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Review
Bentall is one of psychiatry's most eloquent enemies . . . the drugs don't work (Sunday Times )
It is the very balance of his approach that drives his opponents crazy . . . Passionate . . . a brave book (Observer )
Bentall pulls no punches . . . his credentials ensure that his punches carry weight (Guardian )
Paints a stark picture of a mental health system riddled with corruption and incompetence (The Times )
Wonderful. Everyone personally or professionally concerned with mental health should read this . . . I dearly wish it could be put into the hands of the politicians and their advisors who make decisions about the life and rights of others (Hilary Mantel )
At a time when dialogue in the presence of other human beings is becoming less and less available, this brave book gives a sense of why this could be disastrous (Salley Vickers, Observer )
It is the very balance of his approach that drives his opponents crazy . . . Passionate . . . a brave book (Observer )
Bentall pulls no punches . . . his credentials ensure that his punches carry weight (Guardian )
Paints a stark picture of a mental health system riddled with corruption and incompetence (The Times )
Wonderful. Everyone personally or professionally concerned with mental health should read this . . . I dearly wish it could be put into the hands of the politicians and their advisors who make decisions about the life and rights of others (Hilary Mantel )
At a time when dialogue in the presence of other human beings is becoming less and less available, this brave book gives a sense of why this could be disastrous (Salley Vickers, Observer )
Review
`At a time when dialogue in the presence of other human beings is becoming less and less available, this brave book gives a sense of why this could be disastrous.'
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58 of 59 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
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.
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.
37 of 38 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
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.
36 of 39 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is, in my opinion, an important book. Bentall reviews a number of areas related to contemporary psychiatry and clinical psychology, and he highlights some of the major areas of controversy between practitioners in these disciplines. It is beyond my competence to assess whether all his conclusions are correct. Indeed, given the diversity of topics covered, I doubt whether many readers will feel competent to draw definitive conclusions.
The central issue arising from this book relates to the validity or otherwise of reductionist accounts of both normal and abnormal behaviour, i.e. the extent to which behaviour can or cannot be explained in terms of the detailed analysis of brain functioning at the neuronal level. Over the last 40 years mainstream psychology has undergone a "paradigm shift' in which reductionist accounts of behaviour have become less influential. Bentall's book reflects this change, and it represents a considerable challenge to conventional psychiatrists, who typically adopt a more reductionist philosophical approach, focussed in particular on drug treatment.
Since the 1970s there have not really been major advances in psychopharmacology, and some of the major ones such as the development of the clozapine-like "atypical/second generation" antipsychotics seem to be progressively disappearing, after much hype, in a cloud of smoke, leaving some puzzled and confused. In part, as Bentall documents, this is due to the malign influence of the pharmaceutical industry which has done itself no favours at all by e.g. i) Rigging clinical trials by the use of inappropriate (high) comparator doses of older drugs in trials investigating the actions of novel drugs, and ii) Lack of attention to serious adverse side effects such as weight gain and diabetes. A strong case can be made for the psychiatric profession and psychopharmacologists in general paying much more attention to what we often do NOT know about many psychoactive drugs - most efficacious doses, mechanisms of action involved in their therapeutic and side effects, consequences of co-administration of two or often more drugs, effects of drug withdrawal, abuse of antipsychotics when administered at high doses to the elderly, interactions of drugs with psychological therapies et alia. Such studies will clearly not be conducted by the pharmaceutical industry and thus will have to be state funded. The best psychiatrists do address the issues described above, and they attempt to deal with the problem of reductionism by marrying neuronal ideas to functional psychological concepts, although they are relatively few and far between. Ideally, Bentall's book would lead to a rapprochement between psychiatrists and clinical psychologists, although given its rather strident tone this appears highly unlikely to happen at present! In the meantime it is probably essential reading for all trainee clinical psychologists and psychiatrists, for interested lay readers as well as individuals in receipt of therapy.
