Submitted by:
Todd Keenan
Gahanna-Lincoln High School
keenant@gjps.org

Anatomy of an Epidemic
Author(s):  Robert Whitaker
ISBN: 13-0307452425

APA Style Citation
Whitaker, R. (2010). Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America. New York: Random House, Inc..

 

Book Description

Do you want an insightful yet extremely controversial book regarding the treatment of mental illness?  This is it.

Anatomy of an Epidemic is a fantastic and thorough investigative report on the effects of medicine on mental illness. The argument of the author is that medicine has had an adverse effect on those taking it. The question the author poses is, "If we have made so many great advancements in medicines for mental illness, then why have we seen such a dramatic increase in the number of the mentally ill individuals during the last 25 years?"

He answers the question by citing a tremendous amount of research and the results of numerous clinical trials - some of which were never released in the mainstream media.

A few interesting insights from Whitaker’s book:

• Robert Post, M.D. a professor of psychiatry at George Washington University, who has published over 800 articles, recently said in 2008 at an APA Convention, "Right now after 50 years after the advent of antidepressant drugs, we still don't really know how to treat bipolar depression."
• Thorazine, the first major antipsychotic, was original derived as a major tranquilizer for use during surgeries turned became the number one treatment method for schizophrenia.
• In 1985, sales of antidepressants and antipsychotics in the United States amounted to $503 million.
• In 2008, sales of antidepressants and antipsychotics in the United States amounted to $24.2 billion.
• In 1987, there were 16,200 children under 18 who received supplemental security income payments for mental illness.
• In 2007, there were 561,659 children under 18 who received supplemental security income payments   for mental illness.
• Joseph Biederman, Chief of Clinical and Research Programs in Pediatric Psychopharmacology at Massachusetts General Hospital received $1.6 million from pharmaceutical companies from 2000-2007 for speaking engagements to market their drugs to physicians.
• Karen Wagner, director of child and adolescent psychiatry at the University of Texas, collected $160,000 from a pharmaceutical company when she promoted their antidepressant drug (Paxil) in an article in which she also falsely reported the results of a pediatric trial of the drug.

 
Other Related Resources
The following eleven-minute video shows Mr. Whitaker summarizing finding from his work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5VBXWdhabuQ

The following link leads to a critique of Anatomy of an Epidemic by schizophrenic expert E. Fuller Torrey, MD published online by the Treatment Advocacy Center.
http://www.treatmentadvocacycenter.org/index.php?option=com_content&id=2085

The following link is a short two-page summary of the findings presented in Anatomy of an Epidemic.
http://www.ncmhr.org/downloads/Anatomy-Of-An-Epidemic-Summary-Of-Findings-Whitaker.pdf

David Antonuccio’s research is presented in an article titled Antidepressants: A Triumph of Marketing Over Science published in Prevention & Treatment, Volume 5, Article 25, posted July 15, 2002 
Copyright 2002 by the American Psychological Association
http://www.antidepressantsfacts.com/2002-07-15-Antonuccio-therapy-vs-med.htm

Psychological Figures and Concepts
Antidepressants
Antipsychotics
Psychological disorders and treatments
Bipolar disorder
Biomedical treatments
Schizophrenia

Subliminal:  How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior
Author(s):  Leonard Mlodinow
ISBN:  978-0-307-47225-0

APA Style =Citation:
Mlodinow, Leonard (2012). Subliminal: How Your Unconscious Mind Rules Your Behavior. New York: Vintage Books.

Book Description
Subliminal provides insight into how modern neuroscience is revealing the ways in which our unconscious minds influence a wide range of our behaviors. The author Leonard Mlodinow is a physicist who has had a very diverse career including working as a Hollywood screen writer and an award winning video game designer has the ability to make complex scientific research accessible, engaging, and entertaining making this a book suitable for both instructors and students.  Early psychologists were limited to methods such as introspection, free association, observation, implanting electrodes, and studying behavior of animals after damage to examine the unconscious.  Modern methods now include advanced scanning equipment which allows specific and scientific examination of how the unconscious mind operates.   This book chronicles numerous interesting and enlightening studies which highlight the ways our unconscious minds influence our behavior.  Unlike the unconscious dominated by sexual and aggressive urges and unresolved childhood conflicts described by Freud, Mlodinow shows us that thoughts which are unconscious are adaptive. Unlike in the Freudian model where unconscious thoughts are blocked through defense mechanisms such as repression neuroscience reveals that these processes are inaccessible because of the design of the brain. 

