Doctoring the Mind: Why psychiatric treatments fail

Excellent read. Highly recommended.

Prof Bentall has done it again and this time has not pulled any punches. It is no wonder there are psychiatrists up in arms over this book. I hope prof Bentall does the speech circuit. Rather than appealing to emotion, in a very emotive topic, the book systematically reviews the evidence that there is little direct support for the existing disease model of mental illness. In training, I was schooled in Popper's view that theory can never be proven but only disproven, and even a long existing positive finding can be undone by a single negative finding. If psychiatry ascribes to be a science then it must abide by its founding principles and argue their case without emotion. Prof Bentall presents this evidence in a cold light for the reading to judge for themselves. If he is wrong, then he is wrong. If he is right, then...

Reading a book like this is essential to those people who are not necessarily deeply involved in anti-psychiatry (or even - psychiatry). It presents a balanced view of a system that needs a radical overhaul, so that patients are the priority, and not doctors (or - even - the drug companies).Many people in "the system", who are either service users, or psychiatrists, or other kinds of mental health professional, seem to be of the opinion that books like this are some type of heresy, and that the only appropriate attitude for both patients (and their carers) is to treat the judgements of professionals as if they are gospel. Basically, patients are supposed to take the attitude of blind faith when under the treatment of psychiatrists.This book, however, is a balanced and extremely well-researched attempt at de-mystifying the whole psychiatric process, and it varies from looking closely subjects such as diagnosis, and the actual efficacy of certain treatments.I would reccomend this book to anyone who is, or has been, a "service user", or carer. It puts many "hot" psychiatric issues in perspective, and provides valuable information on what actually goes on inside "the system".

Good reference material

This was used as a textbook for a course and it was very interesting to read.