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Soft cover · 352 pp · Peter Lehmann Publishing Berlin (FRG) / Eugene, OR (USA) / Shrewsbury (UK) 2004 · ISBN 0-9545428-0-0 / 1-891408-98-4
The world-wide first book about successful Withdrawal from Neuroleptics, Antidepressants, Lithium, Carbamazepine and Tranquilizers.
Millions of people are taking psychiatric drugs like Haloperidol, Prozac, Zyprexa or Risperidone. To them, detailed accounts of how others came off these substances without once again ending up in the doctor's office are of fundamental interest.
In "Coming off Psychiatric Drugs" 28 people from New Zealand, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, England, Germany, Hungary, Japan, the Netherlands, Serbia & Montenegro, Sweden, Switzerland and the USA write about their experiences with withdrawal.
Additionally, eight professionals, working in psychotherapy, medicine, psychiatry, social work, natural healing and even in a runaway-house, report on how they helped in the withdrawal process.
Chapters: The decision to withdraw · To withdraw without pharmagogenic problems · Coming off step by step · Counterweights · With professional help · Better sometimes than forever · Professional support · The time after
Authors: Karl Bach Jensen · Wilma Boevink · Gabor Gombos · Maths Jesperson · Kerstin Kempker · Eiko Nagano · Mary Nettle · Una M. Parker · Jasna Russo · Lynne Setter · David Webb · and many more
For more see www.peter-lehmann-publishing.com/withdraw.htm

"The book has a provocative message, life-experiences sometimes differ from scientific agreements. The book is based on the personal experiences of (ex-) users and survivors of psychiatry and the few professionals helping people to come off psychiatric drugs. So it is a good place to begin the discussion. The book should be available in each medical practice, in each therapeutic ward, in each patients' library." (Pirkko Lahti, President of the World Federation for Mental Health)
"This book is a must read for anyone who might consider taking or not longer taking these mind altering legal drugs and perhaps even more so for those able to prescribe them." (Loren R. Mosher MD, Soteria Associates, San Diego)

Available from Patients Rights Advocacy, 65 Tawa St, Hamilton, New Zealand

Available from 65 Tawa Street, Hamilton Ph:07 8435 837
This handbook has been described by one member of PRAWI as a cornucopia of helpful and interesting information and is incredible value for money at only $10.00. The updated edition of 2005 is available now. Some of the subjects covered include information about PRAWI, information about specific drugs, effects of drugs, withdrawal, how to withdraw safely, resources, recommended books, coping with iatrogenesis (doctor induced injuries).


Psychological, Social and Biological Approaches to Schizophrenia
Edited by John Read (Director, Clinical Psychology, Psychology Dept., The University of Auckland) Loren Mosher (Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, University of California at San Diego) Richard Bentall (Professor of Experimental Clinical Psychology, Manchester University)
'Models of Madness' summarises the research showing that hallucinations and delusions are understandable reactions to life events and circumstances rather than symptoms of a biologically- based illness or genetic predisposition.
23 international contributors, from a range of disciplines including service users:

• critique the `medical model' of madness
• examine the dominance of the `illness" approach to understanding madness, from historical and economic perspective
• document the adverse role of drug companies
• outline a range of research-based psychosocial treatment approaches
• identify the urgency and possibility of the prevention of psychosis

'Models of Madness' promotes a more humane and effective response to treating severely distressed people that will prove essential reading for all those who work in, use, manage or research mental health services.
Click here for more information on this book.


ISBN 0-7434-9256-0
This book is described as a Consumer's guide to Avoiding Drug-Induced Death or Illness. It analyses 538 Drugs including 181 pills you should not use, and suggests safer alternatives. It is put together by the Public Citizen's Health Research Group, and appears to have been soundly researched. As this is an American book it does not cover some medications we use in New Zealand.
This book exposes some dangerous reactions some drugs can have if used together. It also recommends certain new drugs not be used for seven years as they have not been fully tested.
This book is an extremely useful one, if a little conservative at times,and a good source of information about drugs which has been gathered independently from financially-invested drug companies.


Lars Martensson, M.D.
ISBN 2-88462-039-7
'Deprived of Our Humanity' brings to light an immense human disaster. Neuroleptic drugs have replaced surgical lobotomy. These drugs act as a trap. As a result, millions of people live permanently lobotomised.
In this book neuroleptic survivors and doctors make the case against these horrible drugs.

