 Trade In this Item for up to £1.30
Get an extra £5 when you trade in books worth £10 or more until June 30, 2012. Trade in A Straight Talking Introduction to Psychiatric Drugs (Straight Talking Introductions) for an Amazon.co.uk gift card of up to £1.30, which you can then spend on millions of items across the site. Trade-in values may vary (terms apply). Find more products eligible for trade-in.
|
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
This straightforward book is one that should be read by anyone currently taking, or thinking about taking, a psychotropic drug; anyone prescribing them and anyone party to their use. It offers a radically different and sobering view as to what the drugs do compared with the views on offer elsewhere. --David Healy,Professor of Psychological Medicine, University of Wales School of Medicine, Cardiff.
Product Description
Psychiatric drugs and their use are amongst the most hotly debated issues in the 21st century. How they work, whether they are effective and how to understand the evidence, and explanations of the major categories of psychiatric drugs are all covered in this clearly written guide. The competing theories of drug action are also explained in easy-to-understand terms. Here, Joanna Moncrieff arms you with some of the information you'll need to make informed choices about psychiatric drugs. She provides an honest account of the uses of medication, when it is advised and what effects it may have. The book concludes with gives practical advice on the right questions to ask if you are prescribed medication for mental health problems and what happens on withdrawal of medication.
Inside This Book
(Learn More)
Tags Customers Associate with This Product(What's this?)Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 17 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
Joanna Moncrieff is a published psychiatrist, a senior lecturer at University College London and a founding member of the Critical Psychiatry Network. Her experience and commitment to providing information for those taking or prescribing psychiatric medication is evident right from the beginning of this book. Although it's a little book the comprehensive and intelligible manner in which it is written presents the reader with an extensive amount of relevant information. Information which is sometimes unseen for a variety of reasons by the patient.
Moncrieff details how psychiatric medications work and devotes a quite interesting chapter on drug trials and how the results are interpreted. She examines : Neuroleptics, Anti-depressants, Lithium, Stimulants and the ubiquitous Benzodiazepines. The consequences of a drug centered approach to psychiatric care is explained, as is the process of withdrawal.
I found this book to be both informative and interesting and Moncrieff provides food for thought for patients and indeed healthcare professionals. However I would have liked a bit more information on the subject of withdrawal, and thought there was room to expand on that particular chapter. I wonder how many people would knowingly start on this type of medication if all the relevant information was provided, not the scaremongering of certain others but unbiased and educational facts. Why are some drugs allowed to be marketed as a " magic cure " when all they do is put us in a state of dullness where we become emotionally blunted. I wonder do some of these drugs actually hinder our recovery and make the road back a little longer, steeper and with more pitfalls ?
Moncrieff details how psychiatric medications work and devotes a quite interesting chapter on drug trials and how the results are interpreted. She examines : Neuroleptics, Anti-depressants, Lithium, Stimulants and the ubiquitous Benzodiazepines. The consequences of a drug centered approach to psychiatric care is explained, as is the process of withdrawal.
I found this book to be both informative and interesting and Moncrieff provides food for thought for patients and indeed healthcare professionals. However I would have liked a bit more information on the subject of withdrawal, and thought there was room to expand on that particular chapter. I wonder how many people would knowingly start on this type of medication if all the relevant information was provided, not the scaremongering of certain others but unbiased and educational facts. Why are some drugs allowed to be marketed as a " magic cure " when all they do is put us in a state of dullness where we become emotionally blunted. I wonder do some of these drugs actually hinder our recovery and make the road back a little longer, steeper and with more pitfalls ?
