The Mind and the Moon: My Brother's Story, the Science of Our Brains, and the Search for Our Psyches by Daniel Bergner

The Mind and the Moon: My Brother's Story, the Science of Our Brains, and the Search for Our Psyches Reviews

• 
  Avory Faucette

  The Mind and the Moon is a scathing takedown of Big Pharma and the role of the psychiatric profession in overmedicating and frankly abusing those labelled mentally ill or neurodivergent. It is also a personal story, including the author’s brother as one of the three individuals whose tales of suffering from psychiatric medications, diagnosis, and institutionalization he interweaves with a comprehensive history of how drugs targeting the brain were developed, sold, and approved despite limited knowledge of how they work and known severe side effects.
  
  While many of us are aware of the limits to scientific understanding of the brain, as well as the fact that antidepressants and other psychiatric medications are overprescribed in the United States, this book illuminates those facts and their context in a way that I found frankly a little terrifying. This book shocked out of the general attitude of “sigh, yeah, this isn’t great, but there’s not much we can do,” as I realized that maybe doctors know quite a lot less than we assume.
  
  While the neuroscientists studying ways to target these conditions remain doggedly optimistic, the fact that there is no structural indication of difference in neurodivergent and mentally ill brains raises some questions: why do we pathologize people who think differently? To what extent does environment play a role in mental health? Do these drugs really have an effect, or is it mostly placebo?
  
  What Bergner does particularly well is weave together different factors at play so the reader can get a clearer sense of why these drugs are so widely used and not questioned more than they are. I was surprised to learn that the “chemical imbalance” theory has pretty much no actual evidence, despite being confidently shared by any doctor I’ve spoken with about depression and anxiety. While the theory that some brains need drugs to “rebalance” their chemistry makes logical sense, the actual science is still pretty much a crapshoot—researchers don’t know why certain drugs work, and many in fact don’t work any better than placebo, but are still prescribed.
  
  Monetary interests are a big part of the picture, unsurprisingly, alongside a fair bit of cultural inertia. Other factors the book exposes include lax FDA regulation, straight-up corruption, a diagnostic model that has more to do with psychiatrists trying to prove their professions’ worth and give it scientific-sounding appeal than the actual needs of patients, family members looking for a simple explanation that takes the blame aware from their own behavior or genetics, and the impact of pharmaceutical direct advertising as well as advertising to doctors.
  
  In other words, there is a man behind the curtain who has no idea what he’s talking about, and the emperor is very, very naked.
  
  This isn’t a quick read, though given its broad scope I found it a compelling one. The three individual stories featured each have a particular lens that allow Bergner to discuss a different angle of this multi-layered problem, and that personal aspect keeps the writing from being too dry while also humanizing the arguments presented.
  
  My favorite “character” was a roller derby enthusiast and psychiatric survivor who has taken a major role in creating self-advocacy groups that avoid institutionalization and allow those who hear voices to actually talk about those voices without stigma. Bergner’s narrative shows that this approach to psychosis is actually much less likely to result in violence and harm than the standard of care that encourages patients to hide what they hear and take damaging medications to suppress their voices and sedate their bodies.
  
  I suspect many readers will relate to the way members of these support groups point to how fear of institutionalization prevents talking about suicidal thoughts—the very thing that is most likely to actually help a person having them. The aim of suicide prevention, especially within institutions, is so centralized that staff effectively torture people who might do just fine in another setting, in the name of avoiding suicide whether or not there is even a clear risk. Bergner showcases a few alternatives to this model and while none is perfect, perhaps, they do seem promising to further explore.
  
  The other two featured stories present similarly relatable themes. In one, a man put on anti-depressants for mild symptoms goes through absolute hell from the withdrawal symptoms, his narrative framed in time by its connection to the Trump debacle. Despite years of success as a civil rights attorney, withdrawal from a commonly-prescribed medication results in years of torment where he is unable to practice at the time he feels most needed, watching the country fall apart. The other, centered on Bergner’s brother, considers the relationship between artistic talent and mental illness as well as the role of the family environment. In doing so it really debunks the myth of the simple binary I grew up not questioning: treatment and mental health on the one hand vs. creative ability on the other.
  
  In all three of these stories, as well as others explored at less length, there is a sense that being odd or disruptive is dangerous, and nowhere more so than within a psychiatric institution. In an evidence-based world, there is no tolerance for perceptions that can’t be scientifically proven, and in a world obsessed with simply keeping people alive there’s no space for empathy or root cause investigation. Actual human strength and resilience is ignored, as casting patients as fragile serves the narrative. Similarly, the actual experiences of unmedicated patients are seen as irrelevant. Bergner’s writing brings a few of these patients metaphorically back to life as he wrestles with questions of the authentic self, decouples the brain and the mind, and considers neurodivergence as a kind of self-understanding that is denied by psychiatry (and institutions where neurodivergent friendships are seen as dangerous).
  
  I would recommend this book to anyone who wants a clearer and more comprehensive understanding of mental health in the United States, especially the use of psychiatric drugs, though with the word of caution that you’re likely to find yourself both moved and a little freaked out if you or someone you love has been prescribed drugs like these or placed in an institutional setting. For policy makers, it’s a must-read.
  
  (ARC provided by NetGalley.)
• 
  Jonathan

  I picked this up on the strength of an intriguing New York Times review but struggled to get into it. Soon after buying it, I found myself in a psychiatric hospital, surrounded by patients who have been dealing with many of the issues Bergner describes in this book. After that experience, I went back to the book, and was utterly captivated. Bergner succeeds in illuminating the history of psychiatric care in America with nuance and subtlety while sacrificing none of his story's power to sadden or shock. As someone with an uneasy relationship to medication (I am currently taking a medication mentioned several times here), I appreciated learning more about the toll of psychiatry's tunnel-vision focus on medication at the expense of humanity, while also digging deeper into the often intensely difficult journeys of those who seek peace outside of that system. Highly recommended.
• 
  Nelson Zagalo

  4.5/5
  
  Daniel Bergner realiza serviço público com este livro, “The Mind and the Moon” (2022), ao dar conta do modo como a medicina lida com a doença mental no século XXI. Bergner começa por relatar o horror de um passado não muito distante, dos primeiros hospícios às lobotomias de Egas Moniz, evidenciando que se muito mudou, mudou mais ainda com a secundarização de Freud e a atribuição total de primazia ao poder da química para alterar a biologia. Podemos pensar que tudo foi sendo feito em nome da evidência científica, os problemas começam quando essa não é tão evidente como a indústria farmaceutica quer fazer crer. Os problemas acontecem quando a evidência funciona apenas para uma parte da população, enquanto na outra não vai além de placebo. Os problemas acontecem quando parecendo que funciona acaba por ditar uma qualidade de vida pior do que aquela que existia na sua ausência. Senti por vezes algum receio em continuar a leitura por, em partes, o discurso roçar a teoria da conspiração. Mas, o facto de Bergner ter vários livros publicados, escrever para algumas revistas de referência internacional, e acima de tudo estar a dar conta, em parte, de memórias vividas ao lado de um irmão que passou os últimos 40 anos a lutar com a doença, faz com que nos disponhamos a continuar a ler. Bergner questiona tudo e todos sobre os tratamentos, quase exclusivamente assentes no químico, que oferecemos à doença mental, terminando apenas com uma certeza, a de que continuamos a saber muito pouco sobre o funcionamento da mente.
  
  continua no blog:
  
  https://virtual-illusion.blogspot.com...
• 
  Alison Dawson

  I’m giving this one of my very rare fives. As a psychiatric survivor with traumatic experiences with our mental health system, I loved this book. I knew some of the folks talked about in a peripheral way which definitely helped me engage with the characters. I cofounded a peer led agency like the one mentioned in Caroline’s story and I cofacilitate Alternatives to Suicide groups that are also discussed in this book and co founded by Caroline. I have seen the power of people with lived experience holding space for others with lived experience and what beauty can happen when us Mad people are treated with respect. With curiosity rather than fear. What happens when we can tell our stories without fear of police being called or forced interventions. It’s nothing short of miraculous and it has saved my life. I appreciated the author’s sensitivity with all of the people he discussed and, unlike another similar type book I read recently, he believed them. He doesn’t have this paternalistic skepticism towards Caroline’s or his brothers experiences that many of us expect from people writing or talking about this. I truly appreciated this book and I wish that it would become way more popular so that maybe folks can get more of the reality of what our current mental health system is and the many ways it harms and doesn’t help people at all. Also. I so related to David and I think my take away with his story is that there are no super happy endings, that we instead come towards some acceptance of our darknesses and try to forge through this life with brains that are out of the norm and that make it hard just to get through the day sometimes. I hope David is at least ok right now. Bravo to Daniel Bergner for writing such an important book!
• 
  BookStarRaven

  The Mind and the Moon by Daniel Bergner is an exploration into the experience of schizophrenia in the modern medical system. Bergner also explores themes of family, friendship, and the pitfalls of the mental health care system.
  
