Angell’s Review of Psychiatry

Marcia Angell has written a two-part article for The New York Review of Books: “The Epidemic of Mental Illness: Why?” and “The Illusions of Psychiatry.” It is a favorable review of 3 recent books:

• The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth by Irving Kirsch
• Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America by Robert Whitaker
• Unhinged: The Trouble With Psychiatry—A Doctor’s Revelations About a Profession in Crisis by Daniel Carlat

and an unfavorable review of the most recent version of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, DSM-IV-TR. It paints a disturbing picture of psychiatry. It raises a number of serious concerns but it borders on psychiatry-bashing, a sport that I deplored in a previous post. (more…)