Robert Whitaker - Anatomy of an Epidemic

http://www.madinamerica.com/madinamerica.com/Anatomy%20of%20an%20Epidemic.html

Has anyone else read this yet?

I've just devoured it in one weekend, finding it utterly un-put-downable but I'm really still kind of digesting it. It's really quite shocking to find that everything you think you knew about your own brain for the past 25 years or so of your life may be completely wrong.

It's nice to see the whole tangle that is psychopharmacology addressed from a serious angle that is all long-term studies of patient outcomes and meta-analysis, rather than nutty tin-hatted scientology bullshit. But I'm still kind of reeling at the conclusions that this book points towards.

My entire life, I've believed and been told (by doctors, professionals, etc) that mental illness (including mine own bipolar disorder) is a chemical imbalance and the mentally ill need to take medication "like diabetics need insulin." And now all the evidence seems to show that it's completely the other way around - that these drugs actually *create* brain chemistry imbalances and, on a statistical basis, actually worsen the long-term prognosis for patients.

I don't know what to believe any more. This is kind of comparable in level of earth-shatteringness to losing one's faith. Finding out that the entire model on which one has lived one's life is completely wrong.

(If this isn't an appropriate place to discuss this kind of thing, please could someone point me to a place that is. I really need to talk about this.)

the question's above my pay grade but the new yorker had a really interesting review of some these same issues from a while back:

http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/atlarge/2010/03/01/100301crat_atlarge_menand?currentPage=all

Thank you. That's interesting, and I'll definitely read it later.

Oddly enough, I think it was a New Yorker review that made me pick up the Whitaker book in the first place.