Concise Handbook of Psychoactive Herbs: Medicinal Herbs for Treating Psychological and Neurological Problems

by Marcello Spinella

Overview

Find out how plant-derived drugs react with your brain to produce either healing or harmful results!

The Concise Handbook of Psychoactive Herbs will give you a better understanding of herbal products that have psychological effects. The book explores how they work, how effective they are, and what is known about their safety. Geared towards non-specialist professionals and curious individuals, this guide shows how herbal preparations can affect the brain, mental state, and behavior of a user and includes treatment methods, tables, illustrations, a glossary, and a bibliography.

The Concise Handbook of Psychoactive Herbs contains chapters on several types of psychoactive herbs, including:

• stimulants
  
• cognition-enhancers
  
• sedatives
  
• painkillers
  
• hallucinogens
  

With the Concise Handbook of Psychoactive Herbs, you’ll examine the effects of psychoactive drugs on the nervous systemboth positive and negative. Each chapter discusses a type of herbal medicine, its action on the brain and other systems of the body, side effects, and the potential for addiction. The book closely examines possible drug interactions with prescription medications and emphasizes the caution you need to take when using herbal health products.

In the Concise Handbook of Psychoactive Herbs you will learn about the psychoactive actions of such medicinal plants as:

• coffee
  
• tobacco
  
• cannabis
  
• ginseng
  
• chamomile
  
• cocoa
  
• opium poppy
  
• peyote
  
• gingko biloba

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781135422455
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	10/31/2013
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	296
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Marcello Spinella

Table of Contents

• Chapter 1. Introduction
  
• Plants As Medicines
  
• The Use of Herbal Medicines
  
• Why Do Plants Make Drugs?
  
• How Humans Came to Use Herbal Medicines
  
• The Science of Herbal Medicines
  
• Summary
  
• Chapter 2. How the Brain Works
  
• Mind, Brain, and Behavior
  
• Communication in and Between Neurons
  
• Structure of the Nervous System
  
• Chapter 3. How Drugs Work
  
• How the Body Affects Drugs
  
• How Drugs Affect the Body
  
• Relationships Between Drug Doses and Effects
  
• Chapter 4. Stimulant Herbs
  
• Pharmaceutical Stimulants
  
• Caffeine Stimulants
  
• Tobacco and Tobacco-Like Stimulants
  
• Amphetamine-Like Stimulants
  
• Summary
  
• Chapter 5. Cognition-Enhancing Herbs
  
• Discussion and Treatment of Dementia
  
• Ginkgo
  
• Ginseng
  
• Tobacco
  
• Solanaceous Vegetables: Tomato, Potato, and Eggplant
  
• Discussion and Treatment of Parkinson’s Disease
  
• Fava Beans
  
• Summary
  
• Chapter 6. Sedative and Anti-Anxiety Herbs
  
• The Problem of Anxiety
  
• Insomnia
  
• The Structure of Sleep
  
• Central Nervous System Depressants
  
• Valerian
  
• Kava
  
• Passionflower
  
• Chamomile
  
• Other Reputed Sedative Herbs
  
• Summary
  
• Chapter 7. Herbs for Mental Illnesses
  
• The Era of Psychotherapeutic Drugs
  
• Depression and Anxiety
  
• St. John’s Wort
  
• Ginger
  
• Ginkgo
  
• Schizophrenia and Psychosis
  
• Chapter 8. Herbal Painkillers
  
• What Is Pain?
  
• The Pain Systems
  
• The Analgesia System
  
• Herbal Analgesics
  
• Opium Poppy
  
• Myrrh
  
• Willow
  
• Meadowsweet
  
• Feverfew
  
• Ginger
  
• Chili Peppers
  
• Stimulant Analgesics
  
• Local Anesthetic Herbs
  
• Chapter 9. Herbal Hallucinogens
  
• What to Call Them?
  
• The Historical Uses of Hallucinogenic Plants
  
• LSD-Like Hallucinogens
  
• Collective Issues with LSD-Like Hallucinogens
  
• The Nightshade Hallucinogens
  
• Fly Agaric
  
• Chapter 10. Cannabis
  
• History
  
• Cannabis and the Human Body
  
• Cannabis Addiction
  
• Therapeutic Uses of Cannabis
  
• Summary
  
• Chapter 11. Use, Abuse, and Addiction
  
• Definitions
  
• Evolutionary Basis for Drug Abuse
  
• Psychological Perspective
  
• Addiction in the Brain
  
• Are Addictions Limited to Drugs?
  
• Treatment
  
• Treatment Methods
  
• Prevention
  
• Conclusions
  
• Glossary
  
• Bibliography
  
• Index
  
• Reference Notes Included
  

What People are Saying About This

David A. Baron

David A. Baron, DO, MSEd, Professor and Chair, Department of Psychiatry, Temple University School of Medicine
A SCIENTIFICALLY SOUND INTRODUCTION TO THE ROLE OF HERBS IN MENTAL HEALTH. This well-written book provides AN INFORMATIVE OVERVIEW OF THE TOPIC. It offers an unbiased view of the current state of knowledge of various herbs and their potential psychoactive properties. Dr. Spinella clearly differentiates folklore from proven clinical fact, highlighting the importance of well-designed clinical trials to determine the effectiveness of any compound thought to affect mood and behavior.

Edzard Ernst MD PhD

Edzard Ernst, MD, PhD, FRCP, Professor of Complementary Medicine, Peninsula Medical School, Exeter, Devon, United Kingdom
MUCH-NEEDED. . . A VALUABLE REFERENCE TEXT FOR HERBALISTS, PHYSICIANS, RESEARCHERS, POLICY MAKERS, and all other professionals with an interest in this area. . . . Provides the reader with the essential background about psychoactive herbs. This is an outstanding summary that covers commonly used herbal supplements such as ginseng as well as the more exotic plant-based options such as hallucinogenic mushrooms.

Editorial Reviews

2 Stars from Doody

Reviewer: Steven T Herron, MD (CPI/Assurance Health and Wellness)
Description: This book covers various herbal remedies used by an increasing number of practitioners in different areas of mental health treatment.
Purpose: Meant to educate those in the profession of assessing and treating mental illness, this book addresses various types of herbal substances utilizing their effect (i.e. "Cognitive-Enhancing Herbs") as a means of classification.
Audience: Due to its simplistic structure and content, this book is written primarily for the novice in the area of understanding psychoactive substances and using them in clinical practice.
Features: The first portion of the book addresses the basics of herbal supplements and provides quite elementary descriptions of how the brain and medications work. The remainder of the book is separated into the specific uses for the particular herbal substances, including topic such as "herbal painkillers" and "sedative and anti-anxiety herbs." There are some crudely drawn representations of particular plants, as well as some tables and diagrams for clarification.
Assessment: Clearly, mental health professionals need to become better educated about the use of herbal remedies, as many of our patients are turning to their use with, or without, their providers' knowledge. Unfortunately, this book falls significantly short in its effort to provide advanced information for most clinicians. While it may be useful for students or those with little clinical experience, it does not provide the depth or substance often required by those seeing patients for which these questions arise. One example of the book's incomplete data is the author neglect of current antidepressants such as Escitalopram or Duloxetine. In addition, a table identifying the drug interactions between the herbal substances and "manufactured" medications would also be quite useful, but is absent, making it necessary for the reader to find the information someplace else.

Doody's Review Service