Commonsense Rebellion

In recent years the mental health industry has been attacked for the invalidity of its illnesses, the unreliability of its diagnoses, the dangers of its treatments, and its corruption by drug companies. "Commonsense Rebellion" integrates those critiques and goes further. Nearly one in four American adults are on psychiatric drugs, and Ritalin production has increased 800 percent since 1990, yet the mental health industry laments the fact that two-thirds of us with diagnosable mental disorders do not seek treatment. This title argues that "institutional mental health's" ever-increasing diseases, disorders, and drugs have diverted us from examining an important rebellion. This rebellion - mainly passive and too often self-destructive - is against an increasingly impersonal and coercive "institutional society." Institutional society's worship of speed, power, and technology has created fantastic wealth - at least for some of us - but its disregard for human autonomy, community, and diversity has come with a cost. Depression has reportedly increased tenfold since 1900, and suicide levels for teenage boys have tripled since 1960. Have human genetics and serotonin levels changed that much, or has society?