Better Than Prozac: Creating the Next Generation of Psychiatric Drugs

by Samuel H. Barondes

Book Overview

Every day millions of people take psychiatric drugs. In Better Than Prozac Samuel Barondes considers the benefits and limitations of Prozac, Ritalin, Valium, Risperdal, and other widely used medications and the ways that superior ones are being created.
In tracing the early history of these drugs Barondes describes the accidental observations that led to their discovery and their great impact on our view of mental illness. He goes on to show...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 019517979X
• ISBN13: 9780195179798
• Release Date: February 2005
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 240 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.6" x 8.6"

Customer Reviews

Better Read Than I Thought

This book was a better read than I thought it would be. It was a bit more "doctor-speak" in places than I would have liked, but overall was easier to read than I originally thought. This book helped me to understand the ins and outs of medications I am on personally, and gave me a different perspective on others as well. Overall, a good read for the layperson who wants to know more about medications out on the market for psychiatric conditions.

history and glimpse of the future of psychopharmacology

This is a great read, written by Samuel Barondes, who's a top notch researcher, doctor, and science writer. It covers the history of major psychiatric drug discoveries in a concise manner, while also including a lot of interesting detail. Here are a few of the other specific topics. It includes some interesting case studies. It describes the history of mother's little helper pills. It draws the distinction between drugs with immediate effects, such as Valium, and drugs with delayed effects, such as Prozac. And it discusses some very interesting recent happenings in the field of drug discovery. The author states near the end that it may be beneficial to "free psychopharmacology from its fixation on neurotransmission", and that doing so "may open up new ways of treating patients". In the previous two statements Barondes doesn't at all mean that we should give up on using psychiatric drugs to treat mental illness, but rather that new drugs should not focus on altering neurotransmission and instead should affect other brain mechanisms. He thinks that doing so may improve psychiatric drug treatment. Overall, this is an outstanding book that is both thought provoking and extremely well written. Highly recommended for anyone with an interest in psychopharmacology or mental health in general. Author of Adjust Your Brain: A Practical Theory for Maximizing Mental Health.

If you ever were curious about psychoactive drugs...

This book leads the reader through both the pharmacology and the history of a whole host of drugs that are used to treat disorders such as anxiety, depression, and Alzheimer's. He also addresses some of the early studies that were conducted to try to elucidate the effects of these drugs on different patient populations---the stuff about ADHD/ADD is fascinating. The author's style is clear and concise and he did a very good job of taking difficult subject matter and distilling the bits out that are of most interest to the layperson. Perhaps the most amazing point that the author makes is that most of the drug classes were originally found as accidents!