Toxic Psychiatry Why Therapy, Empathy and Love Must Replace the Drugs, Electroshock, and Biochemical Theories of the "New Psychiatry"

by Breggin, Peter R., M.D.

• ISBN13: 9780312113667
• ISBN10: 0312113668
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1994-08-15
• Publisher: St. Martin's Griffin

Summary

Prozac, Xanax, Halcion, Haldol, Lithium. These psychiatric drugs-and dozens of other short-term "solutions"-are being prescribed by doctors across the country as a quick antidote to depression, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and other psychiatric problems. But at what cost? In this searing, myth-shattering exposé, psychiatrist Peter R. Breggin, M.D., breaks through the hype and false promises surrounding the "New Psychiatry" and shows how dangerous, even potentially brain-damaging, many of its drugs and treatments are. He asserts that: psychiatric drugs are spreading an epidemic of long-term brain damage; mental "illnesses" like schizophrenia, depression, and anxiety disorder have never been proven to be genetic or even physical in origin, but are under the jurisdiction of medical doctors; millions of schoolchildren, housewives, elderly people, and others are labeled with medical diagnoses and treated with authoritarian interventions, rather than being patiently listened to, understood, and helped. Toxic Psychiatry sounds a passionate, much-needed wake-up call for everyone who plays a part, active or passive, in America's ever-increasing dependence on harmful psychiatric drugs.

Author Biography

Peter R. Breggin, M.D., is a leading critic of psychiatric drugs and the psychopharmaceutical complex. He is a graduate of Harvard College and Case Western Reserve Medical School, and was formerly a teaching fellow at Harvard Medical School and a full-time consultant with the National Institute of Mental Health. He is the director of the Center for the Study of Psychiatry and has been in the full-time practice of psychiatry in Bethesda, Maryland, since 1968. Dr. Breggin is the author, with Ginger Ross Breggin, of Talking Back to Prozac and The War Against Children.

Table of Contents

"Dr. Breggin is the conscience of American psychiatry. The truths he tells are important not only for patients and professionals, but also for the general public. Definitely a 'must read'; even more important, a 'must think about.'"--Bertram P. Karon, Ph.D., author of Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia

"Much of today's psychiatric science is based on wish, myth, and politics. Breggin addresses this self-serving pseudoscience head-on."--Loren Mosher, M.D., Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Former Chief of the Center for Studies of Schizophrenia, The National Institute of Mental Health

"Peter Breggin is the leading voice in this country exposing psychiatry's betrayal of the most fundamental essence of what it means to be human. In this Drug Age, read this book before your next dose."--Eileen Walkenstein, M.D., psychiatrist and author of Beyond the Couch, Don't Shrink to Fit, and Your Inner Therapist