Mad in America : bad science, bad medicine, and the enduring mistreatment of the mentally ill
(Book)

"Updated with a new afterword"--Cover.

Originally published in hardcover by Perseus Publishing in 2002.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Medical journalist Robert Whitaker traces the treatment of mental illness through the use of lobotomies in the 1920s and 1930s, to the electroshock therapy of the 1950s, to what is perhaps his most damning revelation: drug companies in the 1980s and 1990s skewed research to prove that new antipsychotic drugs were more effective than the old, while keeping patients in the dark about dangerous side effects. A haunting, deeply compassionate book updated to address the latest medical treatments and trends, Mad in America raises important questions about our obligations to the mad, the meaning of "insanity," and what we value most about the human mind.--Cover.