Dr. Breggin presents this fascinating, frightening, and dramatic look at people driven to suicide, murder, and other violent behaviors by the psychotropic medications that were meant to help them.
Medications for everything from depression and anxiety to ADHD and insomnia are being prescribed in alarming numbers across the country, but the "cure" is often worse than the original problem. Medication Madness is a fascinating, frightening, and dramatic look at the role that psychiatric medications have played in fifty cases of suicide, murder, and other violent, criminal, and bizarre behaviors. As a psychiatrist who believes in holding people responsible for their conduct, the weight of scientific evidence and years of clinical experience eventually convinced Dr. Breggin that psychiatric drugs frequently cause individuals to lose their judgment and their ability to control their emotions and actions. Medication Madness raises and examines the issues surrounding personal responsibility when behavior seems driven by drug-induced adverse reactions and intoxication. Dr. Breggin personally evaluated the cases in the book in his role as a treating psychiatrist, consultant or medical expert. He interviewed survivors and witnesses, and reviewed extensive medical, occupational, educational and police records. The great majority of individuals lived exemplary lives and committed no criminal or bizarre actions prior to taking the psychiatric medications. Medication Madness reads like a medical thriller, true crime story, and courtroom drama; but it is firmly based in the latest scientific research and dozens of case studies. The lives of the children and adults in these stories, as well as the lives of their families and their victims, were thrown into turmoil and sometimes destroyed by the unanticipated effects of psychiatric drugs. In some cases our entire society was transformed by the tragic outcomes. Many categories of psychiatric drugs can cause potentially horrendous reactions. Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Adderall, Ritalin, Concerta, Xanax, lithium, Zyprexa and other psychiatric medications may spellbind patients into believing they are improved when too often they are becoming worse. Psychiatric drugs drive some people into psychosis, mania, depression, suicide, agitation, compulsive violence and loss of self-control without the individuals realizing that their medications have deformed their way of thinking and feeling. This book documents how the FDA, the medical establishment and the pharmaceutical industry have over-sold the value of psychiatric drugs. It serves as a cautionary tale about our reliance on potentially dangerous psychoactive chemicals to relieve our emotional problems and provides a positive approach to taking personal charge of our lives.
NOTHING LIKE THIS BOOK has ever before been written. I have evaluated hundreds of cases of drug-induced mental and emotional disturbances, some in my clinical practice as a psychiatrist treating patients, some as a consultant to patients injured by drugs, and many in my role as medical expert in criminal cases, in malpractice suits against doctors and hospitals, and in product-liability suits against drug companies. The stories in this book are about children and adults who have been emotionally injured and sometimes driven mad by psychiatric medications, many committing horrific crimes. Psychiatric drugs can and do transform the lives of otherwise well-meaning, ethical people, sometimes causing them to act in ways they would ordinarily find reprehensible. Although I have studied and written about these adverse drug effects for several decades, only in the last year have I grasped and described the unifying concept of the spellbinding effects of psychiatric drugs. Many people who take the drugs become desperately depressed and suicidal, violently aggressive, or wildly out of control without realizing that their medication is causing them to think, to feel, and to act in unusual and otherwise abhorrent ways. There are no secondhand stories in this book. I have personally evaluated each and every one of the dozens of detailed cases, as well as the many additional cases that are scattered throughout the book. The stories in this book are accurate down to the details. I have not taken dramatic license with any of them. Nothing has been fictionalized to make them more interesting; the truth is dramatic enough. Although the book is written for the public, health professionals can rely on the stories as valid case studies of medication-induced adverse effects on the brain, mind, and behavior. In those cases where the victims of medication madness have survived their adverse drug effects, I have personally interviewed each one at length, usually on more than one occasion. In nearly every instance, I have interviewed other surviving participants in the tragedies described here. Often, I have gathered additional information from friends, family, and coworkers. In all cases, I have sought and nearly always obtained any relevant medical, police, educational, and employment records. Sometimes, I have visited the crime scene and I have always had access to any coroner's reports, autopsy findings, and toxicology results. I have often read depositions given under oath by doctors and by others involved in the case. For most of the cases, I have written lengthy medical-legal reports, and on many occasions I have testified in depositions, hearings, and trials...Get a copy
This is the first book to establish guidelines and to assist prescribers and therapists in withdrawing their patients from psychiatric drugs, including those patients with long-term exposure to antipsychotic drugs, benzodiazepines, stimulants, antidepressants, and mood stabilizers. It describes a method developed by the author throughout years of clinical experience, consultations with experienced colleagues, and scientific research. Based on a person-centered collaborative approach, with patients as partners, this method builds on a cooperative and empathic team effort involving prescribers, therapists, patients, and their families or support network. The author, known for such books as Talking Back to Prozac, Toxic Psychiatry, and Medication Madness, is a lifelong reformer and scientist in mental health whose work has brought about significant change in psychiatric practice. This book provides critical information about when to consider psychiatric drug reduction or withdrawal, and how to accomplish it as safely, expeditiously, and comfortably as possible. It offers the theoretical framework underlying this approach along with extensive scientific information, practical advice, and illustrative case studies that will assist practitioners in multiple ways, including in how to: Recognize common and sometimes overlooked adverse drug effects that may require withdrawal Treat emergencies during drug therapy and during withdrawal Determine the first drugs to withdraw during multi-drug therapy Distinguish between withdrawal reactions, newly occurring emotional problems, and recurrence of premedication issues Estimate the length of withdrawal
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.
