Brossura

ISBN 10: 0738203483 ISBN 13: 9780738203485

Casa editrice: Da Capo Press, 2000

Psychiatric drugs are prescribed to more than twenty million Americans but can these drugs do more harm than good?While a doctor may take fifteen minutes to determine the need for a psychiatric drug, the patient may end up taking it for months, years, or a lifetime. We deserve to know the dangers in advance -including the difficulties we may encounter when trying to withdraw. Your Drug May Be Your Problem is the only book to provide an up-to-date, uncensored description of the dangers involved in taking every kind of psychiatric medication, and it is the first and only book to explain how to coordinate a safe withdrawal from them.

Review:

Psychiatric drugs are prescribed to more than 20 million Americans. This book aims to convince us to stop taking these drugs, and to show us how to do it safely. The authors contend that after 15 minutes with a physician or psychiatrist, Americans are prescribed medications that we may take for years or a lifetime, which can do more harm than good. We're irritable, anxious, emotionally numbed, physically fatigued, and mentally dulled. Yet when we stop taking the drugs, we encounter a whole new set of problems and setbacks.

The book lists the adverse medical reactions you may encounter, plus additional personal, psychological, and philosophical reasons for limiting or rejecting psychiatric drugs. About half the book covers withdrawing from your drug--how to do it carefully and slowly, what to expect, and how to get help--with specifics for certain drugs and a chapter on easing your child off them as well.

If you suffer from depression or another condition that warrants taking prescription drugs, you might refute the authors' contention that "the degree to which we suffer indicates the degree to which we are alive. When we take drugs to ease our suffering, we stifle our psychological and spiritual life." Certainly it would be lovely if we could "find a way to untangle that twisted energy and to redirect it more creatively," but is this really possible in all cases? The authors blame our dependence on drugs and psychiatry on big pharmaceutical-company bucks, psychiatric organizations, and even government agencies. Certainly we are an overmedicated society--but is the answer to take everyone off drugs? This provocative book says yes, and it's bound to be controversial.

Of course, do not go off any prescribed medication without working closely with the medical professional who prescribed it, and do not use this book as a substitute for professional help. --Joan Price

About the Author:

Peter R. Breggin, M.D., is the author of a dozen books, including Talking Back to Prozac and The Antidepressant Factbook . He lives in Ithaca, New York.