Rating: 
Summary: An excellent book if you are uninformed about the downsides
Review: This is a classic only because Peter Breggin does his homework. I am a biased reader because I am a Naturopathic physician who treats depression with homeopathic medicine (a far superior solution to drugs).
But my bias aside, I think the book has great merit because Breggin really raises good and sound questions about the so called science behind antidepressants. He makes the process of getting a drug passed explicit and shows how corrupt the process is. In addition, the often difficult process of getting questionable drugs off the market is explained. A process that is often at the expense of the patient and to the benefit of Big Pharma.
Breggin is not so great about coming up with solutions however. Deep longstanding depression is not always amenable to psychotherapy. At least those are a lot of the patients that I'm referred. People who have tried many things without success - therapy, counseling, drugs, etc.
I see homeopathy work with many, though of course not all, of these intractable cases. There must be other effective natural means to help people resolve deep seated depression as well. So this, in my mind is the major weakness in Breggin's books, he is not looking past his own nose about solutions.
Clearly drugs are not a true solution, but counseling on its own is often not enough either. Besides going to see a skilled homeopath (not so easy to find), people have also mentioned dietary changes, community support, friends, family, and other methods as being helpful. So that would be what would fill this book out and make it complete.
Rating: 
Summary: Peter Breggin is well known as a Quack
Review: He uses scare tactics to sell books and get on TV shows. His views are not supported by most and are at best offensive to all that can benefit from the advances in medicine.
Rating: 
Summary: I dislike extreme views not well argued!
Review: I found the author's argument unconvincing. I think Kramer's "Listening to Prozac" paints too rosy a picture, while "Talking Back To Prozac" is way too negative. I think the truth is somewhere in between. The comment the author makes repeatedly in the book about the "sick" people who seem to like Prozac is not open minded, and reveals the religious intensity of the author's opposition (I am not taking Prozac!). The close minded arguments of the author turned me off, and I could care less about the bureaucratic problems of the FDA. The truth about depression and the effectiveness of the SSRIs is independent of the FDA's Prozac drug trials, and dumping on a very large part of the medical community because of a strong feeling against SSRIs was not at all convincing to me, and made for an unsatisfying read. His linking of SSRIs to amphetamines seemed very unscientific to me, and he did not reveal how he came up with this conclusion to my satisfaction. I would appreciate a more clinical proof of SSRI ineffectiveness, and would not accept his word for it just because he believes strongly about his point of view. Two words to describe this book is: Too extreme. I disliked this book alot.
Rating: 
Summary: All the negative reviews were written by the drug company
Review: I think all the negative reviews were written by the drug company. As someone who suffers from withdrawal symptoms from an SSRI I can verify that these drugs cause extreme problems that the drug companies won't acknowledge. They are making WAY WAY TOO MUCH MONEY to ever do anything to stop the gravy train.Dr. Breggin is seriously interested in HELPING PEOPLE!! He helped me and gained nothing from it. He is not making billions of dollars off other people's unhappiness. We're all unhappy people that look to drugs to help solve our problems, which were all caused by unhappy childhoods. The drug companies are very happy to exploit that.
Rating:
Summary: Changed my Life
Review: I think everyone should read this book and pay attention. Prozac changed my life also. My daughter Tanya died from suicide on Aug. 26, 1990 while taking prozac. My daughter Michelle died from suicide Feb. 28, 1991 while taking Prozac. In 1996 the doctor tried me on Prozac. I was scared of flying and big cities but while taking Prozac, I got on a plane and flew to NYC. Of course, I just happened to forget to tell my husband I was going until I got there and then called him. I'm sure it may have helped some people but how long will it help before something may happen to them?
Rating:
Summary: Alarmist propaganda
Review: I'm a psychiatric nurse. Peter Breggin is well known in the field of psychiatric medicine as being anti-all drugs. Has prozac been overprescribed or mis-prescribed? sure. but this drug and the class it belongs to have helped WAY more people than they hurt. penicillin and other antibiotics can kill you too if you're allergic and don't know it. and antibiotics are WAY over prescribed if you ask me and other professionals. i've worked in state psychiatric hospitals and i've seen a LOT of people who only got out and back to the world because of medication. i would hate to think that a book like this would turn back the clock to the old days when there was no medication and people wasted their whole lives in the hospital. GET A GRIP: ANYthing you put in your body has side effects and you can die from taking too much Tylenol, too. picking on this drug is a cheap trick
Rating:
Summary: Alarmist propaganda
Review: I'm a psychiatric nurse. Peter Breggin is well known in the field of psychiatric medicine as being anti-all drugs. Has prozac been overprescribed or mis-prescribed? sure. but this drug and the class it belongs to have helped WAY more people than they hurt. penicillin and other antibiotics can kill you too if you're allergic and don't know it. and antibiotics are WAY over prescribed if you ask me and other professionals. i've worked in state psychiatric hospitals and i've seen a LOT of people who only got out and back to the world because of medication. i would hate to think that a book like this would turn back the clock to the old days when there was no medication and people wasted their whole lives in the hospital. GET A GRIP: ANYthing you put in your body has side effects and you can die from taking too much Tylenol, too. picking on this drug is a cheap trick
Rating:
Summary: This book is an eye opener!
