MARCH 2018 - AudioFile
Psychologist Lauren Slater presents a fascinating history of psychiatry and psychopharmacology juxtaposed with anecdotes of her own struggles with mental illness. Betsy Foldes-Meiman's clear, down-to-earth narration complements the author's personal approach to her subject, which brings to bear her professional background in the field of psychology and her personal mental history. She describes her own mental disturbances in evocative detail and raises intriguing questions about the effectiveness of psychiatric drugs as well as their long-term effects. The well-paced narration aids the listener in following the myriad historical events and scientific details. S.E.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
The New York Times Book Review - Maggie Jones
The story of Slater's attempts to get and stay well weaves throughout Blue Dreams: The Science and the Story of the Drugs That Changed Our Minds and provides some of the book's most poignant and lyrical writing. Just as important, her experience makes her a convincing travel guide into the history, creation and future of psychotropics. She is, understandably, not an uncritical cheerleader. But she resists the facile role of hard-charging prosecutor.
The New York Times - Parul Sehgal
In Blue Dreams, a capacious and rigorous history of psychopharmacology…Lauren Slater looks at the fact that despite our ravenous appetite for psychotropic medications (about 20 percent of Americans take some psychotropic drug or other), doctors don't really understand how they work or how to assess if a patient needs them…Blue Dreams arrives in the thick of a debate about the pharmaceutical approach to mental health, and synthesizes forceful critiques from Gary Greenberg, Irving Kirsch and Robert Whitaker, among others. Slater is pithy, readable and generally fair…Blue Dreams, like all good histories of medicine, reveals healing to be art as much as science. Slater doesn't demonize the imperfect remedies of the past or present—even as she describes their costs with blunt severity.
Publishers Weekly
01/15/2018
Psychologist Slater (Playing House) runs through the checkered history of psychopharmacology and mental illness treatments while sharing her own battle with depression and medication in this ambitious work. Slater begins with psychiatry’s first blockbuster drug, Thorazine, which was developed in the early 1950s and seemed to free patients “locked inside psychotic states.” She moves on to discuss the clinical and financial successes of lithium, tricyclic antidepressants, and Prozac and other selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs). Slater also relates her own experience with an extensive list of prescriptions and their physical toll on her health, wondering whether she’d have been better off without them: “For thirty-five years, then, I have been trying to soothe my brain with psychiatry’s medicines, but I cannot confidently claim that I am better because of it.” She even questions whether “the pill to cure depression was in fact causing it,” noting the skyrocketing rate of diagnoses since the introduction of antidepressants. In Slater’s view, psychedelics will lead to “our next golden era of psychopharmacology,” along with neural implants that provide a “malleable and reversible form of psychosurgery.” Slater offers many insights here, and her moving personal story truly illuminates the triumphs and shortcomings of psychotropic drugs. Agent: Dorian Karchmar, WME. (Feb.)
From the Publisher
"In her informative and detailed new book, Blue Dreams, Lauren Slater traces the meandering, mercurial history of psychiatric drug discovery...She is at her most prescient when discussing Prozac, from its initial promise to its saturation of American culture...Slater also helps to further debunk the 'chemical imbalance' myth of mental illness, citing 'the paucity of evidence' supporting the role of neurotransmitters in depression...The most moving and ultimately most compelling parts of Blue Dreams are those where Slater recounts her harrowing history of drug treatment for bipolar illness. Here she illuminates the long-term physical effects of these medications, a subject rarely addressed in the psychiatrist's office...Slater wisely points out that anyone who ingests a pill for the treatment of, say, depression or anxiety or psychosis is essentially introducing a foreign substance into the brain. And yet, she goes on to say, what would you have people with a serious mental illness do? There are surely untold numbers of those who, without the benefit of a drug for their mental illness, would be dead. Slater considers herself one of them. In details both lyrical and crushingly painful, Slater describes her lifelong struggle with what Winston Churchill called the 'black dog' of depression. There is the nightmarish daydream of a sun that burns day and night, that never sets, leaving her 'trapped in a white hysterical light.'...Blue Dreams is a raw and honest memoir, and frankly one of the few that show the truly dark side of medication—even as that medication saves lives."—Amy Ellis Nutt, Washington Post
"Striking . . . Slater, a writer and psychologist, takes a skeptical yet compassionate approach to the history of psychopharmacology, one shaped by her own experience as a patient . . . Blue Dreams is a vivid and thought-provoking synthesis."—Lidija Haas, Harper's
"Poignant and lyrical...Slater's experience makes her a convincing travel guide into the history, creation and future of psychotropics."—Maggie Jones, New York Times Book Review
"In this gonzo examination of the messy history and brave future of psychotropic drugs, writer and psychologist Slater sifts through the remedies one in five Americans relies on but knows little about—even breaking into an abandoned asylum in her quest."—Natalie Beach, O Magazine
"Ambitious...Slater understands neuroscience in far greater detail than the average patient. This allows her to bounce between first-person narrative and historical survey... Her depictions of madness are terrifying and fascinating—she vividly details her own mental breakdown with bracing candor—and she brings something new to a well-worn genre...Blue Dreams provides a useful entry point for patients with mental illness and their families, and fills in many of the gaps that doctors fail to address in the course of a routine consultation—and does so with uncommon honesty."—Matt McCarthy, USA Today
