This book can help people with mental health issues to survive and return to a normal life. Citizens believe, and the science shows, that medications for depression and psychosis and admission to a psychiatric ward are more often harmful than beneficial. Yet most patients take psychiatric drugs for years. Doctors have made hundreds of millions of patients dependent on psychiatric drugs without knowing how to help them taper off the drugs safely, which can be very difficult. The book explains in detail how harmful psychiatric drugs are and gives detailed advice about how to come off them. You will learn: • why you should not see a psychiatrist if you have a mental health issue • that psychiatric drugs are addictive • that the biggest lie in psychiatry is the one about a chemical imbalance being the cause of psychiatric disorders • that psychiatric diagnoses are unscientific and that doctors disagree widely when making diagnoses • that psychiatric drugs can lead to permanent brain damage • that psychiatric drugs should never be stopped abruptly because withdrawal reactions can be dangerous • why psychotherapy and other psychosocial interventions should be preferred over drugs • why you should generally not believe what doctors tell you about psychiatric disorders and their treatment • why volunteers have found the book so important that they have translated it into French, Portuguese and Spanish "Peter Gøtzsche has written a very personal account of his battle to get the institution of psychiatry to accept that its drugs are not the 'magic pills' they are made out to be. Every medical practitioner who prescribes them, and every person who takes them, should read this book and be warned." -- Niall McLaren, author of Anxiety: The Inside Story "Peter Gøtzsche's new book meets patients' need to get tools on how to deal with psychoactive drugs and, above all, not to start them. Gøtzsche is very clear about the role of GPs in medicalizing grief, misfortune, opposition, and bad luck. In this he finds the American emeritus professor of psychiatry and chairman of the DSM-III committee, Allen Frances, at his side. Both Gøtzsche and Frances have repeatedly stated that psychoactive drugs should not be prescribed by GPs because they lack experience in their use. And above all, unhappiness, grief, and bad luck are not signs of brain disorders, they belong to daily life." Additionally, Gøtzsche reveals that most psychoactive drugs do not work - 'they might only achieve statistically significant differences compared to placebo, but that's not what patients need.'" -- Dick Bijl, former GP, epidemiologist, and current president of the International Society of Drug Bulletins. "Peter C. Gøtzsche wrote this book to help people with mental health problems survive and return to a normal life. His book explains in detail how psychiatric drugs are harmful and people are told how they can safely withdraw from them. It also advises on how people with mental health problems can avoid making a 'career' as a psychiatric patient and losing 10 or 15 years of their life to psychiatry. You will find precious material to help plan and accompany this process of liberation from psychiatry." - Fernando Freitas, PhD, Psychologist, Full Professor and Researcher at the National School of Public Health (ENSP/FIOCRUZ). Co-editor of Mad in Brazil "In this work, addressed to people affected by the risk of being caught in the system of attention to mental health issues, Dr. Gøtzsche succinctly exposes, without beating about the bush, the damage caused by psychiatric medications, demonstrates that their widespread use is not based on evidence, which is mainly driven by commercial pressures that have nothing to do with the recovery of patients, and present safe ways to dispose of them, always gradually and under supervision of trustworthy people to minimize the syndrome of abstinence and successfully overcome all the difficulties that the process involves." -- Enric García Torrents, writing for Mad in Spain Learn more at www.scientificfreedom.dk From the Institute for Scientific Freedom

A generation of social work students has benefited from Kia Bentley and Joseph Walsh’s practical approach to the social worker’s role in psychopharmacology. New coauthor Shannon Hughes brings even more fresh ideas to the updated Fifth Edition. Important updates include: • updated and expanded drug information and tables including names, typical dosages, potential adverse effects, as well as never-before-included FDA approval information • updated content on psychogenomics as well as added new content on medication use with sexual minorities and gender diverse people • more explicit criticisms of the chemical imbalance theory and the use of the term “anosognosia” • more comprehensive guidelines for talking to children, parents, and teachers about psychiatric medication • expanded content on shared decision-making, including a presentation on what we think “truth-telling” about medication looks like in the 21st century • explicit content on the centrality of avoiding both subtle and overt coercion • new section on medication discontinuation and “deprescribing” and the role of social work in supporting these trends • expanded section on prescription-writing privileges to account for the recognition of physician assistants, nurse practitioners, and pharmacists in those roles • new section on the use of psychedelics in psychiatry • acknowledgement of the potential impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and telemedicine on the future of both social work and psychopharmacological practice • significantly increased attention to the human rights/social justice interface of social work and psychopharmacology

This book shows how psychological and social interventions can help people with psychosis. It brings together both theoretical chapters that contribute to the reconceptualization of psychosis and clinical cases illustrating how contemporary psychotherapeutic intervention models can be applied in the treatment of this mental health condition, with reflections, strategies and practical guidelines demonstrating how these models can inform professional practice in mental healthcare. Chapters brought together in this volume aim to reflect a paradigm shift in psychosis care. They present person-centered models that lead to a way of seeing, understanding and treating psychosis that is very different from the traditional biomedical model. Current authors and approaches are revolutionizing an outdated model trapped in purely pharmacological actions and tautological explanations of a biological nature, where symptom control is the basic and fundamental form of approach, and in which psychotherapeutic actions take second place as subsidiary to the former. Approaches such as Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, Acceptance and Recovery Therapy by Levels, Open Dialogue, Compassion-Centered Therapy or the Hearing Voices movement, to name but a few of those presented in this book, represent a journey of self-knowledge and learning for those recovering from psychosis, and have an intense transformative potential for the therapeutic team. The fundamental principle that guides this book is to share models belonging to psychology that aim at personal development while respecting the needs, values and goals of each person, and that can be adopted by any professional or student of clinical psychology, psychiatry, nursing, social work or any other discipline searching for more humanistic approaches to treat psychosis.

In this textbook, the author defines what is meant by diversity and reviews what we know today about the effects of alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, cocaine and crack, hallucinogens and heroin. This is then put into a broader context by examining the development of policy with particular emphasis on those who were perceived to be the most fervent users of substance. This is a useful textbook for classes on substance abuse as well as for seasoned clinicians.