Peter BregginPeter Breggin, M.D.
Books

 
“Peter Breggin’s courageous, compassionate writings serve as a much needed antidote to the genetic determinism and pro-drug bias of modern psychiatry and psychology.”
 -   JOHN HORGAN, author of The End of Science and The Undiscovered Mind

 

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Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry:
Drugs, Electroshock, and the Psychopharmaceutical Complex


By Peter Breggin, M.D.

2008--Hardback Published by Springer Publishing Co.

    From the author of Toxic Psychiatry and Talking Back to Prozac

"Peter Breggin is the conscience of American psychiatry. Once more he updates us on the real evidence with respect to the safety and effectiveness of specific psychiatric medications and ECT. This information is needed by all mental health professionals, as well as patients and families."

--Bertram Karon, PhD, Professor of Psychology, Michigan State University
Author of The Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia

"Nowhere is the correct psychiatric thinking more evident than in the books by Peter Breggin"

--William Glasser, MD, psychiatrist, author of Reality Therapy

In Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry, renowned psychiatrist Peter R. Breggin, MD, presents startling scientific research on the dangerous behavioral abnormalities and brain dysfunctions produced by the most widely used and newest psychiatric drugs such as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Cymbalta, Effexor, Xanax, Ativan, Ritalin, Adderall, Concerta, Strattera, Risperdal, Zyprexa, Geodon, Abilify, lithium, and Depakote.

Many of Breggin's earlier findings have improved clinical practice, led to legal victories against drug companies, and resulted in FDA-mandated changes in what the manufacturers must admit about their drugs.

This greatly expanded second edition, supported by the latest evidence-based research, shows that psychiatric drugs achieve their primary or essential effect by causing brain dysfunction, and they tend to do far more harm than good.

New scientific analyses in this completely updated edition include:

  • Chapters covering every new antidepressant and stimulant drug
  • Twenty new guidelines for how to conduct non-drug therapy
  • A chapter describing how to safely withdraw from psychiatric drugs
  • A discussion of medication spellbinding, explaining how patients fail to recognize their drug-induced mental dysfunctions
  • Documentation of how the drug companies control research and the flow of information about psychiatric treatments

 

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Peter Breggin book - The Heart of Being HelpfulThe Heart of Being Helpful:
Empathy and the Creation of a Healing Presence

by Peter Breggin, M.D.
2006--Published by Springer Publishing Company

This volume talks about how to cultivate empathy and a healing presence as the underlying principles for all professional and personal relationships in which we offer to help others.

"After years of detailing the myths and abuses of biopsychiatry, peter Breggin comes full circle. With this profound and often poignant work from his own heart, he puts soul back into psychotherapy."
--Kevin McCready, Ph.D., Clinical Director, San Joaquin Psychotherapy Center

"Dr. Breggin passionately captures the heart of psychotherapeutic healing. A prolific and provocative writer, his thoughts are powerful, imaginative, inspirational, and wise. Not only would I recommend this book to professional psychotherapists, but also to the lay reader who will learn the meaning and intricacies of living and loving."
--Clemmont E. Vontress, Ph.D., Professor of Counseling, George Washington University
Counselor of the Year--American Mental Health Counselor's Association

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Peter Breggin book - Your Drug May Be Your Problem 2007 EditionYour Drug May Be Your Problem: How and Why to Stop Taking Psychiatric Medications
by Peter Breggin M.D. and David Cohen Ph.D.

2007 updated paperback edition. 
Hardback published 1999 by Perseus Books, Reading, MA.
 



The first book to expose the shortcomings of psychiatric drugs and to guide patients and doctors
through the process of withdrawing from them.  


   Whether the drug is a sleeping pill, tranquilizer, stimulant, antidepressant, mood stabilizer, or antipsychotic, Your Drug May Be Your Problem reveals its documented withdrawal symptoms, demonstrating what many doctors don't know, understand, or consider: withdrawal symptoms often mimic the symptoms for which a person has been medicated in the first place, a fact that frequently prompts doctors to mistakenly re-medicate their patients at even higher doses. Armed with this essential background information, readers will then be able to choose for themselves when and how to withdraw from psychiatric drugs.
    Groundbreaking and empowering, Your Drug May Be Your Problem offers readers what they have long sought--a medically and psychologically sound program for freeing themselves from psychiatric drugs, emphasizing throughout the importance for patients to keep control over the withdrawal process.

