The Myth of the Chemical Cure: A Critique of Psychiatric Drug Treatment 2008th Edition

by J. Moncrieff (Author)

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Editorial Reviews

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Shortlisted for the 2009 Mind Book of the Year

'A revolutionary book written with the calm assurance of someone who knows her subject matter and the people involved - extremely well. Essential reading for anyone interested in mental health.' - Dorothy Rowe, www.dorothyrowe.com.au

'This is a sober and thoughtful book. I found it very engaging and worth the effort to be better informed about a subject that affects many of our clients and impinges on our professional lives as therapists.' - Existential Analysis (Society for Existential Analysis)

'...Joanna Moncrieff, a practising psychiatrist and academic, has produced a devastating critique of the use of psychiatric drugs...This courageous book has the potential to revolutionise psychiatric practice and the care of people with many forms of mental distress. Many in the therapy professions will, I am sure, celebrate its message.' - Rachel Freeth, Therapy Today

'This book does what it says on the cover. It is a concise, powerful, well-referenced and well-constructed critique of psychiatric drug treatment...If I had the power to, I would make it essential reading on all counselling and psychotherapy trainings.' - Pete Sanders, Healthcare Counselling and Psychotherapy Journal

'It should be compulsory reading for any person who thinks that people's behaviours and experiences are caused by chemical imbalances in their brain and that psychiatric medications treat these imbalances psychiatrists, other professionals and people who are taking or considering taking these drugs...Read and share the book and speak out .come on - the emperor has no clothes!' - Guy Holmes, Journal of Critical Psychology, Counselling and Psychotherapy

'This remarkable book should be required reading...as the author exposes misconceptions and assumptions about biological mental illness...[it] is far from one-sided, and argues that rather than discarding drugs we should use them properly and concentrate on their effects rather than upon traditional but ultimately unscientific assumptions.' - Stuart Sorensen, Community Care

'This is a book that should change psychiatry forever.' Mental Health

About the Author

Joanna Moncrieff is a Senior Lecturer at University College London, UK and a practising consultant psychiatrist. She is co-chair person of the Critical Psychiatry Network and author of The Myth of the Chemical Cure.

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Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Palgrave Macmillan; 2008th edition (December 4, 2007)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 303 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0230574327
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0230574328
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 13.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.7 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #1,192,767 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #293 in Medical Psychopharmacology
- #331 in Popular Psychology Psychopharmacology
- #590 in Neuropsychology (Books)

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SHOULD THE "DISEASE MODEL" OF MENTAL ILLNESS BE ABANDONED?

Reviewed in the United States on October 8, 2013

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Joanna Moncrieff is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Mental Health Sciences at University College London, and is co-founder of the Critical Psychiatry Network. She has also written books such as The Bitterest Pills: The Troubling Story of Antipsychotic Drugs , Straight Talking Introduction to Psychiatric Drugs , De-Medicalizing Misery: Psychiatry, Psychology and the Human Condition , etc.

She wrote in the first chapter of this 2009 book, "Since the 1960s we have lived in an age characterized by the idea that drugs can cure the problems that are now referred to as 'mental illness'... By 'cure' I mean the idea that drugs can improve symptoms by helping to rectify the underlying pathological mechanism that is presumed to give rise to the symptoms in the first place... The story by which drugs first came to be seen in this way, as specific treatments for specific mental disorders ... and whether or not this way of thinking about drugs and their actions is justified, are the subjects of this book." (Pg. 1) She adds, "Over the following pages I hope to convince readers that the modern understanding of what drugs do in psychiatry ... is fatally flawed; that most knowledge about psychiatric drugs is, at best, only a partial acount. This is because it ... has been inspired and promoted by professional, commercial and political interests. This misconception has led to the misdirection of research, the misinterpretation of available evidence and the obstruction of a fuller and more accurate understanding of what psychiatric drugs do." (Pg. 2)