The central issue arising from this book relates to the validity or otherwise of reductionist accounts of both normal and abnormal behaviour, i.e. the extent to which behaviour can or cannot be explained in terms of the detailed analysis of brain functioning at the neuronal level. Over the last 40 years mainstream psychology has undergone a "paradigm shift' in which reductionist accounts of behaviour have become less influential. Bentall's book reflects this change, and it represents a considerable challenge to conventional psychiatrists, who typically adopt a more reductionist philosophical approach, focussed in particular on drug treatment.
Since the 1970s there have not really been major advances in psychopharmacology, and some of the major ones such as the development of the clozapine-like "atypical/second generation" antipsychotics seem to be progressively disappearing, after much hype, in a cloud of smoke, leaving some puzzled and confused. In part, as Bentall documents, this is due to the malign influence of the pharmaceutical industry which has done itself no favours at all by e.g. i) Rigging clinical trials by the use of inappropriate (high) comparator doses of older drugs in trials investigating the actions of novel drugs, and ii) Lack of attention to serious adverse side effects such as weight gain and diabetes. A strong case can be made for the psychiatric profession and psychopharmacologists in general paying much more attention to what we often do NOT know about many psychoactive drugs - most efficacious doses, mechanisms of action involved in their therapeutic and side effects, consequences of co-administration of two or often more drugs, effects of drug withdrawal, abuse of antipsychotics when administered at high doses to the elderly, interactions of drugs with psychological therapies et alia. Such studies will clearly not be conducted by the pharmaceutical industry and thus will have to be state funded. The best psychiatrists do address the issues described above, and they attempt to deal with the problem of reductionism by marrying neuronal ideas to functional psychological concepts, although they are relatively few and far between. Ideally, Bentall's book would lead to a rapprochement between psychiatrists and clinical psychologists, although given its rather strident tone this appears highly unlikely to happen at present! In the meantime it is probably essential reading for all trainee clinical psychologists and psychiatrists, for interested lay readers as well as individuals in receipt of therapy.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Doctor, my brain hurts
The book arrived in the post today. Turning to reading it helped me to calm myself during an almost psychotically anxious and hopeless state of mind, thanks to its genuinely... Read more
Published 6 months ago by A. Rodgers
A partisan critque of psychiatry
Richard Bentall is a pscyhologist well known for his critical view of the psychiatric and biological approach to mental illness. Read more
Published 8 months ago by F. Martin
Mintos
As a person who has now laboured humiliatingly for many years under the yoke of the received (and therefore worthless) wisdom concerning 'mental illness', it's always encouraging... Read more
Published 11 months ago by The Sweet poetry of Pus
mental health
I found this book very easy and understable to follow. I have a personel interest in Mental Health and this book just verified alot of what I personally think about the way Mental... Read more
Published 13 months ago by lisa46
excellent insightful book
I wanted to learn more about what lies behind the medical model (professional) front of mental illness and this book demystifies so much of that. Read more
Published 16 months ago by product buyer
the truth about psychiatry
Reading a book like this is essential to those people who are not necessarily deeply involved in anti-psychiatry (or even - psychiatry). Read more
Published 21 months ago by Mr. C. Wood
Psychiatrists versus psychologists
Now I know the difference between these two clinicians I think I am better placed to understand my mental health and the treatments that I receive. Read more
Published 22 months ago by SAP
Doctoring the Mind: Why psychiatric treatments fail
This book offers an intersting viewpoint for those who are involved in mental health issues. Very good book indeed.
Published 22 months ago by redpmj
sense about madness
Excellent book, clearly and authoritatively written by someone who can review the research with a clear eye untainted by payments from Big Pharma. Read more
Published 22 months ago by J. Rogers
Why psychiatric treatments fail
Althought I have not finished reading this book yet, I am about half way through it and I am finding it extremely interesting and informative.
Published 23 months ago by C Lewney
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