Moving Beyond Prozac, DSM, and the New Psychiatry

Moving Beyond Prozac, DSM, and the New Psychiatry Synopsis

Moving Beyond Prozac, DSM, and the New Psychiatry offers an analysis and critique of contemporary psychiatric practice from a variety of critical perspectives, ranging from Michel Foucault to Donna Haraway. This contribution to the burgeoning field of medical humanities contends that psychiatry's move away from a theory-based model (one favoring psychoanalysis and other talk therapies) to a more scientific model (based on new breakthroughs in neuroscience and pharmacology) has been detrimental to both the profession and its clients. This shift towards a science-based model includes the codification of the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders to the status of standard scientific reference, enabling mental-health practitioners to assign tidy classifications for any mental disturbance or deviation. Psychiatrist and cultural studies scholar Bradley Lewis argues for ""postpsychiatry,"" a new psychiatric practice informed by the insights of poststructuralist theory.