This book is a collection of essays in easy to understand language. The book explains what neuroleptic drugs are, how they work, and their effects on the brain. It also contains information about how to taper off and stop taking neuroleptic drugs safely.
We learn about one women's experience in coming through psychosis without drugs and emerging after several years of support as a whole and well person, a survivor. The book tells us how 'schizophrenia' can be prevented. It makes a case that neuroleptic drugs should be banned, and talks about the human rights of patients.

A quote from page 136: "Today, if we dare ask the welfare state for even temporary help, relief, asylum, for ourselves or for somebody we care about, and thus turn to a psychiatric or related medical institution, the fact is that - as a condition of help - we have to give up control of what is done to the brain in our own or our loved one's head. This is an intolerable condition of help. It must be reversed by clear laws."


Ray Moynihan and Alan Cassels
ISBN: 0800554455
Three decades ago, the head of one of the world's leading drug companies made some remarkably candid comments. Wishing his company was more like the chewing gum maker Wrigley's, the chief executive of Merck said it had long been his dream to make drugs for healthy people, and 'sell to everyone'. That dream now drives the marketing machinery of one of the most profitable industries on the planet.

Using their dominating influence in medical science, drug companies are marketing fear in order to redefine human illness. In alliance with company-friendly doctors and sponsored patient groups, the all-powerful pharmaceutical industry is helping to widen the very definitions of disease, in order to expand markets for its drugs.

With compelling clarity, 'Selling Sickness' reveals how the ups and downs of daily life are becoming mental disorders, and common complaints are being transformed into frightening conditions. Shyness is Social Anxiety Disorder, PMS is a psychiatric illness called PMDD, and active children now have ADHD. As more and more ordinary people are turned into patients, drug companies move ever closer to that dream of selling to everyone.

Ray Moynihan is one of the world's leading health writers. His work has appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Melbourne Age, the Australian Financial Review, the British Medical Journal, the Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine. Alan Cassels is a Canadian researcher and writer who works on drug policy issues.


Joseph Glenmullen M.D.
One in every ten Americans have taken Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, or a similar antidepressant, yet very few patients are aware of the dangers of these drugs, nor are they aware that better, safer alternatives exist. Now Harvard Medical School's Dr Joseph Glenmullen documents the ominous long-term side effects associated with these and other serotonin-boosting medications. These side effects can include neurological disorders, such as disfiguring facial and whole-body tics that can indicate brain damage; sexual dysfunction in up to 60 percent of users; debilitating withdrawal symptoms, including visual hallucinations, electric shock-like sensations in the brain, dizziness, nausea, and anxiety; and a decrease of anti-depressant effectiveness in about 35% of long term users. In addition, Dr Glenmullen's research and riveting case studies shed shocking new light on the direct link between these drugs and suicide and violence.
Written by a doctor with impeccable credentials, 'Prozac Backlash' is filled with compelling, sometimes heartrending stories and is thoroughly documented with extensive scientific sources. It is both provocative and hopeful, a sound, reliable guide to the safe treatment of depression and other psychiatric problems.


Allan V. Horwitz
"This work is at once an accomplished social history and an original contribution to the literature on social and biological bases of mental illness. It should be of interest to specialists as well as to a substantial number of scholars in psychiatry and the history of medicines,", Barry Glassner, author of The Culture of Fear.

"Creating Mental Illness is a compelling and provocative book. Allan Horwitz's point of departure is the enormous change that has occurred over the past twenty-five years in psychiatry conceptions of mental illness. Why did this enormous change occur? Are the new conceptions valid? What are the consequences of these new conceptions for people's lives? What answers Horwitz provides derive from disciplined reasoning. They will stir you and change the way you think about this major cultural change we have all experienced. ", Bruce Link, Columbia University.

How did psychological problems generated by social conditions come to be considered disease? Horwitz's rigorous and insightful history of psychiatry's move to diagnostic categories of mental illness answers this and other fascinating questions about conceptions of mental illness. I highly recommend this book., John Mirowsky, Ohio State University


In Mad in America, medical journalist Robert Whitaker reveals an astounding truth: Schizophrenics in the United States currently fare worse than patients in the world’s poorest countries, and quite possibly worse than asylum patients did in the early 19th century.

Based on exhaustive research culled from old patient medical records, historical accounts, numerous interviews, and hundreds of government documents, Mad in America at last gives voice to generations of patients, demonstrating how the “cures” for severe mental illness have regularly served to deepen their suffering and impair their hope of recovery.

A haunting, deeply compassionate book, Mad in America raises important questions about our obligations to the mad, what it means to be “insane” and what we value most about the human mind.

