Saving Normal
Ratings2
Average rating3.5
15
Ratings2
Average rating3.5
"Anyone living a full, rich life experiences ups and downs, stresses, disappointments, sorrows, and setbacks. Today, however, millions of people who are really no more than "worried well" are being diagnosed as having a mental disorder and receiving unnecessary treatment. In Saving Normal, Allen Frances, one of the world's most influential psychiatrists, explains why stigmatizing a healthy person as mentally ill leads to unnecessary, harmful medications, the narrowing of horizons, the misallocation of medical resources, and the draining of the budgets of families and the nation. We also shift responsibility for our mental well-being away from our own naturally resilient brains and into the hands of "Big Pharma," who are reaping multi-billion-dollar profits. Frances cautions that the newest edition of the "bible of psychiatry," the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (DSM-5), is turning our current diagnostic inflation into hyperinflation by converting millions of "normal" people into "mental patients." Saving Normal is a call to all of us to reclaim the full measure of our humanity."
Reviews with the most likes.
Good content, not well written. I enjoy reading academic/textbooks/nonfiction but this was hard to get through.
Very repetitive and lots of unnecessary content. Every section had long drawn out babble before getting to the interesting point I was waiting for.
For example, mild neurocognitive disorder (MND). Instead of immediately describing reasons for it being an unnecessary diagnosis and the harm that can come from it, he describes himself and his wife. How they're getting old, forgetting stuff. But it's normal! Not a disorder! This almost full page intro into discussing MND is pointless.
I am interested in reading evidence, hearing about studies, and learning more. Countless, repetitiveness made this book a disappointment. Might as well Google “dsm 5 critiques” and read a few articles that get the same point across.
