Your Drug May Be Your Problem, Revised Edition: How and Why to Stop Taking Psychiatric Medications [Paperback]

Before reviewers claim Breggin and Cohen are "narrow minded" or "extreme," they need to read eight or ten other source books (among them:From Placebo to Panacea, by Fisher and Greenberg; Blaming the Brain, by Valenstein; Talking Back to Prozac, by Breggin and Breggin; The Tripple Helix, by Lewontin). These are writers of substance, with well-documented arguments. They present clear pictures of the gaping holes in the biopsychiatric model and the shoddy, self-serving research that allegedly supports that model.

Several of these books present detailed indictments of the degree to which huge financial interests dominate psychiatry and drug research; they present clear and verifiable information (of which most psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers seem unaware) about the questionable effectiveness and all-too-common dangers of these drugs.

I don't doubt that a number of people have felt their lives saved by these drugs. But there is much research to support psycho-social interventions which do at least as well as psychiatric meds, without the dangers and side effects. This research is hard to find in the U.S., largely because of the huge amount of money the pharmaceutical companies spend supporting the American Psychiatric Association, NAMI, CHADD, the medical journals, and academic researchers. Studies which don't reinforce drug companies' vested interests are very hard to fund, and harder to publish. The latest figure I've seen: the drug companies in a recent year spent over 13 billion dollars on promotion alone. Dr. Martin Keller, a lead researcher in a major study supporting the use of anti-depressant medication was reported by Glenmullen and the Boston Globe to have received income of over $500,000 dollars from drug companies in a single year.

The efficacy of psychiatric drugs is way overstated. Their damage is vastly minimized by the drug companies, the researchers and the FDA. Read Breggin's Talking Back to Prozac, and Glenmullen's Prozac Backlash. See if you can find, anywhere, a point by point refutation of their specific charges about fudged drug studies and naked economic influence on "scientific" research. You won't find the drug companies, the FDA or the psychiatric establishment addressing these issues head on, fact for fact, because they know they have no response.

Don't just read this one book by Breggin and Cohen. Keep looking. No psychiatrist, psychologist, social worker or counsellor should consider themselves prepared to engage in ethical and informed practice until they have read and seriously considered the other books cited above, as well as several other books by Breggin (e.g., Toxic Psychiatry, Talking Back to Ritalin, The War Against Children of Color).

We don't know enough about brain chemistry to routinely prescribe medications to alter it. One reader here commented on this as if it was concrete knowledge. It is NOT. Our brain chemistry is changing all the time, and the brain is plastic, which means it changes as a result of experience. (Note: Daily, the brain generates more electrical impulses then all the telephones in the world put together. With all that activity, how can we single out a few supposedly faulty actions of neurotransmitters, which might occur in everyone, and justify medication because they coincide with emotional troubles? After all, only the people with psychiatric problems get tested, not everyone else.) We can work from two ends: help the brain and the person may be helped, or help the person and the brain is restored. The latter lasts longer, has no bad side effects, and a little help never hurt anyone seriously, whereas a little Prozac could theoretically worsen the situation. The brain does not create our experience. Even a damaged brain only changes our experience, rather than limiting it. When we are looking at chemicals, we are looking at a system which is constantly in flux. Psychiatric drugs attempt to control the behavior of specific neurotransmitters, but: a) They will stop doing so after a period of time and b) They can hinder other important functions.

Every day, we all have a time when our serotonin is low. Serotonin is the neurotransmitter associated with "depression". Some people's drop is worse than others. But we don't see everyone taking pills for their serotonin drop. Is that what's next? Sometimes, figuring out a person's "mental" problems is just a matter of untangling the behaviors and activities in their lives which cause "emotional" pain. Sometimes it's a matter of getting feelings out and expressing oneself, sometimes it's a matter of changing a few everyday habits, such as what a person eats. But people see these changes as threats to themselves. Psychologists tell people their behaviors define them. The sad thing is, is that because people are unaware of the inner self controlling the whole show--dreams, behaviors, activities, etc.--they then feel threatened when told to change a behavior because they feel that is all there is.

Someone who is already depressed could have a fight with a friend, eat too much food and get sick, spend the night curled in a ball which causes their knee to lock, and wake up in the middle of their next serotonin drop ready to stick their head in the oven. And, realistically, most people are not immediately aware of all the factors leading to this potentially suicidal feeling and cannot make the decision to ignore it because it is a short activity in their brains which they CAN choose to ignore, but only if they are INFORMED.

What Breggin is saying is that people should have control over their "treatment". Many of these drugs are robbing people of their lives because they never get off them. Doctors help you get on medication, not off. Which means you have to know, either in the midst of emotional crisis or the relief period afterwards-both being points of vulnerability, what is best for your health, the types of drugs, what they are doing to your brain, how they are affecting you short-term, how they could affect you long-term. What person with emotional crisis knows that?? If you want long term help in therapy, then you have to stop medication. You can take it through a crisis period, but even this isn't often necessary.

When people think certain conditions, such as schizophrenia, require medication, they are looking at the situation in context of what we see today as treatment. Most people are unaware that there are centers which treat "mental illness" without drugs, but with information about exercise, nutrition, expression of emotions through art, dance, music; through understanding and expanding their thinking. Or they simply allow refuge for the person to go through whatever experience they need to go through in a safe, protected environment.

The ideal social climate doesn't always exist for the transformation through illness to occur, but there have been centers which have, WITHOUT medication, allowed people to work through their crises in a supportive environment, rather than one where they are being ordered around. These people deserve control of their lives. And control is the crux of the problem. When people get older and their control is minimized, they die sooner. When they are allowed more control over their lives, they live longer. Successful experiences cure depression. A therapist can point out successes to a client who sees only failures. A client can create more successes which help them to weather inevitable failures. The balance which is being restored is not chemical, it is human. And there are many other ways to restore balance aside from drugs. People deserve to be responsible for themselves and their healing, not victims of what other people think they should do to be healed.

As for Andrea Yates: The ploy of using mental problems as an excuse for one's conscious actions is as old as time. And a woman using these excuses to avoid responsibility is even older than time. And I am a woman myself, so don't bother.