The book is organized into two halves each of which is packed with current, relevant research including both controlled experiments and fascinating case studies.  The first half of the book is titled The Two-Tiered Brain and describes the modern understanding of the unconscious.  The author separates conscious from unconscious cognition and provides evidence for how the unconscious mind influences such diverse behaviors as who we marry, who we vote for, what we order in a restaurant, how much we enjoy food, what products we buy, the prejudices we hold, the perceptions we form, and the memories we create.  Research shows that not only do we make often significant decisions based on unconscious reactions, but that after the decision is made we use our conscious minds to explain that we did this in a logical and reasoned manner. 

The table above (page 19) illustrates the five most common surnames in the United States and the number in each box indicates how many marriages occurred between individuals with each of these name combinations according to a three state study done in 2004 in raw numbers.  Along the diagonal in bold is highlighted the number of marriages that occurred between individuals with the same surname.  Individuals with the last name of Smith marry other Smiths three to five times more frequently than individuals with any of the other common names.  This illustration of the power of similarity in attraction according to social scientists is example of an unconscious bias for those with which we have much in common.  Research also indicates that the brain region known as the dorsal striatum controls much of this unconscious bias.  Mlodinow highlights the influence of the unconscious regarding financial decisions with research showing that Wall Street traders are more likely to invest in the initial public offerings of companies with whose ticker symbols were simple or easy to pronounce vs. those with more complicated names.  Individuals are generally secure in the knowledge that the important business, personal, and career decisions are the result of careful conscious thought but are often unaware of the important unconscious influences that led them to their conclusions.  The chapter titled The Importance of Being Social discusses the unconscious aspects of the human desire and the ability to understand the thoughts, emotions, and intentions of others which is often called “theory of mind” or TOM.  In addition to intelligence the author believes the largely unconscious process of TOM has been instrumental in building human civilization.  The book recounts Stanley Milgram’s six degrees of separation experiment and provides the results from a 2003 replication using email to highlight how connected humans actually are to each other.  The results in the email study were similar to Milgram in that each time it took an average of five to seven steps before reaching its intended destination.

The second half of the book is titled The Social Unconscious and it examines how our unconscious minds allow us to rapidly interpret and communicate via non-verbal signals.   In one interesting experiment researchers filmed a variety of subjects with about twelve small lights spread around their body in a dark room so that only the lights were visible.  If the participants were stationary it gave the appearance of a meaningless collection of lights, but if they moved viewers were able to determine a large amount of information about the individual wearing the lights. Viewing the lights in motion allowed individuals to identify gender, and even the specific identity of the person if they already knew them simply by how they walked.  If actors wearing the lights portrayed specific emotions, viewers were easily able to correctly identify what was being demonstrated.  Subliminal makes sophisticated scientific research about the unconscious mind easily understandable to a wide range of readers by using humor and accessible language to make interesting case studies, anecdotes, and research experiments come to life.  This book provides insight into the unconscious influences that impact our interactions with family, friends, bosses, coworkers, and strangers and illustrates how this knowledge can allow us to make better decisions and better predict the behavior of others. 

Other Related Resources

Leonard Mlodinow giving a 50-minute presentation at Google regarding his 2008 book titled The Drunkard’s Walk:  How Randomness Rules Our Lives and discusses various types of cognitive biases.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0sLuRsu1Dohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0sLuRsu1Do

Leonard Mlodinow giving a 50-minute presentation at Google about many of the concepts related to his current book, Subliminal.  Mlodinow’s talk includes many demonstrations such as ones about the anchoring bias and false memories, which could be used in the classroom.  
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NJ-IfVHJH58


In the book the author presents research about the subliminal aspects of the developmental psychology concept of theory of mind (TOM).  TOM is the ability to understand the thoughts and intentions of others and predict their behavior which begins to develop around the age of four.  Although some aspects of TOM are conscious, much of our ability to read the intentions of others occurs as an automatic aspect of the unconscious mind.  The basics of TOM are a critical part of cognitive development in children which can be tested by a false belief test.  The following video offers a short demonstration for students of how theory of mind develops in children.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hLubgpY2_w

