The Book

Robert Whitaker is a great writer – the book reads like a gripping detective novel – and a thorough researcher.

This book is likely one of the most impressive and important pieces of journalistic research and reporting of our time.

And Robert Whitaker is not resting – he is on a global tour telling the story to all kinds of audiences and pressing for a different kind of psychiatry and a different kind of service for when we experience mental health difficulties.

Robert Whitaker was in Toronto in November – keynote Speaker to the conference : Challenging our Understanding of Psychosis and Exploring Alternatives for Recovery.

Whitaker is not against medications – he is simply illustrating that the evidence all points to our current use of psychiatric medications is simply not working for us.

The Fairy Tale

The story we have sold ourselves as a society: that mental illness is due to a chemical imbalance that can be corrected with lifelong medication – is simply not borne out by any evidence. The Real Story

And that many, many research papers – reports of pharma and medicine’s own research – that reveal evidenc that contradict this story are regularly not made public, so we don’t get to hear about it.

• Our current approach to treating mental illness is leading us down a path of  an epidemic of mental disability: and it’s associated tradgedy of millions of lives of lost potential, early death and huge financial costs to society.
• approaches in other parts of the world that either do not use psychotropic medications or that use them in limited, short term ways – are demonstrably more effective
• one of the greatest risk factors for not recovering from serious mental illness is…… living in a western society.

If you haven’t read the book, or if you have,  you can watch and listen to Robert Whitaker tell the story….

Jun 2010

10 Min version – CSPAN, Book TV

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IdFj5TQfoc&feature=related

An is an early short version – if the story is new to you or you don’t want all the detail, this might be a good place to start.

…

Feb  2011 Revolutionizing Mental Health Care: University of Oregon School of  Law

…

Mar 2011 – Rethinking Psychiatry Conference,  Portland Oregon

Keynote presentation by author Robert Whitaker at the 2011 Rethinking Psychiatry Conference in Portland Oregon.

…

May 2011

8min 35

After a year of telling the story, a clearer, simpler version emerges.

…

May 2011 – Gaithersberg Book Festival
35mins – to  a general audience at a book fair and limited time- not so technical, but lots of detail too.

…

May 2011  Trinity College Dublin

1hr 17mins , with Introductions includng from Dr Pat Bracken.

…

Toronto 2011

No video [at this time] but  you can view his presentation slides at…

http://understandingpsychosisexploringalternatives.files.wordpress.com/2011/12/intar-2011-toronto-robert-whitaker-anatomy-of-an-epidemic-2.pdf

See also

• https://recoverynetworktoronto.wordpress.com/2011/06/13/the-epidemic-of-mental-illness-why/
• https://recoverynetworktoronto.wordpress.com/2011/07/13/the-epidemic-of-mental-illness-why-part-2/

Related articles

• Robert Whitaker slays the critics (beyondmeds.com)