Customer Reviews

Doctoring the Mind: Is Our Current Treatment of Mental Illness Really Any Good?

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Richard Bentall unabashedly presents searing truths about psychiatry's cozy relationship with drug companies. One of his contentions is that most SSRI antidepressants are virtually inert, only slightly more effective than a placebo. Never-the-less, a strident and undaunted pharmaceutical industry -- with a well-healed cadre of its defenders in the ranks of psychiatry and psychology -- marches on placing profit before ethics. After reading this book, one wonders what a dissonant mind-set many psychiatrists must find themselves in after decades of writing antidepressant (and antipsychotic) prescriptions, only to now learn that research doesn't support their purported efficacy. Does one say, "I've been a charlatan all these years?" Or, does one shoot the messenger?

Bentall challenges the psychiatric industry to begin treating their patients as people, not as objects. He ardently questions the intentions behind 15 minute office visits, saying it is not only inadequate time to get to know a patient and their personal issues, but it also shows a distancing arrogance that disrespects the troubled person. Bentall espouses virtues of integrity, compassion, and kindness. Qualities he will not likely be afforded by many of his colleagues in psychiatry and psychology who may feel defensively compelled to levy counterattacks upon reading this forthright book.

As a therpaist of 39 years, I found courage and validation in reading Doctoring The Mind. And a resoluteness to put sincere care above profit while affording each patient a more gentle professionalism in my final years.

Prof Bentall has done it again and this time has not pulled any punches. It is no wonder there are psychiatrists up in arms over this book. I hope prof Bentall does the speech circuit. Rather than appealing to emotion, in a very emotive topic, the book systematically reviews the evidence that there is little direct support for the existing disease model of mental illness. In training, I was schooled in Popper's view that theory can never be proven but only disproven, and even a long existing positive finding can be undone by a single negative finding. If psychiatry ascribes to be a science then it must abide by its founding principles and argue their case without emotion. Prof Bentall presents this evidence in a cold light for the reading to judge for themselves. If he is wrong, then he is wrong. If he is right, then...

This is a generally well-written thoughtful critique of psychiatry. Bentall very carefully outlines the moral and empirical objections to a paradigm that is increasingly being questioned by health care professionals. This book is not written by someone who is not qualified to do so. Bentall possesses the background for such a project and does a fine job here although much of his focus is on schizophrenia. The picture is much broader than this. Typically criticisms aimed at psychiatry are treated as if they are produced by uninformed and uneducated people with a personal axe to grind, and there is one review on Amazon written by someone obviously not familiar with the issues that pans this book. I would advise reading the numerous other sources that also objectively look at the evidence against the effectiveness of pure biological models of behavior. Much of the evidence is in the form of careful reviews of the actual research used by pharmaceutical companies and research psychiatry to support their claims. As a biologically-trained health care professional myself, I find that I am in agreement with many of these criticisms. In this vein I would suggest also looking closely at Whitaker's Anatomy of an Epidemic and Kirsch's The Emperor's New Drugs if you would like to learn more.

The book is absolute rubbish written by an ambitious clinical psychologist from University of Bangor in Wales, UK. Richard Bentall knows precious nothing about diagnoses and treatments of psychiatric disorders. Nevertheless, that didn't stop him from writing this silly book. Virtually unknown in the US his name should remain obscure as well as his book.

Against facts, reality, and reason he insists that psychiatric diagnoses are made up social constructs and medications designed to treat these "phantom" disorders are crime against humanity. It would be wasteful to argue with this foolish notion if not for millions of sufferers who benefit daily from pharmacological treatment and staggering suicide rate that was only slowed down in the last two decades thanks to medications.

Richard Bentall rejects the only hope our society has in fighting and conquering mental illnesses. The progress will move on with or without the professor but I believe that if someone he loves becomes mentally ill (I hope that we won't have to see the proof) he'll drop pretense and reach for the pill.