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Peter Breggin book Talking Back to ProzacTALKING BACK TO PROZAC:What doctors aren’t telling you about today’s most controversial drug.
By Peter Breggin, M.D.
Co-authored by Ginger Ross Breggin
paperback published 1995 by St. Martin's Press


“Peter Breggin is Prozac’s worst enemy.”—Time

There is unquestionably a great deal of truth in what Breggin writes. Let the pill-swallower beware."
-- Los Angeles Times

Prozac, the world's best selling drug, "projected to achieve sales of about $2.5 billion" according to The Washington Post. Find out about the dark side of Prozac. Talking Back to Prozac is the only book that tells you the truth behind its testing and its potentially frightening side effects.

Further Information on Talking Back to Prozac by Peter Breggin, M.D.

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Talking Back
to Prozac


TOXIC PSYCHIATRY: Why therapy, empathy, and love must replace the drugs, electroshock, and biochemical theories of the “new psychiatry.”
by Peter Breggin, M.D.

paperback edition published 1994 by St. Martin's Press

    Toxic Psychiatry remains Dr. Breggin's most complete overview of psychiatry and psychatric medication. It has influenced many professionals and lay persons to transform their views on the superior value of psychosocial approaches compared to medication and electroshock. The book was written in 1994 but the reader can obtain more recent information on specific drugs from Dr. Breggin's more recent books, such as Your Drug May Be Your Problem, The Antidepressant Fact Book, and The Ritalin Fact Book.

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Peter Breggin book - The Ritalin Fact Book The Ritalin Fact Book: What Your Doctor Won't Tell You About ADHD and Stimulant Drugs
by Peter Breggin, MD
Published in 2002 by Perseus Books, Cambridge, Massachusetts.

     This book is the easiest and most direct way to get information on the stimulant drugs including Ritalin, Ritalin SR, Adderall, Adderall XR, Dexedrine, Focalin, Concerta, Metadate ER and Cylert. It contains the latest research on side effects, including permanent brain damage and dysfunction, and guidance on how to help out-of-control children without resort to drugs.

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Peter Breggin book - The Antidepressant Fact Book THE ANTIDEPRESSANT FACT BOOK: What Your Doctor Won't Tell You About Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa and Luvox
by Peter Breggin, MD

  published by Perseus Books, 2001

    Known as "the Ralph Nader of psychiatry," Dr. Peter Breggin has been the medical expert in countless court cases involving the use or misuse of psychoactive medications. This unusual position has given him unprecedented access to private pharmaceutical research and  correspondence files, information from which informs this straight-talking guide to the most prescribed and controversial category of American drugs: antidepressants.
    From how these drugs work in the brain to how they treat (or don't treat) depression and obsessive-compulsive, panic, and other disorders; from the documented side and withdrawal effects to what every parent needs to know about antidepressants and teenagers, The Anti-Depressant Fact Book is up-to-the minute and easy-to-access. Hard-hitting and enlightening, every current, former, and prospective antidepressant-user will want to read this book.

 


Peter Breggin book -- Talking Back to Ritalin, RevisedTalking Back to Ritalin, Revised : What Doctors
Aren't Telling You
About Stimulants and ADHD
by Peter Breggin, M.D.
with a forward by Dick Scruggs, JD

Published by Perseus Books, 2001 paperback

    Dr. Peter Breggin's book: Talking Back to Ritalin, Revised details the side effects and potential problems with Ritalin and other stimulants. It also thoroughly and critically examines the condition and diagnosis of ADHD and ADD, explores the economics and who profits from the diagnosis and the prescribing of stimulants for children, and offers six chapters for parents and other adults on how to help children in their care without resorting to Ritalin or other psychiatric drugs.

    The material in Talking Back to Ritalin is documented with many citations to scientific literature. The book also describes non-drug approaches to helping children diagnosed ADHD through identifying and meeting the basic needs of children, and through improvements in school and family life.
   
