Books

What do modern psychiatric drug treatments have in common with lobotomy? Is informed consent possible when patients’ judgment is impaired by medication? Should psych drugs be banned?

For more than 50 years Dr. Peter Breggin has been a leading crusader against psychiatric abuse, Big Pharma, and medication dangers. His latest book is The Conscience of Psychiatry: The Reform Work of Peter R. Breggin, MD.

http://www.breggin.com

How do we respond to bizarre beliefs like CIA brain chips, abduction by aliens, hearing voices, spirit possession, or telepathy? Is respect for a different reality “colluding” with a delusion? Or is there meaning in madness?

Medical doctor Tamasin Knight was hospitalized for delusions, and went on to write the practical guidebook Beyond Belief: Alternative Ways of Working with Delusions, Obsessions and Unusual Experiences, available as a free download at http://www.peter-lehmann-publishing.com/books/beyond-belief.pdf (PDF).

When GlaxoSmithKline was caught lying about the risks of its blockbuster anti-depressant Paxil, it set off ongoing investigations. How did New York state take on one of the world’s most powerful companies? Was NY Governor Eliot Spitzer driven out by his corporate enemies?

Pulitzer-nominated Boston Globe journalist Alison Bass, author of Side Effects: A Prosecutor, A Whistleblower, And A Bestselling Antidepressant On Trial, discusses legal battles to clean up drug company corruption, including pay-offs to the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill.

http://www.alison-bass.com/

What is the mad movement’s best response to science? How is mad pride different from gay pride? Do we want to become equal with “normal” people — or challenge the idea of normal itself? What about suffering and the risk of romanticizing madness?

Icarus Project organizer, psychiatrist, and theorist Bradley Lewis, author of Moving Beyond Prozac, DSM, and the New Psychiatry: Birth of Postpsychiatry, discusses the identity politics of madness.

http://www.theicarusproject.net
http://www.nyu.edu/gallatin/about/bios/bradley_lewis.html

More than 100,000 people die in the US each year from prescription drugs — used as directed by their doctor. How did aggressive marketing make our health care system a cause of widespread sickness? Why haven’t government regulation or medical research been able to protect the public?

New York Times health reporter Melody Petersen discusses her new book, Our Daily Meds: How the Pharmaceutical Companies Transformed Themselves into Slick Marketing Machines and Hooked the Nation on Prescription Drugs.

http://www.ourdailymedsthebook.com

Does modern art, such as Artaud, Beckett, and Duchamp, parallel the mad frames of mind that get labeled “schizophrenia?” Is extreme sensitivity and inner self-consciousness behind artistic innovation and breaks with reality?

Rutgers University psychologist Louis Sass, author of Madness And Modernism: Insanity in the Light of Modern Art, Literature, and Thought, discusses art as an insight into the subjective inner world of madness.

lsass@rci.rutgers.edu

What are the lasting impacts of taunting, teasing, and physical harassment between children? Why are kids who are different singled out and picked on? What can parents do if their children are victims of bullies?

Psychotherapist, parent, and process worker Dawn Menken, author of Speak Out! Talking About Love, Sex & Eternity, discusses her work with public schools and families to break the cycle of bullying.

dmenken(at)igc(dot)org

Why is ECT, electroconvulsive therapy or electroshock, so widely used today? How is the ECT industry manipulating research and public perceptions the way tobacco companies did about cigarettes? What are the real dangers of this lobotomy-era treatment?

ECT survivor Linda Andre discusses her groundbreaking new Rutgers University Press book, Doctors of Deception: What They Don’t Want You To Know About Shock Treatment.

http://www.doctorsofdeception.com
http://www.ect.org

How can people recover from serious drinking problems? Are 12-step and Alcoholics Anonymous programs right for everyone?

Anne Fletcher, author of Sober for Good: New Solutions for Drinking Problems, discusses how people successfully overcome alcohol abuse and regain control of their lives.

http://www.annemfletcher.com
http://www.parl.gc.ca/Content/SEN/Committee/371/ille/presentation/alexender-e.htm

Has society’s embrace of psychiatric medications led to recovery — or chronic disability? What would honest medical policy and treatment standards be if they were free of pharmaceutical company corruption?

Pulitzer Prize finalist Robert Whitaker, author of Mad In America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill, discusses medications as a failed paradigm of care, and imagines what a sane alternative would look like.

http://www.madinamerica.com

Internationally known advocate, psychiatric abuse survivor organizer, and clinical psychologist Ronald Bassman discusses and reads from his new book, A Fight To Be: A Psychologist’s Experience From Both Sides of the Locked Door.

Ron was diagnosed “paranoid schizophrenic” and left in back wards as a “chronic case,” but has gone on to become a leader in the recovery movement and an inspiring teacher and therapist.

http://www.ronaldbassman.com

Grace Guyol, diagnosed with bipolar disorder and author of Healing Depression and Bipolar Disorder Without Drugs: Inspiring Stories of Restoring Mental Health Through Natural Therapies, discusses nutrition, supplements, and holistic health care for helping people diagnosed with severe mental illnesses.

GGuyol (at) aol.com

Psychology professor Randy Frost, author of Buried In Treasures, discusses his work on hoarding, people who collect so much stuff excessively that it disrupts their lives or creates a health or fire hazard, including how to help people without risking adding to the problem through intrusive or drastic intervention.

rfrost@smith.edu

Editor Sabrina Chapadjiev discusses the new Seven Stories Press anthology Live Through This: On Creativity and Self Destruction, a rich collection of women artists sharing intimate accounts of cutting, alcoholism, suicide, abuse, madness and other self harm and how it relates to their creativity.

Authors include bell hooks, Bonfire Madigan Shive, Patricia Smith, Annie Sprinkle, Inga Muscio, Kate Bornstein, and Nicole Blackman.

http://sabrinachap.com/LTT

UK video activist and writer Mel Gunasena on her mystical experiences and forced psychiatric hospitalization. Mel is the director of Evolving Minds, a documentary film about spiritual experiences and what gets labeled “psychosis” by the mental health system. She also discusses the art therapy project in Sri Lanka she helped found to assist traumatized tsunami-affected children.

See a trailer for the film at http://www.undercurrents.org/minds and check out the Sri Lanka project at http://www.art-2-art.org