Doctoring the Mind: Why psychiatric treatments fail [Paperback]

Richard Bentall pieces together evidence from an impressive array of sources to provide a critical yet accessible evaluation of the current state of psychiatry. This book is not a scathing anti-psychiatry rant. Bentall lucidly examines the mental health literature, before concluding that a) mental health practitioners often fail their patients - he is self-critical and modest about his own treatment successes and failures and b) this failure is often borne out of rigid adherence to the neo-kraeplinian, biomedical school of psychopathology; an approach which is underpinned by pharmaceutical companies and their marketing strategies. Psychiatric diagnosis is a difficult process, the author - who favours a symptom-focused model - believes these difficulites arise from the inefficiencies, limitations and unsuitability of the disorder-based, biomedical paradigm of mental health. The efficacy of both pharmacological and psychosocial treatments is also comprehensively challenged - alongside the chapters on psychiatric diagnosis, these topics form large sections of the book.

In essence, the book provides a basic framework for an holistic approach to the treatment of mental illness. Bentall seeks to educate, empower and treat the psychiatric patient, perceiving them as individuals with diverse and often distressing life experiences who are deserved of fundamental human rights, rather than as deviants lacking the cognitive prowess to make decisions relating to their treatment who cannot/shouldn't be trusted to tell the truth about their symptoms and life experiences. A nurturing, trusting, compassionate, patient/client-centred approach is promoted as a key component of treatment success, regardless of the treatment modality. Adopting the author's approach is likely to be beneficial to the patient-practitioner relationship because it engenders a sense of mutual trust and respect which would probably improve treatment compliance, appointment attendance, the patient's self-esteem and perhaps even treatment outcome.

It is impossible to do justice to this book in such a short review because the diversity and depth of the subject matter, as well as the author's warm and humane tone cannot be reviewed nor conveyed. This book is a must for the psychiatrist, the psychologist, the psychiatric patient and anybody else who is interested in psychopathology. Doctoring the Mind is an important text which asks probing questions about mental health practices, that could also be used as a springboard to improved policies. This book is suitable for the layperson.

I read Richard Bentall's previous book, Madness Explained also highly readable, and once again he convincingly re-humanises people classified as 'psychiatric patients', people that psychiatry itself seems to want to stigmatise and demonise, sometimes for reasons that have little to do with helping peope and everything to do with advancing the interests of psychiatry and Big Pharma. He argues that there is no clear dividing line between the mad and the sane, that we all exist at points along a spectrum of mental health that ebb and flow, in part at least, in relation to our life experiences. Most importantly, I think, he emphasises the role of human kindness as a crucial factor in helping those in distress, rather than simply relegating them with a highly unscientific diagnostic label to some kind of sub-human.

Excellent book, clearly and authoritatively written by someone who can review the research with a clear eye untainted by payments from Big Pharma. Liked the honesty and the personal tone and willingness to admit when the true answer is 'we don't know'.