She argues, "The disease-centered model has been imported from general medicine, where... most drug action can be appropriately understood in this way." (Pg. 7) She says, "This book concerns the creation of a myth, the myth of the disease-centered model of drug action, and how that myth could be accepted as a real description of the world." (Pg. 11) She adds, "I will... attempt to uncover the interests that led to the development and success of the disease-centered model of drug action and its accompanying model of psychic distress... I will outline an alternative 'drug-centered' approach that is consistent with a wide range of evidence, yields more information about what effects drugs have in different situations and forms a better basis from which to weigh the pros and cons of drug treatment." (Pg. 13)

She points out, "A further problem with modern clinical drug trials is that people are usually dropped from the study once they relapse or if they stop the study drug for any reason. Therefore, there is no information about the ultimate outcome of these participants... In addition, we know that positive studies are more likely to be published than negative ones... and within published studies measures that show positive effects are reported and negative ones sometimes ignored ... Therefore, published data is likely to be inaccurately skewed towards showing beneficial effects of treatment." (Pg. 20-21)

She concludes, "The data surveyed in this book suggest that psychiatric drug treatment is currently administered on the basis of a huge collective myth; the myth that psychiatric drugs act by correcting the biological basis of psychiatric symptoms or diseases... the evidence suggests that these drugs induce characteristic abnormal states that can account for their so-called therapeutic effects." (Pg. 237) She adds, "this book demonstrates the eagerness of the psychiatric profession to embrace the myth of disease-specific treatments. This is understandable, given the profession's long-standing battle to align itself squarely as a branch of the medical profession... From the beginning of the 20th century psychiatry sought to relocate its practice in general hospitals and outpatient departments. Drug treatments, if they could be presented as acting on a disease process, were well suited to this new environment... The psychiatric profession was supported in its aims by a State that was seeking technical solutions for various social problems. Psychiatry offered the possibility of transforming the complex political problem of how to manage psychiatric disturbance into a medical and technical issue... the ability to remove difficult issues of social control from the political arena was appealing... The new drugs... helped justify both the turn towards community care and the development of more medicalized legislation." (Pg. 243)

This critique will be "must reading" for anyone studying the modern role of psychopharmacology---whether or not one always agrees with Moncrieff.

15 people found this helpful

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fs8043

An in-depth review of profound problems in modern psychiatry

Reviewed in the United States on August 4, 2013

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The book is a very clear and readable in-depth review of the profound deceptions, self and otherwise, of today's clinical psychopharmacology. As a psychiatrist and Harvard researcher, I am in full agreement with Dr. Moncrieff who has done a very courageous and thorough description of how and why great harm is being done to so many patients seeking help through many drug treatments.

15 people found this helpful

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M. Miller

An important viewpoint.

Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2012

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So much information about the benefits of drug treatment for mental health problems comes from people who have a financial motive to sell drugs. It is worthwhile to look at the downside of drug treatment. This book does a good job of exposing the reader to the disadvantages of relying to much on chemical and electroconvulsant treatment. Helpful for consumers, their loved ones, and mental health professionals.

7 people found this helpful

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S.D. Parker

A generally helpful presentation, with some reservations

Reviewed in the United States on May 5, 2013

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It is time we face the facts and start tossing our Zoloft more frequently into the wastebasket and less into our mouths; for the promises of contemporary psychopharmacology have failed to deliver. At least, that is how Joanna Moncrieff sees it in her book The Myth of the Chemical Cure--the more than one in ten Americans taking antidepressants notwithstanding.

In this book, currently in its second edition, Moncrieff takes serious objection to contemporary psychiatric treatment as it involves the use of medication. This level of antagonism is only natural given that she sees the standard framework of understanding drug treatment as off base. The typical disease-centered (her term) account of drug action borrows unjustifiably from medicine: just as cephalexin assaults a particular problem-causing agent like streptococcal bacteria, Prozac assaults a particular problem-causing agent too--a chemical imbalance.

But this is too much a stretch for the author, who proposes that we are on much stronger ground in looking at psychoactive medication through the lens of a drug-centered model (again, her term): just as ethyl alcohol consumption beyond a threshold produces brain-wide effects often adverse (decreased cognitive ability) and sometimes--in certain contexts and settings--desirable (social disinhibition), Prozac places the user under an altered brain state that may be theoretically desirable (increased mood; diminished anxiety) though with significant adverse effects (decreased libido; suicidal ideation).

