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Desperate Remedies
- Psychiatry’s Turbulent Quest to Cure Mental Illness
- Narrated by: Jonathan Keeble
- Length: 18 hrs and 38 mins
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Publisher's summary
For more than two hundred years, disturbances of the mind—the sorts of things that were once called "madness"—have been studied and treated by the medical profession. Mental illness, some insist, is a disease like any other, whose origins can be identified and from which one can be cured. But is this true?
In this masterful account of America's quest to understand and treat everything from anxiety to psychosis, one of the most provocative thinkers writing about psychiatry today sheds light on its tumultuous past. Desperate Remedies brings together a galaxy of mind doctors working in and out of institutional settings.
Andrew Scull begins with the birth of the asylum in the reformist zeal of the 1830s and carries us through to the latest drug trials and genetic studies. He carefully reconstructs the rise and fall of state-run mental hospitals to explain why so many of the mentally ill are now on the street and why so many of those whose bodies were experimented on were women.
Carefully researched, Desperate Remedies is a definitive account of America's long battle with mental illness that challenges us to rethink our deepest assumptions about who we are and how we think and feel.
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Medical Apartheid is the first and only comprehensive history of medical experimentation on African Americans. Starting with the earliest encounters between black Americans and Western medical researchers and the racist pseudoscience that resulted, it details the ways both slaves and freedmen were used in hospitals for experiments conducted without their knowledge - a tradition that continues today within some black populations.
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Sobering... but necessary.
- By Dr. Pepper on 10-27-16
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The Panic Virus
- A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear
- By: Seth Mnookin
- Narrated by: Dan John Miller
- Length: 10 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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The Panic Virus is a gripping scientific detective story about how grassroots radicals, snake-oil salesmen, and cynical journalists have perpetrated the biggest health-scare hoax of all time. It explores what happens when the media treats all viewpoints as equally valid, regardless of facts, from parents who are convinced that vaccines caused their children's autism to right-wing radicals who believe that climate change is a myth
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Incredible thorough journey
- By Rachel Dewald on 03-22-11
By: Seth Mnookin
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The Sober Truth
- Debunking the Bad Science Behind 12-Step Programs and the Rehab Industry
- By: Lance Dodes MD, Zachary Dodes
- Narrated by: Stephen Bel Davies
- Length: 6 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Sober Truth, acclaimed addiction specialist Dr. Lance Dodes exposes the deeply flawed science that the 12-step industry has used to support its programs. Dr. Dodes analyzes dozens of studies to reveal a startling pattern of errors, misjudgments, and biases. He also pores over the research to highlight the best peer-reviewed studies available and discovers that they reach a grim consensus on the program's overall success.
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A necessary read for those with genuine interest
- By Gregory W Minton on 05-06-19
By: Lance Dodes MD, and others
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American Psychosis
- How the Federal Government Destroyed the Mental Illness Treatment System
- By: E. Fuller Torrey
- Narrated by: Stephen McLaughlin
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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E. Fuller Torrey's audiobook provides an inside perspective on the birth of the federal mental health program. On staff at the National Institute of Mental Health when the program was being developed and implemented, Torrey draws on his own first-hand account of the creation and launch of the program, extensive research, one-on-one interviews with people involved, and recently unearthed audiotapes of interviews with major figures involved in the legislation. As such, this book provides historical material previously unavailable to the public.
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Devastating analysis on US mental health policy!
- By Kevin on 07-13-14
By: E. Fuller Torrey
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Asperger's Children
- The Origins of Autism in Nazi Vienna
- By: Edith Sheffer
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In 1930s and 1940s Vienna, child psychiatrist Hans Asperger sought to define autism as a diagnostic category, aiming to treat those children, usually boys, he deemed capable of participating fully in society. Depicted as a compassionate and devoted researcher, Asperger was in fact deeply influenced by Nazi psychiatry. Although he did offer individualized care to children he deemed promising, he also prescribed harsh institutionalization and even transfer to Spiegelgrund for children with greater disabilities, who, he held, could not integrate into the community.
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Powerful but partial analysis
- By Mira Krishnan on 12-17-20
By: Edith Sheffer
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The Problem of Alzheimer's
- How Science, Culture, and Politics Turned a Rare Disease into a Crisis and What We Can Do About It
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In 2020, an estimated 5.8 million Americans had Alzheimer’s, and more than half a million died because of the disease and its devastating complications. Sixteen million caregivers are responsible for paying as much as half of the $226 billion annual costs of their care. As more people live beyond their 70s and 80s, the number of patients will rise to an estimated 13.8 million by 2025. Part case studies, part meditation on the past, present and future of the disease, The Problem of Alzheimer's traces Alzheimer’s from its beginnings to its recognition as a crisis.
