Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #642941 in Books
• Published on: 2004-09-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 480 pages

Review
Psychiatrists and historians owe a debt to David Healy. Over the years he has conducted interviews with all the leading figures in psychopharmacology...Drawing on these interviews and his wide reading of the scholarly literature, Healy has now constructed a subtle and compelling narrative of the development of psychotropic drugs...Healy ambitiously relates the emergence of drugs to the wider culture and shows how the two have interacted...[He] has written a highly stimulating and original book, which is brimful of ideas and deserves to be read and debated throughout the psychiatric community and beyond. -- Allan Beveridge "British Journal of Psychiatry" (02/01/2003)

The Independent, 7 May 2002
"David Healy is a respected historian of psychiatry ...an important and thought-provoking book."

Customer Reviews

At last!
This is a fascinating and well written account of the creation of psychopharmacology and the impact it has had on psychiatry, culture and our perception of ourselves. Despite radical changes in each of these areas since the introduction of chlorpromazine for psychiatric disorders little is known about how it happened or its consequences. Healy - though a psychiatrist, no partisan for biological reductionism - remedies this with his wide-ranging and engaging account. The book is easy and often thrilling to read, though some terms may be troublesome for the initiate. However, the story at times feels a little unwieldy with the result his overarching point can be obscured momentarily.

I thoroughly recommend this book to all psychiatrists and those interested in considered reflections on psychiatric practice. If its a polemic against psychiatry you're after then I suggest you save your money. But don't worry, there are plenty around.

N Poole