Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill

by Robert Whitiker

Amazon.com
Hot on the heels of an optimistic film about Nobelist John Nash's schizophrenic journey comes medical journalist Robert Whitaker's disturbing exposé of the cruel and corrupt business of treating mental illness in America. Mad in America begins by surveying three centuries of mental health treatments to discover why positive outcomes for schizophrenics in the U.S. for the last 25 years have decreased--making them lower than those in developing countries. Whitaker asks, "Why should living in a country with such rich resources and advanced medical treatments for disorders of every kind, be so toxic to those who are severely mentally ill?" One of Whitaker's answers draws upon the historic and current assumptions of a physical cause for schizophrenia. This resulted in cruel and unusual physical treatments--from ice-water immersion and bloodletting to the more contemporary electroshock, lobotomy, and drug therapies with dangerous side effects. This physical cause model leads to Whitaker's more provocative explanation: that mental illness has become a profit center. He offers disturbing details about how good business for drug companies makes for bad medicine in treating schizophrenia. From drug companies skewing their studies and patient/subjects kept in the dark about experiments to the cozy relationship between the American Psychiatric Association and drug companies, Whitaker underlines the mistreatment of the mentally ill. This courageous and compelling book succeeds as both a history of our attitudes toward mental illness and a manifesto for changing them. --Barbara Mackoff

The definiive expose of how psychiatry harms its patients, February 8, 2002

Reviewer: N.S. Lehrman, M.D. from Roslyn, NY
This is by far the best of all the recent exposes of psychiatry. In it, journalist Robert Whitaker masters both the neurophysiological and psychosocial literature, and the complexities of today's so-called mental health care system, and demonstrates why, especially for those supposedly permanently labeled as schizophrenic, psychiatry is the only business in America where the customer is always wrong - and almost always harmed. He also points out how the field in general, and the American Psychiatric Association in particular, have become puppets of the drug companies, whose fraudulence (and profitability, at the expense of patients) grows by the month. This outstanding expose is so important and persuasive that the drug companies can be expected to try to get people, including "experts," to smear it.

A topnotch journalist exposes a national disgrace, January 11, 2002

Reviewer: Ben Hansen from Interlochen, Michigan
"Mad in America" is a must-read book for anyone who cares about our nation's so-called "mental health system."

Award-winning journalist Robert Whitaker does exactly what a professional journalist is supposed to do: he asks good questions, digs deep for answers, and carefully documents every step of his work. The result is a powerful and provocative book that challenges long-held beliefs, shatters popular myths, and unmasks many sacred cows, including the American Psychiatric Association (APA) and the National Alliance for the Mentally Ill (NAMI).

By taking a painstaking look at the history which predates our current "modern" treatment of the mentally ill, Whitaker shows how we've created the monster that is our present-day system, rife with abuse, neglect, financial corruption and (most shameful of all) medical and scientific fraud of monumental proportions.

The conclusion we're compelled to reach is that much of what the psychiatric profession and the pharmaceutical companies have told us (that mental illness is a chronic disease caused by a biochemical imbalance in the brain, for example) is simply a pack of lies -- we've been deceived into supporting a positively harmful system which practically PREVENTS healing, and instead destroys far more lives than it saves.

I heartily recommend "Mad in America." This book will send shockwaves through the psychiatric establishment. Buy a copy for yourself, and buy another copy for a mental health professional with integrity and humility -- if you can find one.

Getting Mad Can Be Dangerous To Your Health, March 3, 2002

mindsum from South San Francisco, CA
A well written, extensively researched expose on what it means to be a psychiatric patient in America. From Bedlam, in the 1800s, to the psuedo-research being done by today's drug companies, this book provides its readers with solid informattion. There are consequences to "trusting" your psychiatric caregiver without first researching what's "out there." If you have ever taken, or think you might one day need help in adjusting your mental state with society's expectations, read this book first. It's the only way to make an informed decision; you'd be crazy not to!

The Emperor of Psychiatric Medicine has no Clothes, April 7, 2002

Alice Bolstridge, Ph. D. from Presque Isle, ME
Thank you, Roger Whitaker, for Mad in America, this gift of the history and the evidence that affirms what so many of us, patients and their families, who have had to live with the damages caused by psychiatric medicine have long suspected. The reader, fermed, says Whitaker offers no alternative. But he does with the discussion of moral treatment, pages 24-27 and 220-225; apparently an alternative that only benefits patients, that doesn't offer big financial profit to anyone, and that may cost more than drugs to administer is the equivalent of no alternative to this reader and, alas I fear, to the powers that be? Re. the Hebron, Maine reader's comment, "Is he [Whitaker] right in his criticisms? Although I am a mental health professional researcher and have worked in the field for over 20 years, I don't know. But it seems to me that it is to his credit that I can't discount it right away."-Indeed! Why can't these criticisms be discounted right away by such a professional? The New Haven, Conn. reader says Whitaker "concludes that the 'distinguishing variable' is the medical care that schizophrenics receive in the West. Where is the evidence to support that conclusion? The author doesn't quote any studies or researchers." Whitaker does offer in Chapters 8 and following, extensive evidence that both the neureleptics and the atypicals damage the brain in ways that make patients sicker than than would be without them; these are the drugs that are too expensive for third world countries to use. I wish the reader from Richmond, VA would please list the neutral studies that show the drugs are effective and safe, the studies that are not lies, distortions, and delusions of profiteers and those so desperate for a solution they uncritically believe the advertising. Ask the mentally ill, ask their families how effective they are.

Everyone who has any concern for the quality of care the mentally ill are receiving in the USA, read Mad in America. Understand why and how the most widespread claims about the causes of mental illness and about medication have no basis in any reputable science. Then, please, voice your concerns to pharmaceutical industries, the APA, all the psychiatrists you can personally find, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Alliance of the Mentally Ill, and all your legislators.