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A must read
- By kara kuntz on 05-20-21
By: Jason Karlawish
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Happy Accidents
- Serendipity in Major Medical Breakthroughs in the Twentieth Century
- By: Morton A. Meyers
- Narrated by: Richard Waterhouse
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Happy Accidents is a fascinating, entertaining, and highly accessible look at the surprising role serendipity has played in some of the most important medical discoveries in the 20th century. What do penicillin, chemotherapy drugs, X-rays, Valium, the Pap smear, and Viagra have in common? They were each discovered accidentally, stumbled upon in the search for something else. In discussing medical breakthroughs, Dr. Morton Meyers makes a cogent, highly engaging argument for a more creative, rather than purely linear, approach to science. And it may just save our lives!
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Don't waste your money!
- By Amazon Customer on 03-20-16
By: Morton A. Meyers
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Polio
- An American Story
- By: David M. Oshinsky
- Narrated by: Jonathan Hogan
- Length: 14 hrs and 37 mins
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This comprehensive and gripping narrative, which received the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for history, covers all the challenges, characters, and controversies in America's relentless struggle against polio. Funded by philanthropy and grassroots contributions, Salk's killed-virus vaccine (1954) and Sabin's live-virus vaccine (1961) began to eradicate this dreaded disease.
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Wonderful
- By Patricia B Tripoli on 07-22-08
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US of AA
- How the Twelve Steps Hijacked the Science of Alcoholism
- By: Joe Miller
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Five years in the making, this brilliant, in-depth investigative reporting on the history, politics, and science of alcoholism will show how AA became our nation's de facto treatment policy, even as evidence for more effective remedies accumulated. US of AA is a character-driven, beautifully written exposé, full of secrecy, irony, liquor industry money, the shrillest of scare tactics and, at its center, a grand deception. US of AA shines a much-needed spotlight on the addiction treatment industry. It will forever change the way we think about the entire enterprise.
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A Detailed History of Alcoholism
- By Tricia O. on 04-03-19
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Trick or Treatment
- The Undeniable Facts about Alternative Medicine
- By: Edzard Ernst, Simon Singh
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Whether you are an ardent believer in alternative medicine, a skeptic, or are simply baffled by the range of services and opinions, this guide lays to rest doubts and contradictions with authority, integrity, and clarity. In this groundbreaking analysis, over 30 of the most popular treatments - acupuncture, homeopathy, aromatherapy, reflexology, chiropractic, and herbal medicines - are examined for their benefits and potential dangers. Questions answered include: What works and what doesn't? What are the secrets, and what are the lies?
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Well researched
- By Erik J. Rasmussen on 09-09-20
By: Edzard Ernst, and others
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Since the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges Supreme Court decision in 2015, sexual identity has dominated both public discourse and cultural trends — yet no historical phenomenon is its own cause. From Augustine to Marx, various views and perspectives have contributed to the modern understanding of the self.
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What listeners say about Desperate Remedies
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- peter j taylor
- 09-09-22
Fair if dismal history of psychiatry.
Scull has made a good career as a historian of psychiatry and this book seems to be his crowning achievement. Although the chapters are written to stand alone causing some repetition, his account rings true to my experience as a practicing psychiatrist.
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- ivy
- 08-30-22
Excellent
Every sentence in this hefty tome deserves a careful listen. The best history and current state of the discipline I’ve read.
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- Sean Faircloth
- 07-11-23
Provocative evidence based.
Evidence based. I would have enjoyed seeing an epilogue that included a colloquy between defenders of the psychiatric faith and the author. Some point counter point! Excellent summary of the apparent situation. A book that prompts me to google for counter arguments to see if I can find holes in the thesis. But seemingly very strong. Well done!
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- Dan Collins
- 09-11-22
A Chilling Reminder that Doctors are not Saints
This book is timely. I got here by way of Jonathan Haidt's recommendation in his book "The Righteous Mind". This book is a chilling reminder that "cures" are not always cures and doctors are not solely motivated by care for their patients. And that this is especially true when sickness is resistant to known cures. Reading this book, I was struck by the abuse we tacitly approved of people already suffering.
