[frereubu]

Although this is largely correct, there was pushback when that book was published, mostly to do with Hari setting up straw men: https://www.theguardian.com/science/brain-flapping/2018/jan/...

"Now, if your baby dies at 10am, your doctor can diagnose you with a mental illness at 10.01am and start drugging you straight away."

While this is meant as an attack on the modern absence of the “grief exception”, where grief reactions are used to rule out depressive symptoms, it’s at best a staggering exaggeration, at worst an active fabrication to support a narrative. Grief is complex and the medical community is still not agreed on how to deal with it, but the idea that you can be diagnosed with a mental health issue after showing symptoms for one minute is ludicrous. People typically require weeks of symptoms to be officially diagnosed, to suggest otherwise can only damage the perception of medical professionals.

It's a nuanced critique that's worth reading - it's in agreement with a good deal of what Hari writes rather than just being a hatchet job. My take from it (as someone with an MA Honours in experimental psychology and a neuroscience MSc) is that in those parts of the book Hari is criticising outdated practices and opinions in the field that hardly exist any more, if at all.

Having said that, the pharmaceutical industry does have a lot to answer for...