Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money
| AnyBook4Less.com | Order from a Major Online Bookstore |
|
| Home | Store List | FAQ | Contact Us | | ||
| Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine Save Your Time And Money |
||
 |
Title: Out of Its Mind: Psychiatry in Crisis: A Call for Reform by J. Allan Hobson, Jonathan A. Leonard ISBN: 0-7382-0685-7 Publisher: Perseus Publishing Pub. Date: May, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $17.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.5 (8 reviews)
Rating: 2
Summary: Fragmented and unrealistically idealistic
Comment: The authors posit that "brain science", and applications flowing therefrom, will solve psychiatry's "crisis." The explanation of brain science, with its focus on consciousness, is unpersuasive. The authors disengenuoulsy fail to mention that studies of the brain, including the magic touchstone, the genome,have failed to explain how the brain and mental illness are related--perhaps the only cogent analysis focuses on neurochemical transmitters.
The authors seems to want an eclectic approach to the mentally ill patient. Often this grab-bag method is nothing more that throwing mud at a wall and seeing what sticks. Right now, for severe mental illness (Schizophrenia, Major Depression, some forms of manic depession) the only effective treatment is medication. My hunch is that medication is underutilized with disorders such as Narcissism, Borderline, Anxiety disoders, ocd. Although the authors won't come out and say it directly, it sems quite clear that they prefer drugless treatment, probably for philosophical reasons, rather than for lack of efficacy of drugs...
Rating: 5
Summary: Who is us?
Comment: It's a well-written book full of interesting information and illuminating insights. My main problem was figuring out who it is addressed to. It is written with a journalist as co-author, so I assume the writers did not want to limit readership to other psychiatrists. It is certainly not a self-help book. It might be useful to some-one with a mentally ill family member, but such a person would be better off going to the NAMI web site.
The first part is an excellent history of the decline and fall of psychoanalysis and of the last 50 years of American psychiatry. Then comes a short account of neurophysiology in some technical depth. The object seems to be to show that psychiatrists are real doctors and real scientists. The authors tread on philosophical ground with their theories of consciousness. It's "for every twisted thought a twisted molecule" stuff.
Part three consists of cases vignettes of panic disorders, of bipolar disorder and of schizophrenia.
Finally come recommendations, but who are the recommendations being made to? They seem to be talking about things "we" should change. Who is this "we"? Sometimes it's as if they were talking to a group of state legislators, the Secretary of HHS, the United States Congress or the American Council on Graduate Medical Education. I suspect it is largely directed at a readership of psychiatrists. A problem (if you can call it a problem) that they discuss is the fact that the new anti-depressant and anti-psychotic drugs have become so free of side-effects and so easy to use that there is not as much for psychiatrists to do. Primary care doctors and RN's and (in New Mexico) psychologists can prescribe them. That leaves psychotherapy, but why would psychiatrists be any better at that than somebody without an MD? It's an interesting question but a full answer would need need hard evidence. As it is, many of the assertions are subjective.
Coming back to some particular points, I wondered why,in the description of management of a patient with auditory hallucinations and delusions, no mention was made of the evidence-based techniques other that drugs. The strictures about foreign psychiatrists are not supported by valid evidence. Anti-psychotic drugs were invented in France, the use of lithium in Australia, and anti-depressants in Switzerland. How good is the evidence that specific brands of psychotherapy such as cognitive-behavioral or interpersonal are really different?
Rating: 3
Summary: "Neurodynamics"? Why not "Biopsychosocial"?
Comment: Hobson and Leonard appear to be over-extending themselves. I do not believe that abstract theories about consciousness, and attempts at giving practical advice to society regarding psychiatric care, belong in the same book. The authors attempt to demystify mental illness; in reality, mental illness remains a mystery.
More importantly, explain to me what is original about their "neurodynamics" model, compared to the "biopsychosocial" model first proposed for medicine and psychiatry in 1977? (See Engel GL: The need for a new medical model: a challenge for biomedicine. Science 1977; 196:129-36.)
Both paradigms emphasize the need to simultaneously recognize the significance of biological, psychological, and social factors in the care of people with mental illness. A PubMed search reveals that the biopsychosocial approach to treatment has been discussed in psychiatric journals throughout the 1980's and beyond.
Hobson and Leonard needed to do more homework. They could have written about the biopsychosocial paradigm in two or three chapters, covering a period subsequent to the period when psychoanalysis ruled. If the biopsychosocial approach has not been implimented like it should be in psychiatric care, that could have been the essence of their book.
A new buzzword, "neurodynamics", is not necessary.
 |
Title: Healing the Soul in the Age of the Brain: Why Medication Isn't Enough NOT Becoming Conscious In An Unconscious World by Elio, MD Frattaroli ISBN: 0140254897 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: September, 2002 List Price(USD): $16.00 |
 |
Title: The Illusion of Conscious Will by Daniel M. Wegner ISBN: 0262731622 Publisher: MIT Press Pub. Date: 01 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $17.95 |
Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!
Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments
