Thinking Critically about Psychotherapy, Psychiatry and Psychology

Medication Madness :
What the Doctors Aren't Telling You about Today's Most Controversial Drug
by Peter R. Breggin. M.D.
St. Martin's

Dr. Breggin discusss the dangerous of psychiatric drugs, with updated information  

Using dramatic case studies as well as scientific research evidence, the authors explore the potentially damaging effects of Prozac. They also describe the success that has been achieved with more humane alternatives for the treatment of depression. This book is essential for anyone who wants to critically examine the issue of Prozac, including those who are taking it, are considering taking it, or who are prescribing it. Read it with Listening to Prozac and then decide for yourself.

A powerful and well-documented critique of the dangers of the "medical" approach to psychological problems, detailing the damaging side-effects (that most psychiatrists deny) of electroshock and drugs. Breggin, himself a psychiatrist but a long-time critic of the psychiatric establishment, argues that non-biological treatments are more practical as well as more humane.

Following in the wake of the Breggins' 1992 national campaign against the proposed federal "Violence Initiative" (which was aimed at identifying inner-city children with alleged defects that were said to make them violent when they reached adulthood), this chilling book describes a broad network of public and private programs intended as means of social control. These programs include searching for a "violence gene," finding "biochemical imbalances," and intervening in the lives of schoolchildren with psychiatric drugs. As an alternative, the authors offer measures for fulfilling the genuine needs of children without invasive treatments and stigmatizing labels.

A careful, well-documented critical examination of many cherished clinical assumptions and therapeutic methods. Among the sacred cows questioned are the notion that self-esteem is essential to being a productive person, the professed predictive powers of therapists, the claims of "expert witness" psychologists, and current licensing procedures. Written by a research psychologist, it has been endorsed by a number of other prominent research psychologists.

A clinical and research psychologist reveals the extraordinary lack of scientific precision behind the construction of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual), the "bible" of mental health professionals.

"...a marvelous insider's story of how psychiatric diagnoses are invented--how subjective, political, and personal agendas are dressed up in the lab coats of science and offered to the public as 'truth.' Mental health professionals need to read this book to cure themselves of Delusional Scientific Diagnosing Disorder, and the public needs to read it for self-protection." --Carol Tavris, Ph.D.

35 articles looking at different sides of the debates on how should mental illness be defined, what causes it, are mental health treatments beneficial, how should the legal system deal with mental illness, and what policies would benefit the mentally ill. Includes Szasz, Breggin, Martin Gardner, Peter Kramer and many others.