- Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Perseus Books; Reprint edition (27 Mar 2003)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0738207993
- ISBN-13: 978-0738207995
- Product Dimensions: 20.8 x 14 x 2.5 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 744,409 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Mad in America
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
A riveting social and medical history of madness in America, from the seventeenth century to today. . In Mad in America, medical journalist Robert Whitaker reveals an astounding truth: Schizophrenics in the United States currently fare worse than patients in the world's poorest countries, and quite possibly worse than asylum patients did in the early nineteenth century. With a muckraker's passion, Whitaker argues that modern treatments for the severely mentally ill are just old medicine in new bottles, and that we as a society are deeply deluded about their efficacy. Tracing over three centuries of "cures" for madness, Whitaker shows how medical therapies have been used to silence patients and dull their minds. He tells of the eighteenth- and nineteenth-century practices of "spinning" the insane, extracting their teeth, ovaries, and intestines, and submerging patients in freezing water. The "cures" in the 1920s and 1930s were no less barbaric as eugenic attitudes toward the mentally ill led to brain-damaging lobotomies and electroshock therapy. Perhaps Whitaker's most damning revelation, however, is his report of how drug companies in the 1980s and 1990s skewed their studies in an effort to prove the effectiveness of their products. Based on exhaustive research culled from old patient medical records, historical accounts, numerous interviews, and hundreds of government documents, Mad in America raises important questions about our obligations to the mad, what it means to be "insane," and what we value most about the human mind.
About the Author
Robert Whitaker's articles on the me ntally ill and the drug industry have won several awards, including the George Polk Award for Medica l Writing and the National Association of Science Writers' award for best magazine article. A series he co-wrote for the Boston Globe was named a fina list for the Pulitzer Prize in 1998. He lives in C ambridge, Massachusetts.
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First Sentence
A VISITOR TO THE "mad" wards of Pennsylvania Hospital at the turn of the nineteenth century would have found the halls astir with an air of reform. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
A VISITOR TO THE "mad" wards of Pennsylvania Hospital at the turn of the nineteenth century would have found the halls astir with an air of reform. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 21 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book is a highly enjoyable read that approaches its subject matter from a chronological approach. Its argument is basically that the prevailing socialital attitude to the mentally ill is far more important in determining their treatment than any 'advances' in the field of psychiatry, psychology or nursing. The author then goes on to show how all care systems which beleive that mental illness is a disease or can be modelled as such invariably involve inhumane treatment.
The book begins with the moral treatment pioneers in the early life of american society. It details how that method became perverted and debased before it collapsed into punitative asylums. Then the author follows the treatments, the beleifs and actions of our care systems. He shows the rise of eugenics and how the history of mental health care is riven with cruelty.
This book is disturbing, surprising reading. By taking a chronological approach the book often details familiar things in unfamiliar ways. For example when the neuroleptic medications (now used near universally in treatment) were first introduced they were not at all advertised as 'treatment' for mental illness rather than as a form of chemical sedation similar in aim to giving patients a lobotomy.
The book closes by debating whether their has been any true advance in mental health care. Odd as this argument may seem the book makes a compelling case to reconsider our treatments and our methods.
In all, although the book is American, I would recommend this book for anyone with a connection to the mental health system who is wondering quite how it came to look as it does today.
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Anyone interested in the background of psychiatry from the age of blood letting to present day atypical antipsychotics shold read this book.
It delivers vast insight into the treatment of those labelled mad not just from schizophrenia but also other mental illnesses and the often horrendously cruel methods that psychiatrists advocated at any given time from the 19th century to the 21st.
From one supposed wonder cure to the next you will be horrified by the ineptitude and downright lack of humanity shown by psychiatry throughout the modern age of this pseudo-science.
I really can't emphasise enough how great a text Mad in America is on it's subject matter, it highlights so well the mistreatment of the mentally unwell and how psychiatrists desperate to establish psychiatry as a legitimate branch of medicine went to extreme lengths to try and fine a cure for those deemed mad. Frontal lobotomies, electroschock, insulin comas - there was nothing that they weren't prepared to do to find a remedy but ultimately never have found anything to help those with schizophrenia merely they have left a tarnished mark on thousands of patients, many of whom were treated like worthless human beings and died as a result.
Fascinating reading, will keep you turning from page to page chapter to chapter, really opens the eyes to the mental health system and how it is now overun by powerful and rich pharmaceutical companies clamouring to make profit from false promises.
One of te best books i have ever read period, never mind just in the mental health genre.
It delivers vast insight into the treatment of those labelled mad not just from schizophrenia but also other mental illnesses and the often horrendously cruel methods that psychiatrists advocated at any given time from the 19th century to the 21st.
From one supposed wonder cure to the next you will be horrified by the ineptitude and downright lack of humanity shown by psychiatry throughout the modern age of this pseudo-science.
I really can't emphasise enough how great a text Mad in America is on it's subject matter, it highlights so well the mistreatment of the mentally unwell and how psychiatrists desperate to establish psychiatry as a legitimate branch of medicine went to extreme lengths to try and fine a cure for those deemed mad. Frontal lobotomies, electroschock, insulin comas - there was nothing that they weren't prepared to do to find a remedy but ultimately never have found anything to help those with schizophrenia merely they have left a tarnished mark on thousands of patients, many of whom were treated like worthless human beings and died as a result.
Fascinating reading, will keep you turning from page to page chapter to chapter, really opens the eyes to the mental health system and how it is now overun by powerful and rich pharmaceutical companies clamouring to make profit from false promises.
One of te best books i have ever read period, never mind just in the mental health genre.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
From Bedlam to chemical lobotomies; a harrowing history of the way people with mental illness have been treated in the US and other developed countries. Why does the World Health Organization say outcomes for people with schizophrenia are likely to be better in poor African countries than in the US? Try drug company conspiracies, medical arrogance and fear of the "insane". This is brilliant factual writing that will change many people's view of the world.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
excellent read
excellent detailed book, unlike many that are quick and vague this one took a while to read as was very detailed but has helped me a lot with my mental health studies. Read more
Published 3 months ago by becky81
The Painful Truth
Mad in America describes psychiatry not only in America but in all wealthy countries.
The author, an investigative medical journalist, has written a well-researched book... Read more
The author, an investigative medical journalist, has written a well-researched book... Read more
Published 9 months ago by Mira de Vries
The smug and the unconscionable sleep well
As someone who has been on various different medications for natural reactions to the rigours of existence and has spent time on psychiatric wards, this book was illuminating and... Read more
Published 11 months ago by The Sweet poetry of Pus
Mad in America
Not just America an excellent review of mental health and how the whole area has become distorted by the influence of big pharma has lessons for all health care not just mental... Read more
Published 22 months ago by Paul Davison
Clearly Speaking
Having sat on both sides of the fence in the field of mental health, it is easy to get lost in this book. Read more
Published on 12 Jun 2008 by Anon
Scientologyphobia?
I recently purchased this book on Amazon and had a little read of the reviews. I couldn't help but be a little taken aback by the comment on the author's alleged affiliation with... Read more
Published on 15 Oct 2007 by Mr. J. S. Ronnquist
Nothing whatsoever to do with Scientology!
In response to the reviewer who earlier suggested links to Scientology, I must say it's a good job this book doesn't throw unfounded suggestions around as liberally as you do. Read more
Published on 13 July 2007 by Mr. David C. Stone
Brilliant, important, meticulously researched
I have been working to try to help correct some of the problems in the mental health field for more than two decades and have written extensively about them myself, so I have done... Read more
Published on 27 Mar 2007 by Mental Health Expert
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