Warning: Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health (Paperback)

by William Glasser (Author) "In the forty-five years I've been in psychiatric practice, I have worked in every area of psychiatry except with small children (when consulted about a..." (more)
Key Phrases: physical health continuum, external control world, mental health continuum, Choice Theory Focus Group, New York, Miss Shehan (more...)

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. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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 --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harper Paperbacks (April 13, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 006053866X
• ISBN-13: 978-0060538668
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.3 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #296,045 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 21 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"

13 of 16 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!!

17 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Good insight into the sham of biological psychiatry, February 1, 2004

By A Customer

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

This book is a very good expose of the fraud of biological psychiatry and the alliance between psychiatry and the pharmaceutical companies to get as many people as possible on drugs for the longest possible time for the maximum profits. There is absolutely no science behind the idea of a biochemical imbalance which is nothing but a marketing device for drugs. Psychiatry used to be a noble profession with people such as Dr. Glasser but around 1980 when they saw their professional and financial existence threatened by the increasing number of nonmedical psychotherapists they decided to go with their unique market niche which was psychotropic drugs. They simply proclaimed without any scientific evidence whatsover and against all the accumlated knowledge and insights of the great psychiatrists that almost every mental disorder was caused by a biochemical imbalance in the drugs which they had available to prescribe. Then the pharmaceutical companies used their wealth to market this absurd idea to the public so as to convince people that they needed the "chemical balancer" that the company makes and that the psychiatrists have to prescribe. Other medical doctors who know nothing about mental disorders naively accepted this, and now they too can make money by including "mental health" in their practices.
The public finds it inconceivable that such a fraud could have completely permeated the medical profession, since they understandably assume that their doctors would base their practices only on real science. So what is the result of this: Among other things preschoolers given multiple psychotropic drugs for nonexistent diseases to correct nonexistent biochemical imbalances with drugs which have no evidence of efficacy and no proof of their safety. The drugs may now cause real brain damage while the child is psychologically damaged by being labeled with a mental disorder. But each such child will provide years of profits or become what Glasser aptly calls "the geese that lay the golden egg". This whole thing is fraudulent and terribly damaging to so many people and to our society as a whole.