Psychiatry Under the Influence: Institutional Corruption, Social Injury, and Prescriptions for Reform

“This is an extraordinary piece of work that should be read by every mental health professional, minimally. The book might also serve well as a supplemental advanced undergraduate or graduate textbook in a psychopathology or even a research methods class. Where research methods courses separate good from bad science, Whitaker and Cosgrove have now provided us with numerous examples of bad science to which we can now add, corrupt science.” (Fred Ernst, Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, Vol. 46, 2016)

"This timely book is a careful and thoughtful analysis of institutional and political influences on the way psychiatry works today, and it provides a scholarly exploration of a problem that has consequences for all of us. Whitaker and Cosgrove's passionate critique gives us the resources to develop solutions and to mobilize voices for an authentically liberating response to questions of mental health." - Ian Parker, Professor of Management, University of Leicester, UK

"Psychiatry Under the Influence is a thoughtful and well-researched exposé of the current framing of mental health and illness, using the lens of institutional corruption to examine the dual influence of psychiatry's financial ties to the pharmaceutical industry and professional protectionism. This is a profoundly humanistic critique of how the scientific evidence supporting newer psychiatric drug treatments could be so poor, yet have 'street cred'. This a 'must read' on the medicalization of modern life." - Barbara Mintzes, Faculty of Pharmacy, University of Sydney, Australia