Mind Fixers

Psychiatry's Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness

By: Anne Harrington

Narrated by: Joyce Bean

The story of the unfulfilled quest to find the biological basis of mental illness, and its profound effects on patients, families, and American society.

In the 1980s, American psychiatry announced that it was time to toss aside Freudian ideas of mental disorder because the true path to understanding and treating mental illness lay in brain science, biochemistry, and drugs. This sudden call to revolution, however, was not driven by any scientific breakthroughs. Nor was it as unprecedented as it seemed. Why had previous efforts stalled? Was this latest call really any different?

In Mind Fixers, Anne Harrington offers the first comprehensive history of the troubled search for the biological basis of mental illness. She makes clear that this story is not just about laboratories and clinical trials, but also momentous public policies, acrid professional rivalries, cultural upheavals, grassroots activism, and profit-mongering. Harrington traces a consistent thread of over-promising and frustrated hopes. Above all, she helps us understand why psychiatry’s biological program is in crisis today, and what needs to happen next.

©2019 by Anne Harrington. (P)2019 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.

PSYCHIATRY

Anne Harrington’s history is a reminder of the particular importance of psychiatry. Harrington explains how psychiatry evolved from quackery to a respectable treatment, if not cure, for mental dysfunction. Like treatment for cancer, the history of psychiatry ranges from brutality to rehabilitative treatment for damaged lives. The evolution of psychiatry offers a possible cure, or at least improvement for what ails 21st Century America. That improvement is expensive. The question every American might ask themselves--are more jobs all that is needed? Listening or reading “Mind Fixers” implies jobs are only a part of the answer.  

Psychiatry at a cross roads

Dr. Harrington lured me into her book with a very interesting, if understated, interview on NPR.

While giving an amazing history of mental health, psychiatry and pharmaceuticals, Harrington provides the human side of the story without shying away from the unfortunate, dehumanizing and parochial views mental health professionals, namely psychiatrists, held throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. This book documents the dialectical progress of the field as mental health professionals and society searched for new and better answers to mental disorders.

What becomes painfully clear through this book is that the hunt for simple or even logical solutions to mental health problems is a pipe dream. Our understandings of chemical imbalances corrected by medications are almost all fictions dreamed up by marketing firms. It becomes clear that psychiatry needs to reevaluate its current course, just as it has done throughout its history.

As much as this book challenges our views about the field it also throws down the gauntlet over failed reforms of the mental health system in the US initiated by the Kennedy administration, as well as the long term consequences of Lyndon Johnson’s great society program. The destruction of mental hospitals and the failure of the community based approach have lead to burdens on families and the mentally ill roaming the streets homeless. Public policy is a critical component in creating and alleviating the burdens on our most at risk populations.

Harrington also, without directly saying so, does a fantastic job of dealing with the intersectionality of many mental health issues. She does not shy away from racism, sexism, and homophobia reflected in psychiatry’s enforcement of “normal behavior.”

This book is a compelling read, contains fascinating case studies from the key turning points in psychology, and takes a humanistic and compassionate approach. It was easy to follow as a layman and at points I found it simply jaw dropping. I highly recommend it.

We all have a family member with mental illness

It's the most coherent explanation I've heard of how we got to modern psychiatric practice, explained as history. This is a fascinating book that will improve the understanding of everyone with a family member treated for mental illness--and that seems to be everyone.

Got lost in the timeline

The author has clearly done her research, and the first half of book containing the history was interesting and well written.

However, the second half contains a looping, repetitive timeline that intersects with the first half and other chapters in a confusing way.

muy completo, pero tal vez innecesariamente largo

Me costó un poco no perder la atención. Se sumerge en detalles históricos tal vez innecesarios. Pero en general, el recorrido es claro y completo. Preferiría una versión más corta y eché de menos una reflexión filosófica sobre el tema; la anécdota se queda corta.

thinking outside the box.

this book raised many questions for me. long-held ideas taken apart and disrupted one by one.

Experientially I differ with the idea that psychologists sociologists and psychiatrist are in a constant battle over power and control. most of of my career I saw collaboration amongst these various professionals always keeping the vision on the patient rather than on the ego.

sometimes the book seems a little too pessimistic. we all have a shadow side to us and so it seems most branches of big Pharma do also.

I’m a Psych Nurse.

Recommended by a psychiatrist I work with after discussing recent headlines about lack of evidence for chemical imbalance theory of mental illness. This book covers the constant mistakes and misguided treatments as psychiatry evolved into its current form.

interesting book

psychiatry has gotten better but it's still pretty much a mystery. more focus though seems to be in creating diagnosis codes to sell more drugs which may or may not work for the patient. interesting concepts discussed. at the end, the reader can decide for themselves if they agree or not with the author.

Days of future past

An excellent review of biological psychiatry's past, present and future. a recommend reading for everyone interested in psychiatry and mental health

Brilliant!

As a psychiatrist this book gives words to the disillusionment I have felt for many years. It gives me hope that we can change and it gives meaning to the work I do everyday.