Mind Fixers: Psychiatry’s Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness

Harrington (Reenchanted Science), a Harvard science history professor, lucidly and accessibly chronicles the search for mental illness’s elusive causes. The book’s three parts make up a “deep dive into our long effort to understand the biological basis of mental illness.” Part one examines the historical figures in this effort, such as German psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin and Swiss neurologist Adolf Meyer; part two covers investigations into the possible biological basis of schizophrenia, depression, and bipolar disorder; and part three focuses on historic errors that led to the current stalemate between pharmaceutical proponents and supporters of nonmedical, nondrug practices. Along the way, Harrington delves into the drug industry’s murkier corners, including how pharmaceutical executives in the 1990s tried to maximize the profitability of antipsychotics by marketing them to people without schizophrenia, and fascinatingly explores historic and mostly discarded treatments such as lobotomy, once touted as “soul surgery” by a credulous media. She concludes by offering a way forward for psychiatry, declaring that the field must “resist self-serving declarations of imminent breakthroughs and revolutions,” “make a virtue of modesty,” and share more of its power over patient treatment—such as to determine prescriptions—with nonmedical mental health professionals. Anyone interested in mental health care’s history and future will appreciate this informative and rewarding survey. (Apr.)