Commonsense Rebellion: Taking Back Your Life from Drugs, Shrinks, Corporations, and a World Gone Crazy [Hardcover]

Bruce Levine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 15, 2001

In recent years the mental health industry has been attacked for the invalidity of its illnesses, the unreliability of its diagnoses, the dangers of its treatments, and its corruption by drug companies. Commonsense Rebellion integrates those critiques and goes further.Nearly 1 in 4 American adults take psychiatric drugs, and Ritalin production has increased 800 percent since 1990. Yet the mental health industry laments the fact that two-thirds of us with diagnosable mental disorders do not seek treatment. This book argues that "institutional mental health's" ever-increasing diseases, disorders, and drugs have diverted us from examining an important rebellion against an increasingly impersonal and coercive "institutional society" which worships speed, power, and technology. This has created fantastic wealth - at least for some - but its disregard for human autonomy, community, and diversity has come with a cost. Depression has reportedly increased tenfold since 1900, and suicide levels for teenage boys have tripled since 1960. Have human genetics and serotonin levels changed that much, or has society?>

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

In this jeremiad about the mental health industry, society more than psychiatry takes the brunt of Levine's criticism. He cites psychiatric critics Thomas Szasz and Peter Breggin in support of his opposition to overdiagnosis, medication, and excessive psychiatric influence. Yet a large proportion of the mental health establishment would agree with his indictment of TV, guns, alcohol and tobacco, gambling, overeating, advertising, mass education, managed care, Viagra, prisons, and employment trends. Well read, thoughtful, and idealistic, Levine wants to humanize science and technology, not abolish them. But he goes overboard at times, exaggerating the evils of psychiatry, itself a divided profession (see J. Allan Hobson's Out of Its Mind, LJ 6/15/01). He thus blights his own argument, as when he argues that "the behavior modifiers have today taken over culture as totally as the Nazis had once taken over Europe." The book merits attention despite these faults and belongs in most libraries in a category bridging social criticism and self-help. E. James Lieberman, George Washington Univ. Sch. of Medicine, Washington, DC
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review

"Here is one psychologist who knows the reason America is sick: the institutions and technologies we have created that make modern life meaningless, disjointed, dispiriting, depressing, and joyless. His most unlikely prescription is to recognize the widespread disaffection from them as a rebellion, not a disease, and to encourage a more sensible one. What the hell, it just might work." -- Kirkpatrick Sale

"It is always refreshing to find someone who stands at the edge of his profession and dissects its failures with a critical eye, refusing to be deceived by its pretensions. Bruce Levine condemns the cold, technological approach to mental health and, to our benefit, looks for deeper solutions."--Howard Zinn, author of A People’s History of the United States

"This is an energizing book, a must read for the general public and professionals. We now have a multi-billion-dollar psycho-pharmaceutical complex pushing unscientific theories, dangerous drugs, and other coercions. Dr. Levine unravels the truth of industrial psychiatry’s connection with other dehumanizing institutions. His straightforward alternatives are rejuvenating."--Peter R. Breggin, M.D., author of Toxic Psychiatry and Your Drug May Be Your Problem

"Well read, thoughtful, and idealistic, Levine wants to humanize science and technology…The book merits attention…and belongs in most libraries in a category bridging social criticism and self-help."
- Library Journal, July 2001

"An entertaining, hard-hitting, and controversial book about contemporary culture…Full of astonishing statistics, the volume covers a wide range of topics: attention deficit disorder, chemical dependency, depression, education, health care, consumerism, the online environment, and more….Providing fascinating material for debate, Levine takes on pharmaceutical companies, the DSM-IV, and other 'institutions.' The emphasis on personal honesty and responsibility makes for a refreshing read that is at times humorous and at times disturbing….Aptly titled, this book is an opinionated wake-up call." --Choice, January 2002

"Refreshing and energizing....of value in reminding us of the need for a spirited sense of change...[and] in scrutinizing the role of psychotropic medication and the pharmaceutical industry."
--Metapsychology Online Book Reviews

"As Censored by Clinical Psychiatry News...What They Don't Want Their Psychiatrists to Hear!"
--MadNation

"Bruce Levine is no ordinary psychologist but a social critic who goes far beyond diagnosing what's wrong with current trends in psychotherapy and psychiatry. . . .Levine's voice is clear, concise, and captivating. . . . the tools or approaches Levine suggests will not only make us feel better but will also ultimately help change the social system. . . . It is full of solid evidence presented in an easy-to-assimilate framework. . . . One gets the feeling while reading Commonsense Rebellion that everything of importance that has ever been written about the mental health system will be found somewhere in this book. . . . The book . . . is more than just common sense. It is expressed wisdom, something, unfortunately, which does not seem common at all." --Ethical Human Sciences and Services

