Posted by Dennison on December 31, 2001, at 19:58:54
In reply to Re: Has anyone read, Your Drug May Be Your Problem, posted by stjames on December 31, 2001, at 16:08:20
> > by Peter R. Breggin, MD and David Cohen, PhD - 1999.
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> One of the ways Dr Breggin makes money is by being a highly paid witness in cases involving psycomeds in the court system. He has an agenda, and his books support the views he expresses in the courtroom. So he writes his own referance materals.
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> The short answer is "Qwack"Peter Kramer-Was a bit overdramatic in Listening To Prozac and his book would kinda want just about anybody to perhaps give prozac a try,after all who wouldn't want to be so called " better than normal", or a member of the "quick" instead of the "dead". Having said that, Listening To Prozac, did in many ways open up public perception about depression and some of the stigma about seeking treatment concerning depression was lessened. Peter Kramer latter wrote about how he felt that his book Listening To Prozac was kinda taken the wrong way by the public, his intention was too basically show how he was amazed in how these particular "5" individuals seemingly had such dramatic improvements concerning their depression and how it lead to such remarkable transformations in their overall personalities and their overall functioning and attitude about life. In some of his subsequent writings and interviews he felt that perhaps he should have stressed that these "5" patients and their transformations weren't necessarily the norm he was trying moreso to illustrate that if you improve someone's depressed emotional status that many other areas fall into place and the person's wellbeing and view of life and ability to enjoy life is significantly enhanced. Peter Bregin also wrote a very popular book called Talking Back TO Prozac, clever choice of title and it worked sold extemely well. It's basically a straight forward attack on prozac and medications for mental health especially anti-depressants. It's well written and interesting but I don't agree with it. Peter Breggin's been on anti-medication crusade for many years he's most noted for his extremely vigilant crusade against ritalin and it's use for add and adhd enen though evidence shows that psychostimulants work well and are the most effective treatment avaliable for add and adhd. Dr. Breggin belives psychotherapy is the answer for just about everything and that's his niche, well ok but psychotherapy doesn't get good results with add and adhd as a first-line treatment, sometimes not even matching placebo whereas psychostimulants do. Ok use psychotherapy as an adjunct, but to negate the benefit that a properly prescibed psychostimulant can have on a vald case of add and adhd is just way off base. Btw there's another book out Prozac Nation lol, kinda interesting and catchy title. Course these books have been out for 10 years all three of them, just thought I'd mention them!!! :):)
poster:Dennison
thread:88357
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20011222/msgs/88388.html