This book is a timely reminder with a backdrop of a certain virus that shall remain unnamed in this review so as not to upset our tech overlords. Fortunately, modern medicine is impervious to the character flaws of the previous generations of doctors and would never latch onto desperate remedies of their own.
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- Amazon Customer
- 01-13-23
Comment on Performance
Once in a while there is a different man narrating, It is almost like a second person went through and fixed some errors in the original recording, the first man couldn't fix the errors due to scheduling, and this new man tried do an impression of the original narrator. It is subtle but I had to stop a couple times and think if I had been hearing the voice wrong. Not a major issue. Good story and lots and lots to take in with all the facts and what not.
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- Private
- 10-05-22
Responsible
Broad view without bias. Excellent narration. Accessible to the lay person. A must listen for anyone touched by mental illness which is basically everyone. If anyone in the street ever asked you for a handout...tag.
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- Reed Ramlow
- 06-26-23
The continuing failure of psychiatry
A depressing but sobering read on the desperate remedies to treat maladies of the mind over the past 150 years in America. As of 2023, psychiatry is still in the medical dark ages. No one has a clue how to treat the severely mentally ill. The drugs currently in vogue, the talk therapy—none of it seems to work or the positive effects are paltry, and the drugs have profound side effects. If you don’t want the drugs, you can still get zapped with electroshocks to the brain, because no on one has come up with anything better. At least lobotomies have discontinued, though many in the psychiatry community once embraced them. For those burdened with severe mental disorders and their loved ones, it seems there’s little hope. Scull unfortunately doesn’t discuss LSD or magic mushroom therapy. Maybe AI could provide an answer. In the meantime, thanks to this book, I have a more clear-eyed view of the past and present state of mental health treatment. After reading it, you wonder why anyone would want to enter psychiatry as a profession. You might as well choose alchemy.
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- Jeffrey Scot Minch
- 08-02-22
A Great History but I Have One Big Reservation
This book is enlightening and, for the most part, engaging. The author, a sociologist who specializes in the history of medicine and psychiatry, really seems to know his stuff. I have one quibble however, and it's a pretty big one. When he recounts the history of deinstitutionalization in the 1980s the author paints it as a purely social and political move. States emptied mental hospitals to save money, or because of the stigma the hospitals had acquired. While that may have been true of the first wave of deinstitutionalization beginning in the 1950s, by the 1970s mental illness advocacy groups had won a number of court victories in America that gave the mentally ill new legal rights including right to refuse their medication and to not be involuntarily committed unless they were found to be a danger to themselves or others. Whether one agrees or disagrees with them these and a few other court decisions forced the deinstitutionalization of the 1980s onto the states. How states treated their severely mentally ill was now almost entirely out of their hands.
Also, toward the end of the book, Dr. Scull gives a rough outline of how he feels America should deal with our mentally ill citizens. And, while I agree with just about everything he says here, much of what he prescribes would be impossible given the court cases that I mentioned above. Does he not realize this?
The fact that Dr. Scull doesn't include these court cases in this history, but chooses instead to paint the deinstitutionalization of the 1980s as simply the product of hard-hearted policies created by an uncaring society gives me pause. Does this historian of psychiatry not know about the rulings of the 1970s that radically transformed how America has cared for its severely mentally ill for the past half-century? That seems like an awfully large gap in his education. Or did the author intentionally leave them out because it didn't fit a narrative he was creating? I don't know. Either way, the fact that he misrepresented this era that I happen to know something about makes me wonder if he did the something similar with eras about which I know less.
So, overall, four stars. Would have been five except for the above issue.
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- Anthony
- 09-08-22
Interesting
Mr Scull presents an excellent history of psychiatric treatments. It should remind us that jumping on the bandwagon for such unproven remedies for a transgender diagnosis without scientific backing is horrendous and wrong.
He seems a bit biased against drug companies, though their ethics is definitely questionable.
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- Anonymous User
- 05-25-23
Insightful, highly detailed, and scathing analysis of the history of psychiatry
This book is a meticulously, detailed and thorough accounts of the origins of psychiatry and psychological analysis. It puts on full display, the sordid and tragic history of the profession whose reputation is marred by decades of unconscionable, immoral, and barbaric treatment practices that were and are still enacted by the desperate, egotistical, greedy, ideologically, and intellectually blind. This book is in essential read for anyone who is serious in their pursuit of understanding our current sociological predicament and who is looking desperately for remedies to address the ever expanding blight of mental illnesses across the world.
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