Mad Science: Psychiatric Coercion, Diagnosis, and Drugs [Hardcover]
Author: Stuart A. Kirk | Language: English | ISBN: 1412849764 | Format: PDF, EPUB
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When it comes to understanding and treating madness, distortions of research are not rare, misinterpretation of data is not isolated, and bogus claims of success are not voiced by isolated researchers seeking aggrandizement. This book’s detailed analyses of coercion and community treatment, diagnosis, and psychopharmacology reveals that these characteristics of bad science are endemic, institutional, and protected in psychiatry. This is mad science.
Mad Science argues that the fundamental claims of modern American psychiatry are not based on convincing research, but on misconceived, flawed, and distorted science. The authors address multiple paradoxes in American mental health, including the remaking of coercion into scientific psychiatric treatment in the community, the adoption of an unscientific diagnostic system that now controls the distribution of services, and how drug treatments have failed to improve the mental health outcome.
This book provides an engaging and readable scientific and social critique of current mental health practices. The authors are scholars, researchers, and clinicians who have written extensively about community care, diagnosis, and psychoactive drugs. Mad Science is a must read for all specialists in the field as well as for the informed public.
- Hardcover: 358 pages
- Publisher: Transaction Publishers; 1 edition (April 4, 2013)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1412849764
- ISBN-13: 978-1412849760
- Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 0.9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.4 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #165,865 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #62 in Books > Textbooks > Medicine & Health Sciences > Medicine > Special Topics > History
- #100 in Books > Textbooks > Medicine & Health Sciences > Medicine > Clinical > Mental Health
This book should be required reading for all mental health professionals and consumers, as well as every educator, parent, and elected official. Written in lively English with a minimum of psychobabble, it reveals how psychiatry and the pharmaceutical companies collude to snooker the public with fictions about rampant mental "illness," and how their unproven claims are unfortunately reinforced by such trusted agencies as the NIMH and NAMI.
"Mad Science" tracks how the psychiatric manual (DSM) became the definitive guide to abnormal behavior despite its total lack of scientific foundation, and goes on to carefully dismantle each of its pretenses in fair and mind-blowing detail. The book documents how politics, ego, greed, and clever marketing encourage unquestioning belief in every so-called "disorder," and push the dehumanizing notion that all of life's discomforts can (and should) be relieved with a pill. One stunning chapter is devoted to the dismal history of such medication, including the role of "co-opted regulatory agencies" and "plain fraud" in its development.
Please note: "Mad Science" is no raging polemic, although it will surely be dismissed as one by those whose incomes it will threaten, and those who, for whatever reason, choose to embrace pathological labels. The fact is these authors are not radicals but distinguished, award-winning professors. And while their conclusions are not new -- other researchers have been singing this song for decades, and the chorus is growing -- this is the most timely, comprehensive, well-organized argument this psychologist/reviewer has yet seen. It's also a pleasure to read.
Finally, the convincing message of "Mad Science" becomes especially urgent as the DSM-5 arrives in May of 2013.
"Mad Science" is a wonderful book addressing psychiatric diagnosis, coercion, and drug treatment. It is quite readable for a scholarly work, and even those without mental health experience will be able to follow it. This book is deeply thoughtful and nuanced. When the authors present a point to which a counterpoint or counterargument comes to mind (e.g., "But what about X?"), inevitably, within a few words or sentences, such points are addressed. These scholars know the data, and present it accurately. When there's a lack of good data, the authors report this. When they speculate based on imperfect data, they do so transparently. This scholarly rigor makes it a very persuasive, enjoyable read, perhaps reminiscent of Boyle's classic book, "Schizophrenia: A Scientific Delusion?
Over the past decade, there have been dozens of "critical mental health" books published. As a mental health researcher, I read most of these. Some of these books have been ground-breaking, but many are fairly derivative of previous scholarship. The field is now almost crowded with such work. Importantly, "Mad Science" is not 'just another critical mental health book' - the authors are not simply telling the same-old-story. Instead, It is innovative, creative, and thought-provoking. All of us hold fundamental assumptions about mental health diagnosis, coercion, and drugs. "Mad Science" guides the reader through identifying these assumptions, and then rigorously evaluates the underlying scientific evidence. The book covers: The definition of 'mental illness', biological psychiatry, psychiatric coercion, Assertive Community Treatment, Evidence-Based Medicine, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (including DSM-5), psychiatric medications, and much more.
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