Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good [PDF]

Why is psychiatry such big business? Why are so many psychiatric drugs prescribed, and why, without solid scientific justification, has the number of mental disorders risen from 106 in 1952, to 374 today? Psychological therapist James Davies illustrates how psychiatry has put riches and medical status above patients' wellbeing. The charge sheet is damning:

* Negative drug trials routinely buried
* Antidepressants that work no better than placebos
* Research regularly manipulated to produce positive results
* Doctors, seduced by huge pharmaceutical rewards, creating more disorders and prescribing more pills and
* Ethical, scientific and treatment flaws unscrupulously concealed by mass-marketing.

Reminiscent of Ben Goldacre's Bad Science, Cracked takes apart a profession that, in the name of helping others, has actually been helping itself - and explores how psychiatry must change to win trust back.

"Rich in valuable insights, well written, and thoroughly resourced.Essential reading for anyone who is interested in the philosophical, historical, social, and political implications of the construction of psychoanalysis in the twentieth century."
--The European Journal of Psychotherapy

"James Davies offers a highly original and insightful approach. Drawing from anthropology, philosophy, and psychology, Davies weaves a rich narrative that deserves to be widely read."
--Dead Alistair Ross, Oxford University

James Davies attained his PhD in social and medical anthropology at Oxford. He is a practicing psychological therapist as well as the author of The Importance of Suffering: Emotions in the Field; and The Making of Psychotherapists. He has lectured at Harvard, Brown, the New School, Yale, and Oxford. James lives in England.