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

Millions of people take medicine they don’t need for a diagnosis of MDD that they don’t really have, on the false assumption of chemical imbalance.30,31,32

in the remarkable healing powers of time, natural resilience, exercise, family and social support, and psychotherapy—and much less automatic faith in chemical imbalance and pills.

attention deficit/hyperactivity has tripled52; and adult bipolar disorder doubled.

For a significant percentage of people with mild or transient symptoms, SSRIs are nothing more than very expensive, potentially harmful placebos.

Almost three fourths of the 11 percent of the U.S. population now taking antidepressant drugs have no current symptoms of depression.

research. But they have also had the very harmful unintended consequence of triggering and helping to maintain a runaway diagnostic inflation that threatens normal and results in massive overtreatment with psychiatric medication.

Evidence of diagnostic inflation is everywhere. There have been four explosive epidemics of mental disorder in the past fifteen years. Childhood bipolar disorder increased by a miraculous fortyfold50; autism by a whopping twentyfold51;

In the early 1980s, about a third of Americans qualified for a lifetime diagnosis of mental disorder.45 Now about half do.46 And Europe is catching up fast at well over 40 percent.47 Some people think these are underestimates—more carefully done prospective studies actually double the lifetime prevalence. If you believe the results, our population

The concern arises from a recent study showing that 56 percent of our experts had some financial connection to drug companies.