Description
Book SynopsisWhereas the diagnosis, explanation, and treatment of physical illness are scientifically sound, this is not true of psychiatric care of mental disorder. Depression, the #1 psychiatric diagnosis, illustrates this failure and it is the subject of Grifting Depression: Psychiatry's Failure as a Medical Science. Psychiatry's current form of medicalization began in 1980 with publication of DSM-III, the diagnostic manual that became the basis for the chemical imbalance theory, psychiatry's explanation for depression, and for reliance on antidepressant drugs to treat depression, revolutionizing psychiatric care. DSM-III became the model for all the DSM manuals that followed. However, unlike other medical diagnostic manuals, the DSM fails to meet scientific and medical standards of reliability and validity. The chemical imbalance theory is based on research that violates basic tenets of the scientific method. Tests of the theory contradict it. In addition, tests of treatment effective
Trade Review
“Grifting Depression by Dr. Allan Leventhal smacks you in the face and tries to wake you up. The book systematically dismantles the ‘con’ that is promoted by the drug industry and organized psychiatry to push medications we call antidepressants. Reading the book is like someone telling you how a magic trick is done. Once you know how the trick is done you will never be able to see the trick in the same way. Your new amazement will be about how you could have been fooled for so long.” —David Antonuccio, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine
"In Grifting Depression, clinical psychologist Dr. Allan Leventhal has written an exceptionally clear and persuasive critique of the use of antidepressant drugs to treat depression, as well as a cogent exploration of psychological alternatives.” —Irving Kirsch, Aauthor of The Emperor’s New Drugs and Associate Director of the Program in Placebo Studies, Harvard Medical School
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments – Foreword – Introduction – Sadness and Depression – The Medicalizing of Psychiatry – The DSM III Data: Truth vs. Truthiness – Psychiatry’s Brain Disease Theory – Measuring Antidepressant Effectiveness: STAR*D – Drug Effects and Placebo Effects – Antidepressant Drug Safety – Conflict of Interest – Big Pharma and the FDA – Behavioral Science – Mental Disorder as Learned Behavior – Behavior Therapy for Depression – Notes – Index.
