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Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry Is Medicating a Nation
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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 616.8918
EAN: 9780375423994
Edition: 1
ISBN: 0375423990
Label: Pantheon
Manufacturer: Pantheon
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 304
Publication Date: February 05, 2008
Publisher: Pantheon
Release Date: February 05, 2008
Studio: Pantheon
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Editorial Review:
Public perceptions of mental health issues have changed dramatically over the last fifteen years, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the rampant overmedication of ordinary Americans. In 2006, 227 million antidepressant prescriptions were dispensed in the United States, more than any other class of medication; in that same year, the United States accounted for 66 percent of the global antidepressant market. In Comfortably Numb, Charles Barber provides a much-needed context for this disturbing phenomenon.Barber explores the ways in which pharmaceutical companies first create the need for a drug and then rush to fill it, and he reveals that the increasing pressure Americans are under to medicate themselves (direct-to-consumer advertising, fewer nondrug therapeutic options, the promise of the quick fix, the blurring of distinction between mental illness and everyday problems). Most importantly, he convincingly argues that without an industry to promote them, non-pharmaceutical approaches that could have the potential to help millions are tragically overlooked by a nation that sees drugs as an instant cure for all emotional difficulties.Here is an unprecedented account of the impact of psychiatric medications on American culture and on Americans themselves.
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - An Important Book
Here, Barber has basically expanded his Winter 2008 Wilson Quarterly article entitled "The Brain: A mindless Obsession," into a full-length book. In the article he gives an excellent summary of the history and present status of the nation's mental heath system, including a history of the various therapies. Both are excellent, but the article is, arguably the more focused and robust. In it Barber takes us across the rather long and sordid history of the study and practice of mental illness: From the ... Read More
Rating:  - Comfortably Numb
Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry Is Medicating A Nation
Charles Barber
ISBN 978-0-375-42399-4
Charles Barber was educated at Harvard and Columbia and worked for ten years in New York City shelters for the homeless mentally ill. The title essay in his first book, Songs from the Black Chair, won a 2006 Pushcart Prize. His work has appeared in the The Washington Post, the New York Times and Scientific American Mind, among other publications, and on NPR. He is a senior administrator ... Read More
Rating: - Missing the Logical Conclusion?
There is much in this beautifully written book to commend it, especially the cautionary message of how risky and ill informed the rampant overmedication of emotional ills is in America -- and why it might be occurring. The discussion of alternative psychotherapies is inspiring and informed. Critics, including Peter Kramer, author of Listening to Prozac, who claim Charles Barber is exaggerating the true scope of the increase by using the dollar value of prescriptions that includes price increases as opposed to ... Read More
Rating:  - Poison pill among sugared reviews
I am not trying to take away from the importance of the book's subject, quality of author's prose, or the general conclusions that Mr. Barber makes about American society members' happy embrace of the magic pill as an istant solution to almost any problem life throws at them. However, I disagree with the author's liberal use of a key statistic - that "66 percent of the global antidepressant market was accounted for by the United States" - a phrase singled out and repeated on the cover jacket, and reviews, and thus ... Read More
Rating: - Clear insight
Barber gives a lucid account of how over the past fifty years our culture has embraced a pharmaceutical solution to what ails us. It's obvious he did his homework and knows what he's talking about from a researcher's standpoint. At the same time he poses a very convincing, hip perspective that resonates deeply with anyone who is willing to take a good, hard look at the evolution that has occurred resulting in the widespread acceptance of the medicating of our society. A great read.
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