The Limits of
Biological Treatments for Psychological Distress: Comparisons With Psychotherapy and
Placebo
This book, though now 10 years old, is an outstanding book of reviews of the research on the effectiveness of psychiatric medications. Each chapter reviews a different class of meds, including anti-depressants (pre-Prozac), anxiolitics (anti-anxiety meds), neuroleptics (so-called antipsychotics), Ritalin (in a chapter that challenges the idea that Attention Deficit Disorder even exists), and even a chapter on shock treatment. The review are rigorous, scholarly, and critical. The editors summarize the reviews by stating that at the present time (1989) "biological psychiatry is swimming in uncertainty" in spite of the inflated claims of the pharmaceutical industry regarding their highly profitable products (little has changed in the last ten years in this respect) The authors of the various chapters criticize technical aspects of research designs, the financial dependence of researchers on drug companies, the exaggeration of therapeutic benefits, the ignoring of negative results, the minimization or under-reporting of side effects, and the over-generalizing of the appropriate use of medications to patient populations that were not part of the research on a particular drug's effectiveness. This is a must read for psychotherapists and patients who have been intimidated by the claims that drug treatments are quicker and more effective than psychotherapy, claims that this book calls into question. * * * People DO have various problems with life and their own mind. Instead of naming and redefining these problems as various so-called biologically-based "mental diseases", and labeling people with them, as is currently done within the psychiatric community, these problems with life and living are best understood and addressed outside of the traditional psychiatric paradigm. Why? Because psychiatric "treatments" such as ECT, lobotomy, and powerful psychotropic drugs are based upon severe faulty scientific methodology, and quite simply, harm people. Learn the truth about psychiatry and drugs.
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