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
A Straight Talking Introduction to Psychiatric Drugs (Straight Talking Introductions)If you, like me, are currently locked in a power struggle with your local NHS psychiatrist over whether you or someone you care for will benefit from withdrawing from medication this book is for you. Joanna Moncrieff has added the voice of a respected British psychiatrist to that of American Dr Peter Breggin to make the research-based case for withdrawal. Like him she believes that psychiatric medications achieve their effects by suppressing normal brain function rather than by correcting chemical imbalances, and that the long-term use of neuroleptics is not justified by the evidence. Covering neuroleptics, antidepressants, mood-stabilisers, stimulants and benzodiazepines, this book is aimed at patients, relatives and carers and explains medication pros and cons in plain words. Knowledge is power. Thank you Joanna.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This clearly written little book documents what little is known about the psychoactive effects of the main drugs used in clinical psychiatry. As a clinical psychologist rather than a medic I cannot comment on the medical accuracy or potential bias of Dr Moncrieff's work. What I can say is that the book was very helpful in helping me understand the effects on my patients of the medications they take, i.e. what to expect by way of sedation, side effects and withdrawal effects.
Dr Moncrieff starts by outlining her drug-centred versus disease-centred approach to psychiatric medication. In practice this means questioning the idea that psychiatric disturbances are neurochemical imbalances which can be treated by the relevant 'anti' medication (e.g. antidepressant, antipsychotic). Once freed from this widespread, disease-oriented, lens we are freed up to consider psychiatric drugs as we would any other psychoactive drug: as compounds which may be sometimes be useful for (in particular) their sedating effects.
Particularly interesting were the two observations that: i) the neuroleptically aggressive approach to 'early intervention for psychosis' may be misleading since the research which finds early treatment leading to better outcome may be misinterpreting the fact that people who experience an acute (rather than protracted) onset (and who therefore present more quickly for treatment and accordingly have a shorter duration of untreated psychosis) tend to recover better anyway; ii) drug trials which compare staying on a drug with stopping taking it, and finding that more relapses occur in the second condition, may be mistaking an allegedly helpful 'disease-combatting' property of the drug for the rather different effect that suddenly stopping taking a psychoactive drug can create illness-mimicking or illness-causing withdrawal effects.
Chapters in the book consider 'anti-psychotics' (typically used for treating schizophrenic conditions), 'anti-depressants' (for depression), 'mood stabilisers' (for bipolar disorder), stimulants (for ADHD), benzodiazepines (for a range of problems), withdrawal, mechanism of drug action, drug- versus disease-centred models of medication and illness.
Dr Moncrieff starts by outlining her drug-centred versus disease-centred approach to psychiatric medication. In practice this means questioning the idea that psychiatric disturbances are neurochemical imbalances which can be treated by the relevant 'anti' medication (e.g. antidepressant, antipsychotic). Once freed from this widespread, disease-oriented, lens we are freed up to consider psychiatric drugs as we would any other psychoactive drug: as compounds which may be sometimes be useful for (in particular) their sedating effects.
Particularly interesting were the two observations that: i) the neuroleptically aggressive approach to 'early intervention for psychosis' may be misleading since the research which finds early treatment leading to better outcome may be misinterpreting the fact that people who experience an acute (rather than protracted) onset (and who therefore present more quickly for treatment and accordingly have a shorter duration of untreated psychosis) tend to recover better anyway; ii) drug trials which compare staying on a drug with stopping taking it, and finding that more relapses occur in the second condition, may be mistaking an allegedly helpful 'disease-combatting' property of the drug for the rather different effect that suddenly stopping taking a psychoactive drug can create illness-mimicking or illness-causing withdrawal effects.
Chapters in the book consider 'anti-psychotics' (typically used for treating schizophrenic conditions), 'anti-depressants' (for depression), 'mood stabilisers' (for bipolar disorder), stimulants (for ADHD), benzodiazepines (for a range of problems), withdrawal, mechanism of drug action, drug- versus disease-centred models of medication and illness.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
Psychiatric drugs
good service, book based basically on case studies as opposed to a formulary of which I was expecting, neverthless a good read
Published 3 months ago by BBJ
Joanna reveals the Truth
Essential reading!
I am a third year student of mental health nursing and I have read widely. Read more
I am a third year student of mental health nursing and I have read widely. Read more
Published on 13 Dec 2009 by M. Vos
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Search Customer Discussions
|
![[Start the discussion]](http://g-ecx.images-amazon.com/images/G/02/x-locale/communities/discussion_boards/start-new-discussion-sec._V192198663_.gif){kind=small}
Listmania!
|
|
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
