Toxic Psychiatry: Why Therapy, Empathy and Love Must Replace the Drugs, Electroshock, and Biochemical Theories of the "New Psychiatry"
Breggin, director of the Center for the Study of Psychiatry and author of Psychi atric Drugs: Hazards to the Brain (Springer Pub., 1983), describes his latest book as "the culmination of a lifetime of scientific, educational, and reform work." Breggin is anything but dispassionate: the "new psychiatry," he claims, is a return to the bad old days when a person enduring a "psychospiritual crisis" (a term Breggin favors over "mental illness") might be sent to a state hospital, where he or she would receive treatment that was degrading and harmful. Nowadays, he says, psychiatrists are in thrall to the pharmaceutical industry; they have lost or never learned the art of the loving, caring, humanistic "talking cure," and are doing more harm than good. Written in an anecdotal style, with case examples, a hefty notes section, and supportive evidence from various sources for his point of view, the book is best suited for the sophisticated general reader. Psychotherapy Book Club selection.- Marlene Charnizon, formerly with "Library Journal"Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.