The Drugs That Changed Our Minds : The History of Psychiatry in Ten Treatments

'The messy history and brave future of psychotropic drugs' – O Magazine 'Vivid and thought-provoking' – Harper's Magazine 'Ambitious...Slater's depictions of madness are terrifying and fascinating' – USA Today 'Vigorous research and intimate reflection...highly compelling' – Kirkus As our approach to mental illness has oscillated from biological to psychoanalytical and back again, so have our treatments. With the rise of psychopharmacology, an ever-increasing number of people throughout the globe are taking a psychotropic drug, yet nearly seventy years after doctors first began prescribing them, we still don't really know exactly how or why they work – or don't work – on what ails our brains. In The Drugs that Changed Our Minds , Lauren Slater offers an explosive account not just of the science but of the people – inventors, detractors and consumers – behind our narcotics, from the earliest, Thorazine and Lithium, up through Prozac, Ecstasy, 'magic mushrooms', the most cutting-edge memory drugs and neural implants. In so doing, she narrates the history of psychiatry itself and illuminates the signature its colourful little capsules have left on millions of brains worldwide, and how these wonder drugs may heal us or hurt us. Lauren Slater approaches this investigation into the discovery and development of mind-altering drugs and treatments from the perspectives of both a psychology PhD and her own experience as a patient "sustained on a serotonin booster for decades". The book examines the scientists, the theory and the impact of drugs from chlorpromazine, which revolutionized the treatment of schizophrenia, through Prozac and MDMA (Ecstasy) to deep brain stimulation. Explores the discovery, invention, science, and people behind today's major psychotropic drugs, from the earliest, Thorazine and Lithium, through Prozac and Ecstasy, to today's most cutting-edge memory drugs and neural implants A fascinating narrative history of our major psychotropic drugs and the way in which they have shaped us from the author of Opening Skinner's Box.