Carley Moore Professor Padgett ENGL 1102 November 4th, 2013 Annotated Bibliography Topic: Our medicated society

Proposed thesis: Our societys psychiatric system is misdiagnosing, overmedicating and misleading the public. Walker, Sydney. A Dose of Sanity: Mind, Medicine, and Misdiagnosis. New York: Wiley & Sons, 1996. Print. This resource is fairly recent. A Dose of Sanity touches on several interesting points, one of which being that drugs being prescribed cause more illness than they are proposed to cure. This point is relevant to my topic for it can prove that we as a nation are overmedicated and this is due to the fact that psychiatrists often overlook underlying medical problems for psychiatric disorders- the main theme that this book calls to light. Walker also brings to ones attention several statistics revolving around the misuse of drugs such as one fourth of people over the age 65 in the United States are taking drugs that are inappropriate and potentially dangerous. Another interesting observation that the author mentions is that most psychiatrists practice DSM medicine. This means that they use a list of symptoms that are ambiguous and can be seen by a drug-oriented physician to fit almost any patient. This point is relevant to my paper for it shows how the psychiatric system is failing at proscribing the appropriate drugs and is ultimately medicating healthy individuals. Walker uses an example of the DSM list of symptoms for hyperactivity in children and makes the valid point that they all describe every child ever born.
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Bentall, Richard P. Doctoring the Mind: Is Our Current Treatment of Mental Illness Really Any Good?New York: New York University Press, 2009. Print. This source takes on an interesting role. Rather than entirely condemning modern psychiatry, Bentall makes a case for the reform of the treatment for mental illness. The main objective of his book is to redefine the way we perceive modern day treatments. He argues that the future of mental health should focus on patients as individuals as much as it focuses on the brain itself. This will help in my paper as a solution to this problem of misdiagnosing and overmedicating. Only when the physician knows the patient fully can he/she prescribe the proper medication. This is also true in a reciprocated standpoint for the patient needs to have reason to be able to trust the physician. Bentall acknowledges the harmful and unnecessary amounts of prescription drugs and states that their use needs to drop radically if change is to be made. Another interesting section of the book deals with the three myths about mental illness. Along with the subject of mental illness come the stereotypes that cause a continuum of misinformation.

Barber, Charles. Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry Is Medicating a Nation. New York: Pantheon Books, 2008. Print. In this book, Barber explains the fad that has been created over medication and mental illness. He presents the statistics concerning the recent rise in prescription drug use. One may see these findings as particularly surprising, especially the fact that, nine percent of American teens have been prescribed drugs for depression. In my paper I will use information such as this to prove that the unnecessary prescription of drugs has caused a rise in misleading positive perceptions of mental illnesses. Barber says that, a study of newspaper reporting on mental illness showed that negative portrayals were reduced by half between 1989 and 1999, even though negative stories continue to outnumber positive
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ones. Our society has become very mislead in this instance. Barber reveals this increasing pressure that Americans are under to medicate themselves and tragically see drugs as an instant cure all for emotional difficulties. Kutchins, Herb, and Stuart A. Kirk. Making Us Crazy: Dsm : the Psychiatric Bible and the Creation of Mental Disorders. New York: Free Press, 1997. Print. The DSM stands for the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Making Us Crazy tells of how this manual, a once crucial diagnostic tool, has become a battleground. Kutchins and Kirk state that, the fight is no longer who escapes the DSM labeling, but rather, how a person can qualify for a diagnosis. This resource is valuable to my paper in the sense that the DSM is the guide by which psychiatric diagnoses are given and through revealing its flaws, my argument is made sound. One chapter of this book begins with the anecdote of listening to your family members, friends or acquaintances talk of how they may not be sleeping well or how they may still have a grudge against you after several years. Rather than labeling these everyday conditions as simply ordinary, the DSM assigns them with outrageous disorders. Kutchins and Kirk then argue the reliability of the DSM and says that, there is not a single major study showing that DSM (any version) is routinely used with high reliability by regular mental health physicians. First, Michael B, Allen Frances, and Harold A. Pincus. Dsm-iv-tr Handbook of Differential Diagnosis. Washington, DC: American Psychiatric Press, 2002. Print. This DSM includes static data and tables and what are called decision trees that sort symptoms that are connected to major disorders. I found this source to be useful due to the fact that every other source I used mentioned the DSM to some extent. In Making Us Crazy, the author notes that the DSM is unreliable and often used for the wrong reasons. I
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concluded that drawing direct information from it is important for the success of my paper to show the extent of unreliability and how absurd the connections between symptoms and diagnoses are. One symptom listed under the poor school performance tree is Refusal to attend school related to fears of separation. The diagnosis beside of this is separation anxiety disorder. Psychiatry stretches to fit anyone under categories of which they could potentially fit. This may be to satisfy a worried parent, but regardless, this way of diagnosing and medicating is unnecessary.