1.

Record Nr.

UNINA9910452575003321

Autore

Lane Christopher <1966->

Titolo

Shyness [[electronic resource] ] : how normal behavior became a sickness / / Christopher Lane

Pubbl/distr/stampa

New Haven, : Yale University Press, c2007

ISBN

0-300-15028-8

Descrizione fisica

1 online resource (272 p.)

Disciplina

616.85/225

Soggetti

Bashfulness

Anxiety

Social phobia

Psychotropic drugs industry

Electronic books.

Lingua di pubblicazione

Inglese

Formato

Materiale a stampa

Livello bibliografico

Monografia

Note generali

Bibliographic Level Mode of Issuance: Monograph

Nota di bibliografia

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Nota di contenuto

Front matter -- Contents -- Introduction: Bashful No More -- 1. The Hundred Years' War over Anxiety -- 2. The Diagnostic Battles: Emotions Become Pathologies -- 3. A Decisive Victory: Shyness Becomes an Illness -- 4. Direct to Consumer: Now Sell the Disease! -- 5. Rebound Syndrome: When Drug Treatments Fail -- 6. A Backlash Forms: Prozac Nation Rebels -- 7. Fear of Others in an Anxious Age -- Notes -- Acknowledgments -- Index

Sommario/riassunto

In the 1970's, a small group of leading psychiatrists met behind closed doors and literally rewrote the book on their profession. Revising and greatly expanding the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM for short), they turned what had been a thin, spiral-bound handbook into a hefty tome. Almost overnight the number of diagnoses exploded. The result was a windfall for the pharmaceutical industry and a massive conflict of interest for psychiatry at large. This spellbinding book is the first behind-the-scenes account of what really happened and why. With unprecedented access to the American Psychiatric Association archives and previously classified memos from drug company executives, Christopher Lane unearths the disturbing truth: with little scientific justification and sometimes hilariously



improbable rationales, hundreds of conditions-among them shyness-are now defined as psychiatric disorders and considered treatable with drugs. Lane shows how long-standing disagreements within the profession set the stage for these changes, and he assesses who has gained and what's been lost in the process of medicalizing emotions. With dry wit, he demolishes the façade of objective research behind which the revolution in psychiatry has hidden. He finds a profession riddled with backbiting and jockeying, and even more troubling, a profession increasingly beholden to its corporate sponsors.