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"Shorter, Edward, author"
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Before Prozac : the troubled history of mood disorders in psychiatry
Psychiatry today is a barren tundra, writes medical historian Edward Shorter, where drugs that don't work are used to treat diseases that don't exist. In this provocative volume, Shorter illuminates this dismal landscape, in a revealing account of why psychiatry is \"losing ground\" in the struggle to treat depression. Naturally, the book looks at such culprits as the pharmaceutical industry, which is not inclined to market drugs once the patent expires, leading to the endless introduction of new--but not necessarily better--drugs. But the heart of the book focuses on an unexpected villain: the FDA, the very agency charged with ensuring drug safety and effectiveness. Shorter describes how the FDA permits companies to test new products only against placebo. If you can beat sugar pills, you get your drug licensed, whether or not it is actually better than (or even as good as) current medications, thus sweeping from the shelves drugs that may be superior but have lost patent protection. The book also examines the FDA's early power struggles against the drug industry, an influence-grab that had little to do with science, and which left barbiturates, opiates, and amphetamines all underprescribed, despite the fact that under careful supervision they are better at treating depression, with fewer side effects, than the newer drugs in the Prozac family. Shorter also castigates academia, showing how two forms of depression, melancholia and nonmelancholia--\"as different from each other as chalk and cheese\"--became squeezed into one dubious classification, major depression, which was essentially a political artifact born of academic infighting. An astonishing and troubling look at modern psychiatry, Losing Ground is a book that is sure to spark controversy for years to come.
eBook
A historical dictionary of psychiatry
This is the first historical dictionary of psychiatry. It covers the subject from autism to Vienna, and includes the key concepts, individuals, places, and institutions that have shaped the evolution of psychiatry and the neurosciences from their origin until the present. Among those who will appreciate this invaluable and unprecedented work of reference are clinicians curious about the origins of concepts they use in their daily practices, students of medical history keen to situate the psychiatric narrative within larger events, and the general public curious about illnesses that might affect them, their families and their communities-or readers who merely want to know about the grand chain of events from the asylum to Freud to Prozac. The Dictionary rest on an enormous base of primary sources that cover the growth of psychiatry through all of Western society.
eBook
How everyone became depressed : the rise and fall of the nervous breakdown
The book argues that the diagnosis of depression has been bent greatly out of shape through misuse and needs to be replaced by other concepts that correspond more closely to what people actually experience. The sturdy term \"nerves\" from the past is a ready candidate, and \"nervous breakdown\" is still meaningful to many people. Drawing upon two centuries of psychiatry's past, the book is written to be accessible to the general public and convincing to specialist readers. No other book in this field has such scope, nor such a deeply learned ability to use the past in service of the present.
eBook
Shock Therapy
Shock therapy is making a comeback today in the treatment of serious mental illness. Despite its reemergence as a safe and effective psychiatric tool, however, it continues to be shrouded by a longstanding negative public image, not least due to films such as the classicOne Flew over the Cuckoo's Nest,where the inmate of a psychiatric clinic (played by Jack Nicholson) is subjected to electro-shock to curb his rebellious behavior. Beyond its vilification in popular culture, the stereotype of convulsive therapy as a dangerous and inhumane practice is fuelled by professional posturing and public misinformation. Electroconvulsive therapy, or ECT, has in the last thirty years been considered a method of last resort in the treatment of debilitating depression, suicidal ideation, and other forms of mental illness. Yet, ironically, its effectiveness in treating these patients would suggest it as a frontline therapy, bringing relief from acute symptoms and saving lives.In this book, Edward Shorter and David Healy trace the controversial history of ECT and other \"shock\" therapies. Drawing on case studies, public debates, extensive interviews, and archival research, the authors expose the myths about ECT that have proliferated over the years. By showing ECT's often life-saving results, Shorter and Healy endorse a point of view that is hotly contested in professional circles and in public debates, but for the nearly half of all clinically depressed patients who do not respond to drugs, this book brings much needed hope.
eBook