I have spent my entire adult life wondering if my world would be different if I hadn’t spent my teens and twenties on antidepressants. What I know for sure is that the person I am after psychiatric drugs is wildly different than the person I was while medicated, which has led me down a path of understanding the history and cultural significance of psychiatric drugs to understand my own story. Now, I am an advocate for safe psychiatric drug deprescribing education. My goal is to teach patients and parents how to ask their doctors the right questions, encourage true informed consent, and make prescribers aware of the signs and symptoms of over-medication and psychiatric drug withdrawal.
There is an uncomfortable question in the world of mental health and treatment that everyone thinks about, but no one says out loud: If medicating mental illness with psychiatric drugs was really working, why are people getting worse?
This book examines over fifty years of research to find the answer and comes to a startling conclusion. I think it is the single most comprehensive and explanatory book on the market about the true nature and outcomes of psychiatric drugs and that it should be required reading in all medical schools.
It is also divided into multiple diagnoses (schizophrenia, bipolar, depression, and ADHD), which I found particularly useful as someone who focuses mostly on the history and treatment of depression.
Updated with bonus material, including a new foreword and afterword with new research, this New York Times bestseller is essential reading for a time when mental health is constantly in the news.
In this astonishing and startling book, award-winning science and history writer Robert Whitaker investigates a medical mystery: Why has the number of disabled mentally ill in the United States tripled over the past two decades?
Interwoven with Whitaker’s groundbreaking analysis of the merits of psychiatric medications are the personal stories of children and adults swept up in this epidemic. As Anatomy of an Epidemic reveals, other societies have…
To understand why mental illness has such a strong pull in American culture, it is important to understand how mental illness is created in the first place. Yes, created.
When I was depressed and taking antidepressants, I thought my depression was caused by a chemical imbalance and that it was just who I was. After all, that’s what the doctors told me. We now know the chemical imbalance theory is unsubstantiated, and yet the narrative remains.
Watters’ book blew my mind by showing exactly how the false chemical imbalance theory was exported all over the world and why this has fundamentally affected recovery rates—for the worse—all over the globe.
“A blistering and truly original work of reporting and analysis, uncovering America’s role in homogenizing how the world defines wellness and healing” (Po Bronson).
In Crazy Like Us, Ethan Watters reveals that the most devastating consequence of the spread of American culture has not been our golden arches or our bomb craters but our bulldozing of the human psyche itself: We are in the process of homogenizing the way the world goes mad.
It is well known that American culture is a dominant force at home and abroad; our exportation of everything from movies to junk food is a well-documented…
Though this is technically an academic book, it is extremely readable and the best account of the manipulative marketing, hidden court cases, and corruption that occurred during the development of Prozac and Zoloft.
It’s one of those books where, if my mother or I had read it before I was medicated at 15, I’m quite sure we would not have made the same choices.
A psychiatrist provides an insider account on the controversial use of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs)
Prozac. Paxil. Zoloft. Turn on your television and you are likely to see a commercial for one of the many selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) on the market. We hear a lot about them, but do we really understand how these drugs work and what risks are involved for anyone who uses them?
Let Them Eat Prozac explores the history of SSRIs-from their early development to their latest marketing campaigns-and the controversies that surround them. Initially, they seemed like wonder drugs for those with…
A book about pharmaceutical corruption and manipulative science can rarely make me laugh out loud, but Bad Science does just that.
Not only did the book make me a better advocate for my health by teaching me what red flags to look out for in research and shady science journalism, but it kept me consistently entertained to the point where I was disappointed when the book ended. It should be required reading in all high school science classes.
Have you ever wondered how one day the media can assert that alcohol is bad for us and the next unashamedly run a story touting the benefits of daily alcohol consumption? Or how a drug that is pulled off the market for causing heart attacks ever got approved in the first place? How can average readers, who aren't medical doctors or Ph.D.s in biochemistry, tell what they should be paying attention to and what's, well, just more bullshit?
Ben Goldacre has made a point of exposing quack doctors and nutritionists, bogus credentialing programs, and biased scientific studies. He has also…
It took me a long time to understand how my mother’s well-intentioned decision to send me to a child psychologist derailed my whole life, but Bad Therapy finally put the pieces together. In being diagnosed with depression and anxiety as a teen—and consequently medicated for it—a message was sent by the adults around me: I did not have the capacity to help myself.
That unspoken message haunted me for the next fifteen years, leading me down a path of self-induced victimhood, fragility, and, paradoxically, more depression. I see this happening with an entire generation, and this book explains why—a must-read for every parent or medicated kid.
From the author of Irreversible Damage, an investigation into a mental health industry that is harming, not healing, American children
In virtually every way that can be measured, Gen Z’s mental health is worse than that of previous generations. Youth suicide rates are climbing, antidepressant prescriptions for children are common, and the proliferation of mental health diagnoses has not helped the staggering number of kids who are lonely, lost, sad and fearful of growing up. What’s gone wrong with America’s youth?
In Bad Therapy, bestselling investigative journalist Abigail Shrier argues that the problem isn’t the kids—it’s…
What happens when over-medicated kids grow up? This is the question I asked myself at 30 years old, after spending half my life—and my entire adult life—on antidepressants given to me as a teenager, in the wake of my father’s death. Unfurled against a global backdrop, May Cause Side Effects chronicles explosive and terrifying antidepressant withdrawal and the story I told myself about depression, psychiatric drugs, and what it means to be alive.
An illuminating memoir for those who take, prescribe, or are considering psychiatric drugs, this book is an honest reminder that the road to true happiness is not mapped on a prescription pad but in the deep self-work that pushes us to the edges of who we are.
Every picture tells a story, but it’s not always the one we expect or remember. Christmas Actually is a festive drama about family and forgiveness and a snapshot of modern family life, addressing Instagram to motherhood and everything in between.
Why Christmas? My publisher wanted my new novel to have a festive theme, specifically set in Australia–sun, surf, sunburn, and prawns. Christmas in Australia is very different from Christmas in the UK, USA, and Canada. We typically wear shorts and t-shirts, eat salad and seafood for Christmas lunch, and play beach cricket in the afternoon. Despite the season, conflicts, secrets,…
Time spent with family can be challenging, especially at Christmas actually…
Kate Cavendish is stuck in a rut. That is until a former colleague contacts her and offers her a chance to fulfil her lifelong dream of becoming a successful photographer.
With her focus pulled in all directions by her children, her pregnant sister, her newly-dating mother, and the niggling worry that her husband might be having an affair, Kate is filled with self-doubt.
Then as the countdown to Christmas begins, and memories of her own childhood resurface, Kate’s anxiety deepens – both personally and professionally. Can she move on…
