Dangers of SSRI's: Books - Lucy stone or Terry Lynch

[Guest guest]

Users and Abusers of Psychiatry "

By Lucy stone with a forward by Dorothy Rowe.

second edition 2001includes bibliographical references & index.

ISBN 0-415-21155-7(hbk) ISBN 0-415-21156-5 (paper back)

Lucy stone is a senior Lectururer in Clinical Psychology and counselling

at University of the West of England, Bristol. She has lectured and

published widely in the area of critical approaches to mental health.

A quote from the end of chapter 8 of the book: " The accumulated physical and

psychological damage inflicted on millions of the world's most vulnerable

and powerless people over the last 60 years in the name of 'treatment'

surely represents the bigest hidden scandal of the twentieth century. "

(There is a lot of argument and quoted evidenced in the rest of the chapter

to build up to this point!)

A Review of the Book by Patron of APRIL Rabbi Henry Goldstein. February 2002

USERS AND ABUSERS IN PSYCHIATRY Lucy stone (Brunner-Routledge;

paperback; 298 pages. price?)

This book is a about a technical’ subject, psychiatric treatment, a subject

that could glaze the ideas of the untrained and uninitiated. However, this

is a book for the lay person as well as the professional, for it is indeed

lucidly written and therefore very readable by those who, with a little

interest in the subject, need to be deeply informed.

One must be prepared for enlightenment. It is a challenging book. Ms

stone’s viewpoint can be summarised when she states psychiatric medicine

uses methods that are not only ineffective, but damaging.’ Methods of

treatment which were hailed at their birth as miraculous advances without

side effects prove to be just as ineffective and as dangerous as what has

been before. Much heralded treatments can leave the patient worse off. This

book challenges the whole concept of psychiatric illness’. Perhaps it will

enable us to view such matters as depression and anxiety, and even some of

the more abnormal’ workings of the human psyche as normality and indeed

highly beneficial for human progress. Sometimes in these well written pages

one can glimpse the modern human zombie programmed by drugs to conform to

what is considered to normal desirable behaviour, the single model for

society, whereas, as in other maters, it is the diversity of human mental

activity and human behaviour that should be in the first place accentuated

and understood as the reality.

Nobody should want to underestimate the suffering caused by acute forms of

human behaviour and the need to alleviate the problems that many experience.

That brings us to one of the commonest methods of treatment and that is

drugs. It is this aspect of the book which should concern most of all those

who will contact this web site. On this subject Ms stone is not afraid

to use even the world corruption when it comes to those manufacture and

‘pushing’ of drugs for psychiatric treatment. She lists in detail the side

effects and the abuse of drug prescribing. This section of the book would be

of great value to anyone who affected by the problem or just interested in

it. Therefore it would be of great use to anyone contacting this

organisation.

This book advocates much more the psychotherapeutic approach. I have my

doubts about that approach as well, but this is Ms stone's hopeful

pointer to the future. I hope she is right. In my own career, non medical, I

did have to deal pastorally with many mental health patients’ a word Ms

stone quite rightly does not like using. I did become aware of not only

my own helplessness in the pastoral role but also the ineffectiveness of the

drugs to cure, though they did alleviate. I got accustomed to that drugged

and hopeless look on the faces of some of my congregants. Yet I have seen

miracles’ if you like, of patients talked out of their dilemmas - though

fundamentally a matter of self realisation - and who have through

realisation or acceptance maintained themselves in society. So there is in

this book hope as well as a good read.

Rabbi Henry Goldstein

____________________________________________________________________________

A message from Terry Lynch author, GP and psychotherapist

Hi,

Do you know of the existence of my book Beyond Prozac: Healing Mental

Suffering Without Drugs. Published April 2001 by Marino Books, Dublin,

Ireland. ISBN 1 86023 136 5. Best-seller in Ireland during 2001. Shortlisted

for MIND Book of the Year 2002. Ramo Kabbani of UK Prozac Survivors Group

speaks highly of it. Amongst other issues, I do discuss the side effects of

psychiatric medications.

Available through MIND, through Amazon.co.uk, or by ordering through any

bookshop. Ordering can sometimes take several weeks. Alternatively, the

book can be ordered directly from me at the address below for £12 sterling

inc p & p, and I will post the book by return.

Beyond Prozac: Healing Mental Suffering Without Drugs is written for the

public, easy to read and without the smokescreen of medical jargon. There

has been a huge reaction to the book in Ireland - I have recieved over 2000

calls from the public since publication.

Yours sincerely,

Dr. Terry Lynch,

GP and Psychotherapist,

23 Lawn,

Ballykeefe,

Limerick,

Ireland.