Just about everywhere Moncrieff directs our attention, the story looks pretty much the same. There are reports that the drugs seem to help a certain proportion of the population who takes them, amidst a torrent of unenviable side effects upon all who do. Antidepressants, neuroleptics, and stimulants are leaving in their wake a host of drug-dependent, libido-less, emotionally detached zombie-patients. Even where there appears to be some effectiveness, it is hard to shake the specter of placebo.

Moncrieff is no mere contrarian pundit, and her report is not new. Rather she joins those who have already been questioning psychopharmacology for a few years now. A group represented by the voices of Irving Kirsch and Robert Whitaker. Certainly, with the poor results the aforementioned researchers have produced concerning antidepressants and antipsychotics, along with what Moncrieff herself brings to the table, her case for skepticism today is sound.

I am not so ready, however, to abandon the psychopharmacological ship so completely. For one, nothing that might be said about drugs today implies anything about the drugs of tomorrow. And even if every new generation of drugs has come with the recognition that the prior generation was not the final answer as was thought or hoped, why must this require a deeply negative assessment of the motives behind all (or even most) who created and prescribed them to patients? Progress is the natural course of all science; and we can expect this to be the case with psychiatric medication as it is with non-psychiatric medication.

Furthermore, I find Moncrieff--with her binary drug-centered versus disease-centered constructs--more framework-driven than those who make up the psychiatric establishment. Whatever their script-writing inclinations, I don't believe I've met a single psychiatrist or doctor who looks at psychiatric medication as the seamless shoring up of a faulty neurological disorder such that treatment ever comes without side effects. Moreover, the implication that real drugs made to combat real diseases meet such a standard is simply not true. The most novel of cancer and HIV/AIDS drugs are notorious for the side effects they can impart when taken. But this doesn't signify the illegitimacy of the disease concept or the drugs, does it? It's not even completely true that Moncrieff's own paradigm case for a "disease-centered" model of drug action--insulin for diabetes--comes without side effects, since those receiving insulin treatment occasionally report fatigue, tremors, hunger, and anxiety. Suffice it to say, the criticisms at times seem based on straw men.

Still, if one can get past the framework mentality of Moncrieff's book, it makes for an informative read. At the very least, it contains considerations that any potential or current psychiatric medication patient will want to consider as they evaluate or re-evaluate their own treatment.

13 people found this helpful

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ariel pereira

Excellent. Carefully argued

Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2018

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Excellent. Carefully argued, research based, important information

One person found this helpful

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IK

A marvelous book

Reviewed in the United States on April 4, 2019

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This has become a classic. I had a copy before, but it has gone missing and so bought another.

One person found this helpful

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nunya

Four Stars

Reviewed in the United States on November 23, 2014

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This is a scholarly work and hard to follow.

Reviewed in the United States on December 12, 2014

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Great book!

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Amazon Customer

An important book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 15, 2020

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This is an excellent book which anyone with an academic or professional interest in mental health should read. Well written and comprehensive and convincing throughout, this book is written with experience and professionalism and with a direction towards dignity of medicated people. Works like these will be fundamental in exploring the philosophy of mental illness and modern western medical approaches. Definitely worth reading and directs you to lots more studies and examples to look into if this is something you are passionate about. I’m a student nurse with an interest in mental health and this has opened my mind to thinking about how and way we practice the way we do, and the role society has on our treatment and conceptualisation of mental illness. I will continue to read further into this, thanks to the detailed awareness this book offers.

Mark Fletcher

‘Primum non nocere’ is just a phrase from a dead language, so why bother when there is money to be made by disease mongering?

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 29, 2014

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Let’s not beat about the bush – psychiatry has nothing to do with science, and even less to do with patient care. Long ago, that so-called ‘profession’ made a Faustian pact with Big Pharma to push their products, in return for ‘benefits’ of every possible kind. Decades on, the corruption is now endemic, and is so deep-seated that many practitioners have become immune to any possible consideration of wrongdoing.

