Customer Reviews

The Limits of Biological Treatments for Psychological Distress: Comparisons With Psychotherapy and Placebo

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This book, though now 10 years old, is an outstanding book of reviews of the research on the effectiveness of psychiatric medications. Each chapter reviews a different class of meds, including anti-depressants (pre-Prozac), anxiolitics (anti-anxiety meds), neuroleptics (so-called antipsychotics), Ritalin (in a chapter that challenges the idea that Attention Deficit Disorder even exists), and even a chapter on shock treatment. The review are rigorous, scholarly, and critical. The editors summarize the reviews by stating that at the present time (1989)"biological psychiatry is swimming in uncertainty" in spite of the inflated claims of the pharmaceutical industry regarding their highly profitable products (little has changed in the last ten years in this respect) The authors of the various chapters criticize technical aspects of research designs, the financial dependence of researchers on drug companies, the exaggeration of therapeutic benefits, the ignoring of negative results, the minimization or under-reporting of side effects, and the over-generalizing of the appropriate use of medications to patient populations that were not part of the research on a particular drug's effectiveness. This is a must read for psychotherapists and patients who have been intimidated by the claims that drug treatments are quicker and more effective than psychotherapy, claims that this book calls into question.

I bought this book when it first came out and I continue to read it and refer to it. It is one of the rare scholarly compilations to question the current rush toward simple fixes for psychological distress. I keep lending it to people and having to fight to get it back. There is solid and interesting research and a different perspective on mental well being. If you are serious about understanding biological interventions to mental health problems, this is a significant contribution.