Psychological Figures and Concept
Charles Darwin
Paul Ekman
Sigmund Freud
William James
Stanley Milgram
Muzafer Sherif
Stanley Schachter
Wilhelm Wundt
Anchoring bias
Blindsight
Change blindness
Confabulation
Duchenne Smile
Emotion
Eyewitness testimony
fMRI
False memories
Gender stereotypes
Implicit Association Test (IAT)
In-group bias
Introspection
Language
Memory
Motivation
Neuroscience
Norms
Overconfidence
Prejudice
Social neuroscience
Split-brain research
Theory of mind (TOM)

Love at Goon Park:  Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection
Author(s): Deborah Blum
ISBN:  9780465026067

APA Style Citation
Blum, D. (2002) Love at Goon Park:  Harry Harlow and the Science of Affection. New York:  Perseus Publishing.

Book Description

Psychologist Harry Harlow challenged the notions of the 1950s regarding parenting and the power of attachment and love.  From his humble beginnings as a bright yet odd child in Iowa, Harry found himself in disagreement over the zeitgeist of the field of Psychology  early in his career. Famous psychologists such as John Watson in his book Children and Child Care  promoted a parenting style, which strictly forbade the hugging and kissing of young children.  Other Behaviorists agreed with this approach and parents who doted on their children were often accused on making their children “soft”.  The events of WWII in London forced the evacuation of many children to the English countryside, placing them away from parents or caretakers.  The results of this forcible removal suggested that children could be well provided for in terms of food and basic necessities, but a lack of parental love caused children to suffer both emotionally and developmentally.  Investigations into “fostering homes” or orphanages (which were widespread during WWII) led to the same conclusion.  Harlow was determined to challenge traditional notions on parenting and tested the importance of love and attachment.  Harlow also wanted to test animals more like humans and get away from the Behaviorist habit of working only with rats.  He conducted his research at the University of Wisconsin by providing young monkeys with artificial mothers. 

The title of the book Love at Goon Park refers to Harlow studies of attachment and love and the address of the psychology building at the University of Wisconsin (600 N. Park Street) to which packages often appeared to be headed for “GOON Park”.  Harlow demonstrated that “contact comfort” was more important than providing food to the young monkey as it helped to forge a strong bond between infant and mother. These monkey’s spent nearly all of their time with the “cloth” mother regardless of whether or not food was provided.  They only went to the “wire” mother for food and quickly returned to the “cloth” mother. Those monkeys not provided any type of mother figure were unable to develop a strong attachment to a mother figure later in life and often became aggressive towards other monkeys.  Harlow was far ahead of his time and his findings are supported by modern research (See the book review of How Children Succeed:  Paul Tough) regarding the importance of attachment. 

Harlow faced challenges in his own personal life, he was married three times and his first and third wife Clara (whom he married again after the death of his second wife) was a participant in the famous “termite” study in which Lewis Terman longitudinally studied gifted children.  Harlow himself was not a very involved parent and spent nearly all of his time at the lab.  He drank too much and ultimately succumbed to Parkinson’s disease. 

The book discusses the shift from Behaviorism to a more Social Cognitive approach and discusses in detail to power and importance of attachment.  In addition, his other research regarding isolation and community supports as well I.Q. tests with primates are detailed in the book.  Harlow’s connection to other notable psychologists is fascinating, he studied under Lewis Terman at Stanford and mentored a young Abraham Maslow at Wisconsin, in addition to countless others. 

Other Related Resources
Book Website
http://deborahblum.com/Love_at_Goon_Park.html

This American Life:  Episode 317, Unconditional Love
This episode addresses the importance of attachment and the challenges families can face when attachment is not established at an early age.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radio-archives/episode/317/unconditional-love

Conquest Clip of Harlow’s Monkey
This clip shows Harlow’s lab and his original studies of monkeys.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_O60TYAIgC4

PBS:  A Science Odyssey
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/bhharl.html


Psychological Figures and Concepts
Mary Ainsworth
Gordon Allport
Alfred Binet
John Bowlby
Anna Freud
Sigmund Freud
G. Stanley Hall
Clark Hull
Wolfgang Kohler
Konrad Lorenz
Abraham Maslow
Ivan Pavlov
Martin Seligman
B.F. Skinner
Carol Tavris
Edward Thorndike
John Watson
Robert Yerkes
Attachment
Behaviorist Manifesto
Little Albert
Stanford-Binet test
Learned helplessness