"Slater has taken many psychiatric drugs over thirty-five years, and in this engagingly personal book, she explores the success and the side effects they engender."—Tom Beer, Newsday
"Slater suggests that it's tempting—but wrong—to think of modern medicine as a system of elegant cures that have replaced the crude treatments of the past. In psychiatry, she says, the latest techniques aren't necessarily better than the older ones."—JM Olejarz, Harvard Business Review
"With the experience of a patient, the heart of a storyteller, and the lens of a scientist, Lauren Slater chronicles the evolving, perplexing relationship between the physical and the mental."—David Eagleman , New York Times bestselling author of Incognito: The Secret Lives of theBrain and host of PBS's The Brain
"A profound and essential look at a phenomenon of our times. Meticulously researched, Blue Dreams is also a deeply moving personal investigation into the drugs so many of us rely upon for our survival. Lauren Slater is much more than a trusted guide: she's a brave and eloquent companion who doesn't shy away from controversy. You'll be talking and thinking about Blue Dreams long after you've read it."—Terri Cheney, New York Times bestselling author of Manic
"Thought-provoking...Enlightening...In this ambitious undertaking, Slater applies vigorous research and intimate reflection to the issues involved with treating mental suffering...Ultimately, the author finds great hope...A highly compelling assessment of the role of psychotropic drugs in the treatment of mental-health issues."—Kirkus Reviews
"Weaving together the history of psychopharmacology and her personal experience as a patient, Slater offers readers a candid and compelling glimpse at life on psychiatric drugs and the science behind them . . . Intriguing and instructive."—Tony Miksanek, Booklist
"Slater offers many insights here, and her moving personal story truly illuminates the triumphs and shortcomings of psychotropic drugs."—Publishers Weekly
"Mixing memoir, history, and medical reporting, she brings a deep appreciation of all the hope that has gone into these drugs, both among those who make them and those who take them."—Ben Kafka, Bookforum
Praise for Lauren Slater
"An enormously poetic and ebullient writer." —Elle
"Slater is more poet than narrator, more philosopher than psychologist, more artist than doctor . . . Every page brims with beautifully rendered images of thoughts, feelings, emotional states."—SanFrancisco Chronicle
"Brutally honest and brave . . . Slater reminds us that a writer's true gift—and power—lies in the ability to generously turn what seems like a specific experience into a universal one."—EntertainmentWeekly
"The closest thing we have to a doyenne of psychiatric disorder."—Village Voice
"The beauty of Lauren Slater's prose is shocking . . . Slater's vision is, ultimately, one of unity and possibility."—ClaireMessud, Newsday
"Smart, charming, iconoclastic, and inquisitive."—Peter Kramer, author of Listening to Prozac
"Engaging, provocative, and even fun."—NewEngland Journal of Medicine
Library Journal
10/01/2017
Who better than the author of Prozac Diary to offer a thoroughgoing history of psychotropic drugs? Science writer Slater tracks back nearly 70 years to Thorazine and lithium, then moves through Prozac and antidepressants to Ecstasy and the new memory drugs, discussing their discovery, their use, and everything we don't know about how they work and indeed how our brains function. With a 100,000-copy first printing.
MARCH 2018 - AudioFile
Psychologist Lauren Slater presents a fascinating history of psychiatry and psychopharmacology juxtaposed with anecdotes of her own struggles with mental illness. Betsy Foldes-Meiman's clear, down-to-earth narration complements the author's personal approach to her subject, which brings to bear her professional background in the field of psychology and her personal mental history. She describes her own mental disturbances in evocative detail and raises intriguing questions about the effectiveness of psychiatric drugs as well as their long-term effects. The well-paced narration aids the listener in following the myriad historical events and scientific details. S.E.G. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award © AudioFile 2018, Portland, Maine
Kirkus Reviews
2017-11-28
A history and personal exploration of psychotropic drugs and medical procedures for treating mental illness and depression.In this ambitious undertaking, psychologist Slater (Playing House: Notes of a Reluctant Mother, 2013, etc.) applies vigorous research and intimate reflection to the issues involved with treating mental suffering. Along the way, she asserts thought-provoking yet potentially controversial views and conclusions. The author is open about her long-standing struggles with depression. "My adulthood," she writes, "has been marked—marred—by periodic depressions preceded by stupid, inane manias." She is also fairly transparent about her agenda: "I wrote this book in part so I could examine some of the drugs I take, and others I never have. I wrote it in part hoping I would find, in my research, that there really are physical substrates to mental suffering." Through stories, case studies, and scientific investigation, Slater considers a broad spectrum of treatments used over the last century. The author includes discussions of the early successes of Thorazine and Lithium; early antidepressants, including the phenomenon of Prozac and her lengthy experiences with that medication; some enlightening examples of positive placebo tests and startlingly effective experiments with hallucinogenic drugs; and an overview of the evolution of relevant medical procedures, including "neural implants, the only malleable and reversible form of psychosurgery." Slater also confronts the shockingly random nature of decision-making processes within the medical and pharmaceutical communities, whether in the development of psychotropic drugs, the prescribed treatments, or the actual diagnosis of the various psychological disorders. Ultimately, the author finds great hope in hallucinogens such as LSD, "magic mushrooms," and MDMA. "The psychedelics allow patients stuck in self-destructive patterns of thought or behavior to view themselves and their role in the universe in a radically different light," she writes. "They appear to illuminate death, or the limit of life, and in so doing to underscore its preciousness."A highly compelling, only occasionally overstated assessment of the role of psychotropic drugs in the treatment of mental health issues.