But in every morass, there are safe places, where one may find solid ground and sure footing. And Dr Joanna Moncrieff is one of those places. As a psychiatrist with a conscience, she has ripped open the ‘can of worms’ which conceals much of her profession. There was a time when the whole panoply of psychiatric drugs was considered for exactly what they were – a temporary relief from the distressing symptoms of emotional anxiety or distress.

But fast-forward from that scenario by 30 years, and we now have psychiatry pushing crude chemicals made in a factory as a permanent ‘cure’ for depression – how ludicrous is that proposition, with the immense complexity of the human brain being reduced to a series of chemical reactions?

In great detail, Joanna analyses the development and propagation of the range of psychiatric drugs, and by rigorous analysis, highlights the deficiencies, drawbacks, and plain fabrications attributed to these drugs, with wholly inadequate oversight by the relevant authorities.

Anyone who is uncertain about whether or not to ingest these drugs needs to read this book: to accept what Big Pharma and chemical psychiatry claim is to subject oneself to a very unpredictable and risky chemical experiment. You only have one brain and one body, and no-one will accept any responsibility for harm induced upon you by powerful drugs which give very dubious and uncertain benefits.

If a patient gets better while on SSRIs, the drugs are credited with a positive outcome (notwithstanding the fact that most people will naturally recover from depression in about 6 months if they are not medicated). If they don’t get better quickly, then another toxic drug is added to the mix, and then another one, ad infinitum. Having converted the patient into a walking chemistry set, and zombified them along the way, so that they no longer show symptoms of distress, the chemical psychiatrist then claims ‘success’. But would these men ‘take their own medicine’? Not very likely – they know too much about them.

The ‘disconnect’ between Big Pharma’s claims about ‘side effects’; and those suffered by patients is absolutely vast. Multiple internet forums attest to lives ruined by this unnecessary SSRI proliferation. Like many others, I knew nothing about these drugs until my ex-partner started ‘treatment’ at a provincial private UK hospital, ostensibly for 12 months of psychotherapy. At her very first one-hour session, she gave her life story, was diagnosed as ‘severely depressed’ (utter bollocks), and her SSRI prescription was immediately raised to the maximum possible dosage.

Within days, she became intensely ill with anxiety and agitation, as the hideous neurological condition ‘akathisia’ took a grip upon her. She should have been taken off the drugs then, but she was not. Within three weeks, she had been ‘zombified’, and had turned cold and hostile towards me, ending our relationship. Over 8 months after her so-called ‘treatment’ ended, she remains utterly indifferent towards me, and I believe that the expensive psychotherapy never happened; her ‘very experienced’ doctor fraudulently substituting the sedative effect of cheap pills, as a ‘rapid chemical cure’, with built-in ongoing dependency.

If you think the worst excesses of psychiatry are confined to the USA, then you had better reconsider. And if you doubt me about the effects of psychoactive drugs upon intimacy between loving partners, then please google ‘relationships destroyed by SSRIs’ (373,000 hits!).

Am I ‘anti-psychiatry’? Dead right I am, and I will stand with Joanna and anyone else who considers these toxic and pointless drugs to be an abusive and barbaric affront to sentient humanity.

Mark Fletcher

20 people found this helpful

Judith Haire

Absolutely essential reading for everyone

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 21, 2011

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Joanna Moncrieff's The Myth of the Chemical Cure is a ground breaking book and to me, is the clearest ever condemnation of psychiatric drugs. It is extremely well written and easy to absorb and the referencing is excellent. I did not want to put the book down once I'd started to read it. I've always wanted to find a book like this; a book which would confirm my own long held belief that psychiatrists have it all wrong about mental illness and that it is not the result of a chemical imbalance. Psychiatric drugs harm the body and often have horrendous side effects; it is important that everyone realises that drugs are not the only answer for mental health problems. Joanna Moncrieff has spoken out and spoken out loudly and her book is essential reading for everyone.

13 people found this helpful

Dr. T.

An outstanding analysis of Nature and Toxiclogy.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on April 15, 2014

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This compelling and invaluable scientific analysis, is written with the precision of a scalpel. It is courageous, objecive and essential reading for all who are seeking insight and reality. Thank you Dr. Moncrieff.

2 people found this helpful

Robert Graham

all good

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 7, 2019

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as described thanks

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