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Mad in America:

bad science, bad medicine, and the enduring mistreatment of the mentally ill
Front Cover
35 Reviews
Da Capo Press, Apr 16, 2003 - Psychology - 334 pages
In Mad in America, medical journalist Robert Whitaker reveals an astounding truth: Schizophrenics in the United States currently fare worse than patients in the world's poorest countries, and quite possibly worse than asylum patients did in the early nineteenth century. With a muckraker's passion, Whitaker argues that modern treatments for the severely mentally ill are just old medicine in new bottles, and that we as a society are deeply deluded about their efficacy. Tracing over three centuries of "cures" for madness, Whitaker shows how medical therapies have been used to silence patients and dull their minds. He tells of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century practices of "spinning" the insane, extracting their teeth, ovaries, and intestines, and submerging patients in freezing water. The "cures" in the 1920s and 1930s were no less barbaric as eugenic attitudes toward the mentally ill led to brain-damaging lobotomies and electroshock therapy. Perhaps Whitaker's most damning revelation, however, is his report of how drug companies in the 1980s and 1990s skewed their studies in an effort to prove the effectiveness of their products. Based on exhaustive research culled from old patient medical records, historical accounts, numerous interviews, and hundreds of government documents, Mad in America raises important questions about our obligations to the mad, what it means to be "insane," and what we value most about the human mind.
  

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Review: Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill

User Review  - Eddy Allen - Goodreads

In Mad in America, medical journalist Robert Whitaker reveals an astounding truth: Schizophrenics in the United States currently fare worse than patients in the world's poorest countries, and quite ... Read full review

Review: Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill

User Review  - Gabe Coon - Goodreads

this was a good informational book about neurotics and how they change the chemistry of the brain; and how the brain reacts to the medications taken. it is strange how in developing countries these ... Read full review

All 34 reviews »

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Contents

The Healing Hand of Kindness
19
The Darkest Era 19001950
39
Too Much Intelligence
73
Brain Damage as Miracle Therapy
107
Back to Bedlam 19501990
139
The PatientsReality
161
The Story We Told Ourselves
195
Shame of a Nation
211
The Nuremberg Code Doesnt Apply Here
233
Not So Atypical
253
Epilogue
287
Notes
293
Index
323
Copyright

Common terms and phrases

akathisia American Journal American psychiatry antipsychotic apparendy Archives Association asylum asylum doctors atypicals became become behavior biological Borison brain caused chlorpromazine chronic cited clinical coma countries cure developed diagnosis discharged disorder doctors dopamine doses drug companies electroshock emotional encephalitis lethargica eugenicists Eugenics experiments fluphenazine Freeman and Watts frontal lobes function haloperidol human induced injected insane insulin investigators Janssen Journal of Psychiatry litde lobotomy medical journals medicine ment Mental Disease Mental Health mental hospitals mentally ill Methylphenidate metrazol mind Moniz moral treatment Mosher Nervous NIMH normal olanzapine operation outcomes pharmaceutical phrenic physicians placebo produced psychosis Psychosurgery psychotic Quakers receptors relapse rates reported risk risperidone roleptics Sakel schizo schizophrenia scientific Shock Therapy Shock Treatment side effects social society Soteria sterilization story studies suffered surgery symptoms tardive dyskinesia therapeutic Thorazine tients tion told trauma treated trials United Walter Freeman wrote York

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References from web pages

Mad in America
Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill. by Robert Whitaker. (New York: Perseus Publishing, 2002, ...
www.schizophrenia.com/ bookreviews/ MadinAmerica.htm

NEJM -- Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the ...
Book Review from The New England Journal of Medicine -- Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill.
content.nejm.org/ cgi/ content/ full/ 346/ 26/ 2096

PEP Web - Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the ...
Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill: Robert Whitaker, Perseus, Cambridge, MA, 2002, 334 pp., ...
www.pep-web.org/ document.php?id=jaa.031.0581a

JAMA -- Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the ...
Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill. by Robert Whitaker, 334 pp, $27, ISBN 0-7382-0385-8, ...
jama.ama-assn.org/ cgi/ content/ full/ 287/ 23/ 3149

Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring ...
Editor's Note: Two different perspectives on a controversial book, Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally ...
psychservices.psychiatryonline.org/ cgi/ content/ full/ 54/ 1/ 112-a

Mad In America | Freedom Center
... a series which led him to write Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill (Perseus Publishing, 2002). ...
www.freedom-center.org/ mad-america

<EM>Mad in America</EM>: Announcement of Provocative New Book
E-zine of the International Disability Exchanges and Studies (IDEAS) Project 2000-2004
www.disabilityworld.org/ 11-12_01/ resources/ mad.shtml

JSTOR: Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring ...
Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill. Robert Whitaker. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing. 2002. ...
links.jstor.org/ sici?sici=0092-055X(200304)31%3A2%3C247%3AMIABSB%3E2.0.CO%3B2-L

Mad in America, by Robert Whitaker
National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy. Mad In America. Paul Grondahl Robert Whitaker doesn't mince words in arguing that the American ...
www.narpa.org/ mad.in.america.htm

Mad in America
Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill. May 14, 2002. from Medscape General Medicine [TM] ...
www.medscape.com/ viewarticle/ 432570

About the author (2003)

Robert Whitaker is a science journalist and the author, most recently, of Mad in America. He has won the George Polk Award for Medical Writing and a National Association of Science Writers' Award for best magazine article. He was a finalist for the 1998 Pulitzer Prize for Public Service, considered journalism's top prize. He has also published more than twenty short stories in literary magazines such as the Indiana Review, Black Warrior Review, Florida Review, and Columbia: A Magazine of Poetry and Prose. His long fascination with South America began in the late 1970s, when he built and lived in a bamboo hut on the Ecuadorian coast. He now lives and writes in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Bibliographic information

QR code for Mad in America
TitleMad in America: bad science, bad medicine, and the enduring mistreatment of the mentally ill
AuthorRobert Whitaker
Editionreprint
PublisherDa Capo Press, 2003
ISBN0738207993, 9780738207995
Length334 pages
Subjects › 

Psychology / General
  
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