Cracked: The Unhappy Truth about Psychiatry
Davies, a social anthropologist and psychotherapist, takes on psychiatry and its bible, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), in the wake of the release of that book’s controversial fifth edition. Davies notes that psychiatry was once only for the “most distressed members of society.” No more. In 2011, Americans filled 254 million prescriptions for antidepressants, which, he writes, largely work because of the placebo effect, while some doctors who tout their benefits are consultants to drug companies. The number of mental disorders in the manual has increased from 106 in 1952 to 372 today, which has been referred to as “diagnosis inflation.” Davies’ hypothesis is that “psychiatry, by progressively lowering the bar for what counts as mental disorder, has recast many natural responses to the problems of living as mental disorders requiring psychiatric treatment.” He is so outspoken about his negative feelings that at a university gala, a cardiologist asked him if he was a Scientologist. This thought-provoking book will make people think twice before sitting on a psychiatrist’s couch or filling a prescription. --Karen Springen