Saving Normal: An Insider's Revolt against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life

by Allen Frances

Overview

International Bestseller • "An extraordinarily important book." —Marcia Angell, Harvard Medical School

A deeply fascinating and urgently important critique of the widespread medicalization of normality, by "one of the world's most prominent psychiatrists" (The Atlantic)

Anyone living a full, rich life experiences ups and downs, stresses, disappointments, sorrows, and setbacks. Today, however, millions of people who are really no more than "worried well" are being diagnosed as having a mental disorder and receiving unnecessary treatment. In Saving Normal, Allen Frances, one of the world's most influential psychiatrists, explains why stigmatizing a healthy person as mentally ill leads to unnecessary, harmful medications, the narrowing of horizons, the misallocation of medical resources, and the draining of the budgets of families and the nation. We also shift responsibility for our mental well-being away from our own naturally resilient brains and into the hands of "Big Pharma," who are reaping multi-billion-dollar profits. Frances cautions that the newest edition of the "bible of psychiatry," the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (DSM-5), is turning our current diagnostic inflation into hyperinflation by converting millions of "normal" people into "mental patients." Saving Normal is a call to all of us to reclaim the full measure of our humanity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062229267
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	08/12/2014
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	248,659
Product dimensions:	5.20(w) x 7.90(h) x 0.90(d)

About the Author

Allen Frances, MD, is professor emeritus and former chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Duke University School of Medicine. Dr. Frances was the chairman of the DSM-IV Task Force and a member of the leadership group for DSM-III and DSM-III-R. He is the author of the award-winning international bestseller Saving Normal and the reference work Essentials of Psychiatric Diagnosis. He lives in San Diego, California.

Table of Contents

Preface xi

Part I Normality Under Siege

1 What's Normal and What's Not? 3

2 From Shaman to Shrink 35

3 Diagnostic Inflation 77

Part II Psychiatric Fads Can Be Bad for Your Health

4 Fads of the Past 117

5 Fads of the Present 138

6 Fads of the Future 170

Part III Getting Back to Normal

7 Taming Diagnostic Inflation 209

8 The Smart Consumre 228

9 The Worst and the Best of Psychiatry 242

Epilogue 279

Afterword 285

Acknowledgements 297

Notes 299

Index 315

Editorial Reviews

Frances delves deeply into the history of mental illness, makes his arguements crisply, and has good personal stories to tell. He’s articulate and learned. ... He’s in favor of not medicating, and thus muffling, all the offbeat pain and beauty out of existance. ... [A] piece of intellectual skywriting.” — Dwight Garner, New York Times

“An extraordinarily candid and important book. Allen Frances has written a fascinating account of the apparent explosion in psychiatric disorders in the United States. — MARCIA ANGELL, M. D., Senior Lecturer in Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and former Editor-in-Chief, New England Journal of Medicine

“Saving Normal is a riveting and important book, written with great flair and precise passion. This is a book every psychiatrist, every general practitioner, every student swallowing meds—in fact everyone—needs to read.” — Dr. LISA APPIGNANESI, Chair of the Freud Museum, London, and author of Mad, Bad and Sad

“Frances is largely credited with spearheading the anti-DSM-5 efforts.” — CNN.com

“Saving Normal is a clear, convincing, and essential discussion of the twin epidemics facing modern psychiatry: under-treatment of the truly ill and overtreatment of the basically well. It holds immense potential to improve patients’ lives.” — JOSH BAZELL, M.D., New York Times bestselling author of Beat the Reaper: A Novel

“Few are as well-equipped as Frances to map the dynamic field of psychiatry, and his rendering of its shifting contours is timely, crucial, and insightful—as are his solutions for navigating it.” — Publishers Weekly

“With Solomon-like wisdom, Frances justly doles out blame and offers reasonable remedies. His decree: don’t medicalize human difference; celebrate it.” — Booklist (starred review)

“A valuable assessment. ... A no-holds-barred critique.” — Kirkus Reviews

“An indispensable guide for professional and lay readers” — Library Journal

“Allen Frances’s book is fascinating. ... Entertaining.” — Metapsychology

“Authoritative. ... Valuable. ... This is a detailed, nicely constructed account by a highly qualified and well-connected psychiatrist with intimate knowledge of the process. The book is clearly written and surprisingly easy reading.” — The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists

From the Publisher

With Solomon-like wisdom, Frances justly doles out blame and offers reasonable remedies. His decree: don’t medicalize human difference; celebrate it.

Booklist (starred review)

Frances delves deeply into the history of mental illness, makes his arguements crisply, and has good personal stories to tell. He’s articulate and learned. ... He’s in favor of not medicating, and thus muffling, all the offbeat pain and beauty out of existance. ... [A] piece of intellectual skywriting.

Dwight Garner

Saving Normal is a clear, convincing, and essential discussion of the twin epidemics facing modern psychiatry: under-treatment of the truly ill and overtreatment of the basically well. It holds immense potential to improve patients’ lives.

JOSH BAZELL

An extraordinarily candid and important book. Allen Frances has written a fascinating account of the apparent explosion in psychiatric disorders in the United States.

MARCIA ANGELL

Saving Normal is a riveting and important book, written with great flair and precise passion. This is a book every psychiatrist, every general practitioner, every student swallowing meds—in fact everyone—needs to read.

Dr. LISA APPIGNANESI

Frances is largely credited with spearheading the anti-DSM-5 efforts.

CNN.com

Allen Frances’s book is fascinating. ... Entertaining.

Metapsychology

Authoritative. ... Valuable. ... This is a detailed, nicely constructed account by a highly qualified and well-connected psychiatrist with intimate knowledge of the process. The book is clearly written and surprisingly easy reading.

The Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists

Frances weighs in with a no-holds-barred critique of the newly revised Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. As the DSM IV Task Force leader, the author does not duck responsibility for the problematic nature of the manual, which he describes as a "cultural icon" and "perennial best seller." Not anticipating the diagnostic creep, "we failed to predict or prevent three new false epidemics of mental disorder in children--Autism, Attention Deficit Disorder, and Childhood Bipolar Disorder." In the author's view, too often clinicians adopt labels from the manual to cover up their own sloppy and even faddish diagnoses. He predicts that the situation will worsen with the new edition. Once considered a rare disease, "CBD [childhood bipolar disorder] has become the most inflated bubble in all psychiatric diagnosis." Frances anticipates that the DSM V's inclusion of Asperger's in the autism spectrum will cause problems, possibly leading to a reduction of special school programs that help students with Asperger's at one end of the spectrum, and disability benefits for the extremely disabled at the other. While accepting his own and fellow psychiatrists' failure to predict the problem of label creep, the author ascribes most responsibility to pharmaceutical companies, which have "hijacked the medical profession" and created "a feeding frenzy of over-diagnosis, over-testing, and over-treatment." He attributes the current obesity epidemic to side effects of modern antipsychotics, and he charges drug companies with complicity in promiscuously pushing antipsychotics on patients with "garden-variety" anxiety or shyness and broadening the definition of childhood bipolar disease to encompass temper tantrums and moodiness. In a partial effort of exculpation and mea culpa, Frances explains that his team began work in the "pre-Prozac days of 1987." A valuable assessment for clinicians and potential patients.

Kirkus Reviews