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Peter Breggin book -- Reclaiming Our Children Reclaiming Our Children:
A Healing Plan for a Nation in Crisis
by Peter Breggin, MD

    Dr. Breggin was motivated to write Reclaiming Our Children by witnessing , along with millions of other Americans, the events surrounding the shootings at Columbine High School as they unfolded  first on television and then in the print media.   Dr. Breggin’s book begins with a description and analysis of these tragic events in Littleton, Colorado, and then moves on to examine our government’s response at the White House Conference on Mental Health.   He criticizes biological psychiatry and psychiatric drugs as a solution to the suffering and rebelliousness of America’s children.  He also presents strong evidence that psychiatric drugs commonly cause psychoses and aggression in children, and that they probably contributed to individual cases of school violence.

     Reclaiming Our Children discusses the overall situation of children in America, including the stresses on their lives in the family, school, and community.   The author urges parents, teachers, and other concerned citizens to retake responsibility for all our children.   He sees the necessity of transforming ourselves and our society in order to meet the needs of all of our children for meaningful relationships with adults, as well as for unconditional love, rational discipline, inspiring education, and play.  He makes specific recommendations for improving family and school life based on sound psychological and ethical principles.   

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Peter Breggin book -- The War Against Children of ColorTHE WAR AGAINST CHILDREN OF COLOR:
How the drugs, programs, and theories of the psychiatric establishment are threatening America’s children with a medical ‘cure’ for violence.
  by Peter Breggin, M.D.
co-authored with Ginger Ross Breggin
cloth published 1994 by St. Martin's Press

    “Terrifying data conveyed in the calm and sober voice of an experienced and respected physician and researcher. A brilliantly controversial and, for me, uncomfortably persuasive work—and a major addition to our understanding of racism as it infiltrates our science and our culture.”
—Jonathan Kozol, author of Amazing Grace and Savage Inequalities

     In 1992, Dr. Peter Breggin and Ginger Ross Breggin inspired a national campaign against the proposed federal "Violence Initiative," that aimed at identifying inner-city children with alleged defects that would make them violent when they reached adulthood. Many of the research plans, which are still in operation, involve searching for a "violence gene," finding "biochemical imbalances," and intervening in the lives of schoolchildren with psychiatric drugs. This book is an updated version of the Breggin's 1994 The War Against Children, with a new chapter that includes information on the federally funded fenfluramine studies done on inner city boys.
 

Further Information
on The War Against Children of Color
by Peter Breggin, M.D.

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The War Against Children of Color


Peter Breggin book -- Beyond ConflictBEYOND CONFLICT:
From self-help and psychotherapy to peacemaking

by Peter Breggin, M.D.

paperback published 1992 by St. Martin's Press


“This book addresses the very core of what it means to be human.”

—Emilio Viano, Ph.D., professor at the School of Public Affairs, The American University


Further Information on Beyond Conflict
by Peter R. Breggin, M.D.
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Peter Breggin book -- Psychosocial Approaches to Deeply Disturbed PersonsPSYCHOSOCIAL APPROACHES TO
DEEPLY DISTURBED PERSONS

Peter Breggin and E. Mark Stern, Editors


cloth published 1996 by Haworth Press, Inc.

    “Makes a critical contribution by offering humanistic and caring alternatives for people who have long-standing histories of oppression and maltreatment.”  Fred Bemak , Ph.D., Chairperson for the Department of Counseling and Human Services, The Johns Hopkins University

    A humanist approach to treating "psychotic" patients focusing on psychological and social therapeutic techniques rooted in the contributors' own practices working with deeply disturbed individuals. The 11 essays discuss contrasting therapeutic approaches, schizophrenic realities and modes of being, hallucinations and terror, communities for psychotic persons, illustrative therapy with schizophrenics, co-counseling, and working with the families of schizophrenic patients....SciTech Book News, November 1996 

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on Psychosocial Approaches 
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of Psychosocial Approaches


Peter Breggin book -- Dimensions of Empathic TherapyDimensions of Empathic Therapy
Peter Breggin, MD, Ginger Ross Breggin, Fred Bemak, PhD (Editors)

     Empathy is rarely taught in graduate and professional schools....Based on our belief that empathy is essential to good professional practice, we have chosen to explore and present empathy from a variety of perspectives.  We have brought together an interdisciplinary mix of the authors as professors, practitioners, center directors, and clinicians, some of whom are nationally and internationally recognized leaders in their fields....This book addresses empathy within the scope of clinical practice with diverse approaches that include working within unique therapeutic treatment milieus; treating children, adolescents, the elderly, and families; and providing empathy within the framework of established intervention models....

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