NOTHING LIKE THIS BOOK has ever before been written. I have evaluated hundreds of cases of drug-induced mental and emotional disturbances, some in my clinical practice as a psychiatrist treating patients, some as a consultant to patients injured by drugs, and many in my role as medical expert in criminal cases, in malpractice suits against doctors and hospitals, and in product-liability suits against drug companies. The stories in this book are about children and adults who have been emotionally injured and sometimes driven mad by psychiatric medications, many committing horrific crimes. Psychiatric drugs can and do transform the lives of otherwise well-meaning, ethical people, sometimes causing them to act in ways they would ordinarily find reprehensible. Although I have studied and written about these adverse drug effects for several decades, only in the last year have I grasped and described the unifying concept of the spellbinding effects of psychiatric drugs. Many people who take the drugs become desperately depressed and suicidal, violently aggressive, or wildly out of control without realizing that their medication is causing them to think, to feel, and to act in unusual and otherwise abhorrent ways.
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.
"An intense, eloquent, and appropriately furious memoir with the transporting beauty of classical music . . . The cumulative effect of the literary concert [Rhodes] gives in these pages is transcendence, both for him and for the reader." --Los Angeles Review of Books “A mesmeric combination of vivid, keen, obsessive precision and raw, urgent energy.” --Zoe Williams, The Guardian James Rhodes's passion for music has been his lifeline--the thread that has held through a life encompassing abuse and turmoil. But whether listening to Rachmaninov on a loop as a traumatized teenager or discovering a Bach adagio while in a hospital ward, he survived his demons by encounters with musical miracles. These--along with a chance encounter with a stranger--inspired him to become the renowned concert pianist he is today. Instrumental is a memoir like no other: unapologetically candid, boldly outspoken, and surprisingly funny--shot through with a mordant wit, even in its darkest moments. A feature film adaptation of Rhodes's incredible story is now in development from Monumental Pictures and BBC Films, following a competitive bidding war involving major U.S. and U.K. companies. An impassioned tribute to the therapeutic powers of music, Instrumental also weaves in fascinating facts about how classical music actually works and about the extraordinary lives of some of the great composers. It explains why and how music has the potential to transform all of our lives.
A powerful memoir of antidepressants, misdiagnosis and madness. There was that term again, depression, being tossed around. When had I received an official diagnosis, anyway? It had just been mentioned by my GP and now staff were picking it up and running with it. Things seemed to be getting blown out of proportion. I wanted to know why I couldn't be tested for this so-called imbalance in my brain before being put on medication, but I didn't want him to think I was questioning his expertise. He was the second doctor now to recommend the treatmen. "And these are the newer sort - the ones that aren't addictive or anything?" "Not addictive. They're very safe." Shortly after the birth of her daughter Rebekah Beddoe was diagnosed with post-natal depression. Two years later she was taking six different drugs, including lithium, a tranquilliser, an antipsychotic, and antidepressants. She had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder; given electric-shock therapy; made numerous attempts on her life; and was alternately manic and consumed by crippling despair during which she could barely move. She had a two-year-old daughter she hardly knew and a mother and partner who were at their wits' end, unable to recognise the formerly ambitious, vibrant and highly successful woman they loved. Australians have embraced antidepressants: twelve million prescriptions are written annually, mostly by GPs. But, what do we really know of the pills' effects? The idea that they correct a chemical imbalance in our brain is by no means proven - there is much evidence that contradicts this view. It is commonly thought such drugs are not addictive; in fact - as Rebekah found to her great distress - they are hard to come off and those who do may suffer debilitating side effects. This is a powerful memoir of the nightmarish three years Rebekah endured as she was repeatedly misdiagnosed, only to realise that her medication was the cause of her mental deterioration. Rebekah calls for better information from the pharmaceutical companies about the risks associated with antidepressants and similar classes of drugs - facts, rather than marketing dressed up as medical science - and for a re-examination of the ways some psychiatrists treat their patients.