Books Worth Reading

I recently read Peter Kinderman’s new book, A Prescription for Psychiatry, which was published on September 3 by Palgrave Macmillan. The overall message of the work is captured nicely in the subtitle: Why We Need a Whole New Approach to Mental Health and Wellbeing. Dr. Kinderman is Professor of Clinical Psychology, Head of the Institute of Psychology, Health and Society at the University of Liverpool, and an honorary Consultant Clinical Psychologist with Mersey Care NHS Trust in the UK. ...

The 2012 book Drugging Our Children: How Profiteers Are Pushing Antipsychotics on Our Youngest, and What We Can Do to Stop It, is edited by Sharna Olfman PhD, and Brent Dean Robbins, PhD. It is a collection of ten articles, plus an Introduction and an Afterword by Sharna Olfman. Here are the chapter titles, with a quote from each: Introduction, by Sharna Olfman, PhD ...

BOOK PREVIEW Richard C. Saul, MD ADHD Does Not Exist: The Truth About Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder Publication date: February 18, 2014 ************************ Those of us on this side of the psychiatry debate have been saying for decades that the condition known as ADHD is not an illness, but is rather an arbitrarily delineated cluster of vaguely defined problems that children have acquired in various ways. We have also pointed out that psychiatry's labeling of this condition as an illness is simply another instance of their inexorable turf expansion, and that their widespread drugging of the individuals so labeled is destructive and disempowering. And, also for decades, psychiatry has been marginalizing us as unscientific mental illness deniers, who seek to put the clock back and deprive people suffering from this “illness” of the vital “treatment” that they so desperately need. ...

Dr. Joanna Moncrieff is a UK psychiatrist and a founding member of the Critical Psychiatry Network. In 2009 she wrote The Myth of the Chemical Cure: A Critique of Psychiatric Drug Treatment. Her latest book, The Bitterest Pills, was published earlier this year, and is about neuroleptic drugs (the so-called anti-psychotics). You can get an idea of the tenor and scope of the work from the table of contents: Curse or Cure: What Are Antipsychotics? Chlorpromazine: The First Wonder Drug Magic Bullets: The Development of Ideas on Drug Action Building a House of Cards: The Dopamine Theory of Schizophrenia and Drug Action The Phoenix Rises: From Tardive Dyskinesia to the Introduction of 'Atypicals' Looking Where the Light Is: Randomised Controlled Trials of Antipsychotics The Patient's Dilemma: Other Evidence on the Effects of Antipsychotics Chemical Cosh: Antipsychotics and Chemical Restraint Old and New Drug-induced Problems The First Tentacles: The 'Early Intervention in Psychosis' Movement The Antipsychotic Epidemic: Prescribing in the Twenty-first Century All is not as it Seems There are 39 pages of references at the back. Here are some quotes: ...

I have recently read De-Medicalizing Misery [palgrave macmillan, 2011]. It’s a comprehensive collection of articles, edited by Mark Rapley, Joanna Moncrieff, and Jacqui Dillon. The table of contents provides a sense of the book’s scope. Table of Contents Carving Nature at its Joints? DSM and the Medicalization of Everyday Life, Mark Rapley, Joanna Moncrieff, and Jacqui Dillon Dualisms and the Myth of Mental Illness, Philip Thomas and Patrick Bracken Making the World Go Away, and How Psychology and Psychiatry Benefit, Mary Boyle Cultural Diversity and Racism: An Historical Perspective, Suman Fernando The Social Context of Paranoia, David J. Harper From Bad Character to BPD: The Medicalization of 'Personality Disorder', James Bourne Medicalizing Masculinity, Sami Timimi Can Traumatic Events Traumatize People? Trauma, Madness, and Psychosis, Lucy Johnstone Children Who Witness Violence at Home, Arlene Vetere Discourses of Acceptance and Resistance: Speaking Out about Psychiatry, Ewen Speed The Personal is The Political, Jacqui Dillon 'I'm Just, You Know, Joe Bloggs': The Management of Parental Responsibility for First-episode Psychosis, Carlton Coulter and Mark Rapley The Myth of the Antidepressant: An Historical Analysis, Joanna Moncrieff Antidepressants and the Placebo Response, Irving Kirsch Why Were Doctors So Slow to Recognize Antidepressant Discontinuation Problems? Duncan Double Toxic Psychology, Craig Newnes Psychotherapy: Illusion with No Future? David Smail The Psychologization of Torture, Nimisha Patel What Is to Be Done? Joanna Moncrieff, Jacqui Dillon, and Mark Rapley Each author brings to the general topic his or her unique perspectives, and the result is persuasive and inspiring. Here’s a quote from the final chapter: ...

I’ve been reading another great book: Deadly Medicines and Organised Crime: How big pharma has corrupted healthcare, by Peter C. Gotzsche [Radcliffe Publishing, 2013]. The book is an exposé of pharma’s fraudulent research and marketing. The author is a Danish physician who has been involved in clinical trials of drugs, and in drug regulatory matters. He is a professor at the University of Copenhagen. He has published more than 50 papers, including papers in the BMJ, Lancet, JAMA, Annals of Internal Medicine, and the New England Journal of Medicine. ...

This is an excellent book, published by Pegasus Books earlier this year. The cover blurb says that it is “…scathing about every aspect of psychiatry.” Dr. Davies, who is a practicing therapist in the UK, brings to the subject enormous energy and enthusiasm. He has interviewed Robert Spitzer, Allen Frances, Irving Kirsch, Joanna Moncrieff, Sami Tamimi, Peter Breggin, and many, many others. Some of the points he makes will be familiar to those of us on this side of the debate, but there is an enormous amount of fresh material and insights. The book careens, almost literally, from one psychiatric outrage to the next, and the arguments are supported by appropriate citations. ...

The book Madness Contested has recently been published by PCCS Books. It’s a collection of articles, edited by Steven Coles, Sarah Keenan, and Bob Diamond. The book is a remarkable piece of work. It covers just about every contentious concept in the present “mental illness” debate, and brings to bear an abundance of new insights and up-to-date research findings. There are 21 articles plus an introduction by the editors. Here’s the name of each article with a brief quotation from each: ...

I have just read The Dark Threads, by Jean Davison (Accent Press Ltd, 2009) It’s autobiographical, and describes with great detail and insight how a young woman of 18 years, whose only problem was acute shyness coupled with a yearning for some meaning in life, made the mistake of visiting a psychiatrist. Jean describes how she was bullied into accepting psychiatric “treatment." She was drugged into a zombie-like stupor and given electric shock “treatment.” She describes graphically the disempowering and humiliating aspects of “treatment,” and the endless patronizing condescension. ...

DELICATE THINGS REQUIRE DELICATE HANDLING When I was a teenager, one of my hobbies was making small transistor radios. It sounds complicated, but is well within the reach of an average 15-year-old. You get some magazine articles, learn how to read a circuit, and learn how to use a soldering iron. A transistor is a small device – about half the size of a pencil eraser – with three wires coming out of it. In building a radio receiver, the transistors have to be soldered to other devices which are in turn soldered to other devices, etc… The soldering iron is plugged into a wall outlet, but no mains electricity reaches the tip of the iron. However, tiny eddy currents can circulate in the tip, and although they are only of the order of milliamps, they can burn a transistor in seconds. What you have to do is unplug the iron from the socket, make the joint with the tip’s retained heat, and then replug the iron to have it ready for the next joint. The point being that delicate things require delicate handling, and that electricity can be very destructive. ...