes of mental illness and the methods by which we treat it.
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Product details
Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Free Press; Original ed. edition (February 1, 2002)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0743237870
ISBN-13: 978-0743237871
Product Dimensions:
6 x 0.8 x 9 inches
Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
3.7 out of 5 stars
20 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#116,009 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
This is a pioneer work. Today most of what Valenstein writes about the dubious empirical basis for most of medication-psychiatry, is widely known - and disputed only by those who regard the "chemical imbalance"-model as heavenly dogma. But it was he, along with D. Healy, who built the foundations of the liberation movement and paved the way for later critics like R.Whitaker and I.Kirsch. When the "chemical imbalance" -paradigm is finally laid to rest, a statue of Valenstein should be erected at the main square of American psychiatry.
After Great and Desperate Cures, the story of the rise and fall of psycho-surgery and various shock treatments, written earlier, in fact, the second part of the same story. Blaming The Brain is the story of the rise of drug treatment, and the bogus chemical imbalance theory that accompanied it. Although not the book that Great and Desperate Cures was, definitely 5-star material in my book, still a very worthwhile and informative read. Great and Desperate Cures represents, for one thing, a necessary corrective to a few of the shortcomings of Jack El-Hai's relatively, for lack of a better term, straight forward biography of Walter Freeman, The Lobotomist. Blaming The Brain, while falling prey to a few of the errors of conventional psychiatry, is conscious enough to see through those errors at the same time. Blaming The Brain was published, in the main, before the advent of atypical neuroleptics, however it was also revised in reference to them. This is one of those books that people should read. It exposes many of the myths associated with psychiatric treatment, and stemming from the profession's relationship with the pharmaceutical industry, for the myths that they actually are. While not wholly on the side of psychotherapy, it shows up some of the biases of bio-psychiatry for the biases that they are, and with them, exposes some of the bad science behind it.
Thought provoking and challenging opf conventional wisdom and theory
AMAZING BOOK, VERY CLARIFYING, HARD TO FIND AND I HIGHLY RECOMMEND IT, IS A JEWEL
Classic book. Wish there were more like it.
AWESOME! What everyone should know about medication, drug companies, and how the prescribing game really works.
I won't waste a lot of my time writing a review, as it looks like anyone with a 'negative' review gets voted down (i.e. Review Not Helpful) rather quickly. First off I'll admit - I'm a skeptic. I believe that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. My personal heroes are James Randi, Penn & Teller, and Carl Sagan.Somehow this book popped up on my 'recommended' list for Amazon, and I was intrigued, so I decided to purchase it and see what the author had to say. I tried to read this with an open mind, but right from the introduction I could tell the author was extremely biased against modern medicine and psychiatry. Further, the author blatantly misquotes items. For an example, on page 2, the author states "...most psychiatric residents no longer receive any instruction in intensive psychotherapy, and many complete their training without meeting regularly with a single patient in psychotherapy sessions", and has referenced "The American Journal of Psychiatry" 1990;147:428-430 in an effort to substantiate his statement. However, if you actually read that article, it was a survey of 143 psychiatry programs in which 60% did not require that any patients be seen more than once a week. While 60% is technically 'most' in that it is greater than 50%, using the term 'most' is misleading. The author also confused the fact that because a program doesn't 'require' a patient to be seen more than once a week doesn't mean that resident doctors can't/don't see any patients more than once a week. Furthermore, the second part of his statement is completely false. There are no accredited psychiatry residency programs in the United States that can or would allow a resident doctor to complete his training without training and experience helping patients through psychotherapy. This kind of blatant misrepresentation of legitimate journal articles puts this book into the realm of pseudo-science like homeopathy, healing touch, crystal energy, etc, in which scientific terms are erroneously used in order to try and make flim-flam sound like a legitimate item.I spent 4 weeks in a dual diagnosis mental illness and drug/alcohol addiction center. This was as a learning experience, I was not an addict or mentally ill, but I lived in the center and attended all therapies just like the other patients. It was a remarkable experience to see how the patients improved (with respect to their mental illnesses) as the doctors added/removed prescriptions to find the right balance for each patient.Further to those that disagree that drugs have anything to do with mental illness, you do realize that in order to accept science, you must accept the fact that we are a biochemical machine? If you think that drugs cannot help with mental illness, then logically you must assume that your mental condition cannot be affected by any drugs. Have you seen the emotional swings of people on Ecstasy, meth, alcohol, etc? Have you ever seen someone in the hospital that is delirious because of the high corticosteroid doses required to save their life?Well, I told myself that I wouldn't waste a lot of time writing, but I feel that I have more experience and knowledge than the average lay person, and it is my duty to humanity to try and debunk pseudo-science. If by writing this review I can help just one person avoid making a bad choice about mental health (caused by reading this book) then my time was worth it.
I recommend this book to anyone dealing with mental illness. It does a rigorous job of making its point: that the CHEMICAL theories you hear espoused most everywhere about the cause and treatment of mental illnesses lack supporting evidence. He makes his point by considering the science, politics and economics that come into play.I would have given the 5-star rating were it not for the fact that he seems to have stretched out the book. There is unnecessary repetition and sometimes needless detail. The meat is there, but also some fat.A minor objection: there could have been more said about the ramifications of the difficulties that he identifies from the patients' point of view. He exposes the bad science, but it's the patient that has suffered most as a consequence. I suspect that if he had a close family member with a serious mental illness that his emphasis might have been somewhat different. Also most of us with a loved one suffering from schizophrenia do not like them to be referred to as "a schizophrenic". I realize that it is awkward to avoid that concise usage, but if you don't avoid it, you reduce the person who has many strengths and admirable and enjoyable qualities to a dehumanized label.Hope the book will create a lot of discussion and expose the current dogma and lead to less constrained thinking among practitioners who are treating our loved ones.
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