Review
A beautifully written, profoundly important book that is sure to shake up the psychiatric establishment and pharmaceutical industry. Many readers will be excited, and probably disturbed, by this brilliant and shocking expose of the lack of efficacy and dangers of the most popular antidepressant medications. The author also reveals the astonishing lack of evidence for the widely believed but poorly validated theory that depression and anxiety result from a chemical imbalance in the brain. This book is long overdue and I hope that people will pay attention. Kudos to Dr. Kirsch! Irving Kirsch brilliantly documents a grim scandal of regulatory and clinical failures concerning antidepressants but also holds out hope in one of the most profound meditations for 50 years on the nature and role of the placebo effect in clinical care A terrific account of how optimism, greed and scientific incompetence have misled us about the nature of depression and the drugs we throw at it
Product Description
Kirsch, a professor of psychology, has written an exposé of the antidepressants industry by looking at the clinical trials that have been withheld from publication indicating that these medications are not much better than placebos, with serious side effects.
About the Author
Irving Kirsch is professor of psychology at the University of Hull. He has published eight books and numerous scientific articles on placebo effects, antidepressant medication, hypnosis, and suggestion. His work has appeared in Science, Science News, New Scientist, New York Times, Newsweek, and BBC Focus and many other leading magazines, newspapers, and television documentaries.