"Once in awhile a book comes along that casts a glaring spotlight on 'truths and facts' we take for granted, illuminating them to such an extent that we are compelled to examine and think about them in entirely new ways. Bruce Levine…has done an incredible job…of ferreting out and figuring out the real reasons for the problems we face in our society, both as individuals and institutions….This book is valuable, possibly life saving, and, if taken to heart, life changing."--Florida Times-Union, September 2, 2001 (Aar/Sbl Program Book )

Title mention in an article by Bruce E. Levine in the Ecologist, October 2007

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 336 pages
• Publisher: Continuum (July 15, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826413153
• ISBN-13: 978-0826413154
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.3 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.6 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #562,333 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Bruce E. Levine, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and has been in private practice since 1985 in Cincinnati, Ohio. His most recent book is Surviving America's Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy. He is also the author of Commonsense Rebellion: Taking Back Your Life from Drugs, Shrinks, Corporations, and a World Gone Crazy and has authored a chapter for Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry. Dr. Levine has been a regular contributor to AlterNet, Z Magazine, and The Huffington Post and his articles and interviews have been published in Adbusters, The Ecologist, High Times and numerous other magazines. He is on the advisory council of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, an editorial advisor for the Icarus Project/Freedom Center Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs, and on the editorial advisory board of the journal Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry. Dr. Levine has presented talks and workshops to diverse organizations throughout North America. www.brucelevine.net

Photo courtesy of Russ Bo.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent., January 3, 2003

By 

rainqueen - See all my reviews

This review is from: Commonsense Rebellion: Taking Back Your Life from Drugs, Shrinks, Corporations, and a World Gone Crazy (Hardcover)

Great book for independent thinkers and informed citizens. If no one in your immediate vicinity validates that you know what you know, see what you see, and feel what you feel (and you're right!), get this book. There's someone out there who gets it.

The author doesn't recommend magic pills, or therapy or a 12 step group because you've been taking some other pills to get through the days. He doesn't tell you to make gratitude lists or go to college AGAIN or do anything else conformist and profitable for someone else. He reaffirms your intelligence, validates your perceptions, and your right to speak about them, and reassures you it's your highest calling to be yourself. That is what you can do for your country, your family and your sanity.

I gave four instead of five stars because much of the book doesn't apply to me and I found my attention wandering during those chapters. I'm sure parents and teachers will find them invaluable. If you're trying to raise or educate an intelligent, compassionate human being instead of trying to control or manage a future consumer / worker drone, this is the book for you.

Also highly recommended for those who considered careers in psychiatry or social work and found themselves ethically compromised and repulsed. The book is a long overdue critique of the psychiatry / psychology industry that, unlike some others, is balanced and intelligent enough not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

This book should be on the shelves in the stores, but I had to order it here. It's worth the wait.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Commonsense Rebellion, October 21, 2007

By 

Matthew Thorne - See all my reviews

This review is from: Commonsense Rebellion: Taking Back Your Life from Drugs, Shrinks, Corporations, and a World Gone Crazy (Hardcover)

If you don't think that your life is being managed by others, for their benefit, you need to read this book! Commonsense Rebellion is an excellent and important critique of our institutional culture and explains in clear detail how our involvement with those institutions actually deprives us of our autonomy, individual power and joy. I see myself as informed and very cynical about the intentions of government, corporations, the media and "educational" institutions, and yet Bruce Levine was able to completely surprise me with things I didn't know. It would be a service to everyone if this book were required reading for all high school and college students. One of the most wonderful things about the book is that at the end of each chapter Dr. Levine offers suggestions as to what each of us can do to get our lives back.

4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Empowering lessons in true perspective., April 5, 2008

By 

Peter Klok "Hamleth" (Farum, Frederiksborg Denmark) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Commonsense Rebellion: Taking Back Your Life from Drugs, Shrinks, Corporations, and a World Gone Crazy (Paperback)

Bruce E. Levine has the credentials that he himself says are proof of compliance. All the same, for those of you who need to know that an author is thus entitled, it may aid you in pulling yourself together to understand some of this. It is time to stop taking all those dangerous psychopharmica. It is time to drink only for a bit of loosening up, but not to handle these bourgeois blues. It is time to understand that we are the other people you are the other people to. The statistics are here in this book, served up for your easy digestion of them. This book just makes me a happier person. Can you dig it?