Mad In America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and The Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill
by Robert Whitaker

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Book Reviews of Mad In America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and The Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill

Book Review: Interesting, informative and challenging.
Summary: 5 Stars

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.

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