Warning: Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health [Hardcover]

William Glasser (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 29, 2003

From William Glasser, bestselling author of Choice Theory and Reality Therapy, comes this provocative, fresh look at how psychopharmacology has usurped the role of psychotherapy in our society, to the great detriment of the patients involved.

In the last twenty years, psychiatry has changed completely. The vast majority of psychiatrists who used to counsel now gather together lists of symptoms such as depression, anxiety, and compulsions, wrongly call them mental illnesses, and claim they should be treated by brain drugs -- Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, and Ritalin among them. Compassion, counseling, and mental health have been reduced to tiny blips on the current psychiatric screen.

Dr. Glasser brings mental health back into the picture. He explains what it is and how each of us can use the new ideas in this book to work toward improving our own mental health or helping children and other family members to improve theirs.

The hazards Dr. Glasser warns about are:

1. being diagnosed as mentally ill when you are not;
2. treatment for that nonexistent illness, often with harmful brain drugs; and, worst of all,
3. being told that there is nothing you can do for yourself. In this book you will learn that you can in fact do a lot for yourself.

Unfortunately, you have every reason to believe your psychiatrist's diagnosis, because our whole society has been blitzed by a multimillion-dollar media and advertising campaign financed by drug manufacturers. Their propaganda, aimed at convincing vulnerable people that they are mentally ill and should ask for a prescription, has been wildly successful.

This book presents scientific proof that there is nothing wrong with your brain and there is no pill for the happiness you need. It strongly supports counseling but goes further, because the majority of people with symptoms can't afford or wont accept counseling. It teaches how you can, by yourself or with your family's help, improve your own mental health at no cost and at no risk to yourself. If you or a family member has been diagnosed as mentally ill, this is the book you should read.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Swimming against what he sees as the tide of prescriptions written for antidepressants such as Paxil, Zoloft and Prozac, psychiatrist Glasser (Choice Theory) argues that these drugs can do more harm than good. He asserts that there has been some scientifically sound psychiatric research that suggests the drugs can damage mental health and even the brain itself. Through selective case studies and extrapolation of evidence, the author urges readers to think twice before accepting "brain drugs"; he states that the effectiveness of certain selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors has been exaggerated by the drug companies. To his credit, Glasser does offer several practical alternatives for patients. But he seems to cherish his outsider status and questions the way psychiatry is practiced today. Group therapy transcripts and case studies constitute the bulk of his case, and chapters like "Luck, Intimacy, and Our Quality World" and "We Have Learned to Destroy Our Own Happiness" are designed to help the reader understand symptoms. Some of the anecdotes are compelling, and individuals seeking alternatives to drug treatments may benefit.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Psychiatrist Glasser, a much published critic of what he calls the psychiatric establishment, uses his latest book to decry the use of neurochemicals to treat patients with psychiatric complaints. He claims the practice is becoming so widespread that psychiatrists are all but abandoning old-fashioned therapy for the quick fix drugs offer. In addition, everyone from pediatricians to general practitioners is diagnosing mental illness and prescribing mind-altering drugs. These medications have not been proven effective, he says; moreover, they do great harm. He contends that most patients diagnosed as mentally ill are simply unhappy or, as he puts it, out of shape psychologically. He believes that, just as someone who is physically out of shape but not ill can train to become fit, a person who is depressed or compulsive can train to become mentally fit. What's more, he outlines clear measures anyone can learn and practice to stay off drugs and be free of psychiatric complaints ranging from mild depression to paranoid schizophrenia and rheumatoid arthritis. Donna Chavez
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 272 pages
• Publisher: Harper; 1st edition (April 29, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060538651
• ISBN-13: 978-0060538651
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #493,071 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

William Glasser, M.D.,is a world-renowned psychatrist who lectures widely. He is the author of many books including Choice Theory, Reality Therapy, The Quality School, and Getting Together and Staying Together, and he is the president of the William Glassner Institute in Los Angeles.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 24 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great BOOK and a Great INTERVIEW, October 23, 2003

By 

Randy Gilbert "Best Seller Mentor" (founder of 'BestSellerMentoring.com') - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Warning: Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health (Hardcover)

There is growing scientific evidence that happiness is directly related to our being mentally fit. So is it true that mental illness is caused by unhappiness, rather than chemical imbalances in our brains?

Dr. William Glasser has devoted over 40 years of his professional life proving that so-called mental illnesses can be cured (or made healthy again) by having happy marital, family, teacher-student, and manager-worker relationships. He believes it's time to remove the plague of the old school of psychiatry, which actually causes a physical impairment of the brain (where there once was none) and then hinders a person's chance for true happiness and mental health.