Review: I've been keeping up on the subject of psychology since my college days 20 years ago, and Peter Breggin was the first author I discovered who had the courage to speak out against the powerful psychiatric and drug industries. This book will give you an entirely new perspective on the subject--you will be amazed (and angry) at what is presented as scientific fact by the medical profession and the media. Most people are unaware that there is a growing backlash against biological psychiatry, even by some of those in the field (Peter Breggin is a psychiatrist!) You owe it to yourself to read this opposing opinion.
Rating:
Summary: You may not like the message, but it is has validity
Review: If you are taking Prozac because you have a 'chemical imbalance' that causes your depression, you need to read this book. Many people don't like it or get upset; but there is much in this book that is simply unpleasant but TRUE. I work in a Psychiatric hospital and I've seen the 'Prozac-Violence' syndrome he talks about. You can call this 'scare tactics' or you can ask your Psychiatrist what his response to the arguments in this book are- chances are, there won't be a decent response! A good book for anyone who is taking Prozac (or Paxil, Effexor, etc) or who works around people who do.
Rating:
Summary: For the highly gullible, "anti pill", non-depressed only!
Review: In my opinion, this book really deserves a review of a negative number, but there were none to choose from. What an odious bunch of REACTIONARY, DANGEROUS trype, the entire book!Think twice and PLEASE READ CURRENT RESEARCH before believing more than 1 or 2 "facts" from this ill-informed,poorly researched, self-serving author's work (this goes for his other book, Toxic Psychiatry, as well). Hey, I believed the ... this guy wrote too, until my depression became so severe I but for the grace of God, and an antidepressant prescribed MONTHS too late, would have committed suicide. I notice only one person who wrote the above unbelievably positive reviews ACTUALLY ADMITTED TO HAVING SUFFERED FROM DEPRESSION. Listen, I just received a masters in clinical psychology, and this man completely ignored or worse, clearly misrepresented the research of his day, and you must also remember, his book is also already grossly out of date! So there is now tons more current research that affirms, over and over again, how erroneous Breggin's absurd conclusions were. Very unfortunately for me, I discovered only later, after my depression became very severe, how biased and inaccurate his opinions are. In fact, NOW THERAPISTS GENERALLY ARE CONSIDERED UNETHICAL IF THEY DO NOT RECOMMEND A PSYCHIATRIC WORK UP AFTER A FEW WEEKS INTO A CLINICAL DEPRESSION. WHY? BECAUSE, IT IS NOW KNOWN THAT IF A DEPRESSION GETS WORSE, IT IS HARDER TO TREAT AND LASTS LONGER, AND CAN LEAD TO MORE SEVERE, RECURRENT DEPRESSIONS, AND EVEN PERMANENT CHANGES IN BRAIN CHEMISTRY (basically, damage to the brain, folks). Unfortunately for me, I waited longer than I should have. Therefore, it was a harder depression to treat, or get over. This man's work is dangerous. My, it is sobering to see the ignorance and gullibility of many people out there. Sorry, friends, it is now clearly known that antidepressants coupled with psychotherapy has a significantly greater effect on alleviating clinical depression than therapy alone. Depression is not just the blues. Maybe the reviewers who liked this book think that is what depression is. Maybe they are polyannas who just don't like pills. Yeah, well, please get informed first. I shudder to think how many people committed suicide because they took this fool's work to heart and so did not get the medical treatment their depression required. This is why this author should be sanctioned, if not shot. Or at least a warning should be put on his book, like on cigarettes: "this book may cause your death, so please don't take it seriously". I believe that at bottom, the author was motivated mostly by his own apparently quite sizeable ego needs. His ego and ignorant, ill-informed views add up to a book that is so scary, it should have never been written, much less published (do people out there know how commonly people suffering from un- or undertreated depression COMMIT SUICIDE?) This is not a joke. This book should not have even been a novel. (SUMMARY: the book is invalid, biased and out of date. The author is highly unethical, to the point of endangering the lives of people who suffer from moderate to severe forms of depression. Please instead read less or un-biased, current research.
|