Read more


Peter R Breggin, M.D.
Author of 'Talking Back to Prozac' and 'Your Drug May Be Your Problem'
What your Doctor won't tell you about Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa and Luvox

Millions of people take Prozac, Zoloft, Paxil, Celexa, Luvox, BuSpar, Effexor, and other antidepressants without knowing that

• They cause chemical imbalances in your brain
• They can make you more depressed and sometimes suicidal
• They can diminish your sexual function and drive you to bizarre actions, and even increase violence
• They can produce dangerous withdrawal reactions when you abruptly stop taking them

From how antidepressants work in the brain and how they treat (or don't treat) depression and obsessive-compulsive, panic, and other disorders to their little-known side and withdrawal effects and the disturbingly compromised FDA drug approval process, this invaluable guide presents the documented facts that your doctor might not know or think to tell you. Straight talking and up-to-the-minute, The 'Anti-Depressant Fact Book' will help you make your own informed health decisions; it is the book you must read before you fill your prescription.
$15 US/ $23 CAN


Peter R. Breggin, M.D. and David Cohen, Ph.D 1999 ISBN 0-7382-0184-7.
Peter R. Breggin and David Cohen openly challenge the expedient multi billion dollars chemical cartel head on, by presenting the latest scientific evidence on the terrible physical and psychological toxicities that irrevocably accrue from the most ubiquitously prescribed drugs such as Prozac, Ritalin to Valium. In lay language, Breggin and David Cohen introduce a common sense approach to the elimination of prescribed neurotoxic substances and provide viable alternatives which include the effective application of natural remedies like St. John's Wort initiating gradual recovery. This book exposes the shortcomings of psychiatric drugs and guides patients through the process of withdrawing from them.
Ground breaking and empowering, 'Your Drug May Be Your Problem' offers readers what they have long sought; a medically and psychologically sound program for freeing themselves from psychiatric drugs, emphasising throughout the importance for patients to keep control over the withdrawal process. This book could be a life saver.


Peter R Breggin, M.D. St Martin.s Press New York 1991
This new book, with its revelations is a winner! Written by an eminent psychiatrist, who is acknowledged as an expert lecturer and author on psychiatric issues, it is in simple, easy to read language which will be readily understood by 'the professional' and, of equal importance, also by lay readers. The aim of Dr Peter Breggin's book is to expose what is happening in psychiatry and to reveal that there is a far better way of treating our unfortunate fellow beings.

'Toxic Psychiatry' is written by an understanding psychiatrist who believes the mentally afflicted are real persons, human beings, or souls in struggle, who are worthy of something better than treatment by the drug and electroshock method. This book is available from the London bookshop, Hamilton NZ, or Pathfinders bookshop, Auckland NZ. Free Ph. 0800 55 44 55


Peter R Breggin, M.D. and Ginger Ross Breggin.
What doctors aren't telling you about today's most controversial drug.


Peter R. Breggin, M.D. and Ginger Ross Breggin.
How the drugs, programs and theories of the psychiatric establishment are threatening America's Children with a medical 'cure' for violence.


Peter Breggin, M.D.
This book by renowned psychiatrist Peter Breggin documents how psychiatric drugs and electroshock disable the brain. He presents the latest scientific information on potential brain dysfunction and dangerous behavioural abnormalities produced by the most widely used drugs including Prozac, Xanax, Halcion, Ritalin and Lithium.
David Cohen Ph.D. Professor of Social Services, University of Montreal said, "Once more Dr Breggin updated us on the real evidence with respect to the safety and effectiveness of the range of specific psychiatric medications and ECT. This information is needed by all mental health professionals, as well as patients and families, but it is never completely available in textbooks or drug advertising."


About Peter Breggin: graduate of Harvard College, Case Western Reserve Medical School, and a teaching fellowship at Harvard Medical School. Peter R Breggin, M.D., has become an internationally known psychiatrist and author of a dozen books, including the bestselling Talking Back to Prozac and Talking Back to Ritalin. A member of the faculty of the Johns Hopkins University Department of Counselling, he is the International Director of the Centre for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, which he founded in the early 70's. He lives in Bethesda, Maryland, USA.


Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson is a writer who lives with his family in New Zealand. He has been a professor at several universities in Canada and America. After serving as Projects Director of the Sigmund Freud Archives, he wrote a series of books critical of psychiatry and therapy.
Take a look at them on http://www.jeffreymasson.com/other-publications.html