If you, or someone you know, have symptoms such as depression, attention deficit, anger, hyperactivity, migraine headaches, anxiety or panic attacks, then I urge you to get this book and read it.

Dr. Glasser is an internationally recognized psychiatrist who is best known as the creator of Reality Therapy, a method of psychotherapy that is taught all over the world. His approach is considered non-traditional, because he does not believe in a person being labeled mentally ill unless something organically wrong with the brain.

The major purpose of this book is to teach the world "Choice Theory," which is aimed at proactively creating mental health through happy human relationships. In a nut shell, Choice Theory says people can only be responsible for their own choices, and by forcing our choices on other people we cause a break down in the relationship, which in turn makes us very unhappy. In our unhappy state, our perfectly healthy brain acts in such a way as to try to regain control over the other person by inflicting symptoms that are commonly attributed to mental disease on ourselves.

For instance, when someone is diagnosed with depression, they are choosing to depress (they are "depressing") so that they can gain the upperhand (its a form of getting bad attention). However, when choose to proactively control their own thoughts and actions in a mature way, thus gainning the respect and admiration of the people they love and care for, they will return to a very happy state and not need to use the external contol mechanism of "depressing." The same works for paining, panicing, angering, crazying, etc.

Dr. Glasser points out there are "7 Deadly Habits" that lead to totally ineffective people. We use them to try to gain control over others, wrongly thinking that they will make us happy. They are:

Critizing
Blaming
Complaining
Nagging
Threatening
Punishing (Abusing)
and Bribing

I interviewed Dr. Glasser on "The Inside Success Show" and he was inspiring! If I hadn't already believed in the power of great relationships to make people happy, I would after talking with him.

Here's some other things I learned from Dr. Glasser:

** How Dr. Glasser found out about the 'dark side' of Psychiatry
** Why common brain drugs like Prozac and Ritalin make you ill
** What 7 good habits help you to avoid anger, depression, and anxiety
** How to quickly turn around sour relationships using Choice Theory
** Why it is always better to get rid of false beliefs than punish others
** How to supercharge your mental health with a little known "phrase" that you can say to yourself
** And much, much more ...

If you want to rid yourself of "UNHAPPY-itis" and be completely mentally fit (it's like the difference between being out-of-shape and being fit enough to run a marathon), then I highly recommend reading this book.

Randy (Dr. Proactive) Gilbert, Host of The Inside Success Show (www.TheInsideSuccessShow.com) and best-selling author of "Success Bound"

15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Real Prescription For Mental Health, August 1, 2003

By 

Matthew Birdsall (Commack, NY United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Warning: Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health (Hardcover)

Warning: Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous To Your Mental Health pulls back the sheeps clothing that currently cloaks the rabid pharmaceutical industry and the misdirected psychiatric profession. In place of these modern day snake charmers and their magical elixirs, Dr. Glasser offers a sound explanation for, and solution to, the epidemic of mental illness that we have allowed (our choice) to overrun us.

Readers will learn why drug companies and current "mental illness providers" don't really want us to become healthy - Big Bucks! Rarely spoken of "mind drug" side effects (physical and mental) will also be discussed in detail, explaining why people on the current course of treatments seldom get better. And thankfully, Glasser offers a low-cost, no risk replacement remedy to help the millions of people out there, who are very unhappy and simply "mentally out of shape."

People who do not want to take responsibility for their problems or who demand instant gratification (even when pain and suffering are the long term consequences) will not find this book helpful. Those of us who think in terms of "internal control" and realize that depression (we all feel its touch now and then) is really a valid sign and symptom that we are currently not meeting one of our "basic needs" or reaching our personal "wants", will be enlightened and filled with hope after reading Bill's recent work.

Read it. Use it! Share It!!

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Helpful for the unhappy but well off., February 25, 2005

By 

zhivago (Nashua, NH USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Warning: Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health (Hardcover)

If you are basically doing ok, not just mentally, but also

financially, career-wise, and do not have disabilities that

limit your choices in life, that this book could help you.

If the causes of your mental health stressors are mostly

relationships with other people, then this book is very likely to

help you.

But, if the stressors in your life (the onces that are pushing

you toward depression or other mental health problems) are

caused by a limited financial resources, cognitive limitations,

impoverished social contacts, poor employment prospects, or a

host of other common problems, then this book is close to being

a complete waste of money.