  Bergner’s brother David was diagnosed with schizophrenia at a young age. Bergner discusses his experience as a family member of someone diagnosed with schizophrenia as well as the history of psychiatric care.
  
  This is a topic that I usually enjoy, unfortunately, Bergner’s clunky writing distracted from the main messages of the book. There were many times where the narrative seemed irrelevant or overly descriptive and I found myself skimming the page to find the narrative thread. His sentences were often long and I had to reread them several times to understand his meaning.
• 
  Jodie Siu

  Mental health seems to be one of those fields where the pendulum swings wildly - from Freudian talk therapy to medication-as-panacea, and this book traces the arc of history of treating those with mental illness. Thought provoking and opened up a range of new insights for me. I've always taken it for granted that, of course, medication is the way to go. I had never considered the devastating side effects, the astounding lack of evidence that medication actually works (let alone an understanding of why), and the fascinating possibilities around acceptance of diversity. I don't live with mental illness, so am in no position to make judgments, but just found the new ways of thinking so intriguing. I also loved the deep and illuminating case histories that brought the science to life.
• 
  Jasmine

  good mix of personal testimony and scientific research hehe
• 
  Kamila

  An important new topic appearing in the media: an acknowledgement of how little we truly know about mental illness, and how we treat it. The study of the brain is still quite in its infancy, and the medication we use to manage the mind is a blunt tool.
  
  To me, the first ~100 pages are the most interesting, touching on the history of how we treat mental illness, and how the prescription of certain drugs proliferated. Until sometime in the late eighteenth century, patients at the psychiatric ward at Philadelphia's public hospital slept on straw mattresses in unheated basement cells, and a Sunday tradition for the Philadelphia public was to pay admittance to the basement to gawk at and taunt "the mad in their cages." Then there's the whole history of lobotomies, including the "less invasive" version which involved the surgeon sticking an ice pick through your eye socket. Antonio Moniz, who pioneered the lobotomy by drilling holes into patients' skulls and injecting pure alcohol to destroy links in the brain, won the Nobel Prize in 1949. What is gruesome or cruel shifts with the time and the culture—lobotomies were once cutting-edge science, much like eugenics and sterilization in the 1930s. Current practices deserve criticism too, particularly the over-prescription of medication that is earning Big Pharma mega-bucks while side effects are swept under the rug. Thorazine, for example, causes Parkinson's. And in the 1950s, the American Medical Association dropped its requirement that drug companies provide evidence for the claims they made in ads that ran in AMA-published journals; thanks to advertising, AMA revenue doubled within a decade. Drug companies could now directly influence the public via marketing, without needing to prove anything. Etc.
  
  Otherwise, my main criticism of the book is its mix of genres. It covers information such as the above, hopefully accurately fact-checked by the author (in the publishing industry, the author and not the publisher are responsible for fact-checking their work), but then dips in and out of memoir (the author's brother struggled with mental illness) and the personal narratives of two other people unrelated to him. It's a nonfiction memoir work of narrative journalism? I like the idea in theory but in practice I couldn't get into the rhythm of the author's style. Just one person's opinion.
• 
  bowiesbooks

  The Mind and the Moon by Daniel Bergner is a non-fiction book about mental health and medication. It follows three people in particular; his own brother, Bob, Caroline and David. Each person has been diagnosed with a mental illness and subsequently been given medication in an attempt to help. They all have unique stories and Bergner dives into the details of their experiences along with the deep and interesting history of medical drugs.
  
  The book begins with taking a look at the history of how mental illness was perceived and treated through-out time. He talks the reader through medical advances as well as the now frowned upon procedures such as lobotomies, which were common practice. I found this incredibly interesting and it absolutely set up the book for delving into more personal stories after the reader has learnt more about mental illnesses. A note that they’re is a lot of medication names and procedures talked about, but I felt that it was done so in a way that was understandable, even if you have no background in these subjects!
  
  Berger is very open that his inspiration for writing this book and quest to find out more about mediation and mental health was because of his brother, who was diagnosed as bipolar and was put on a locked ward as a young man. This led to his interest to other people like his brother who had been treated on various medications for years. I think this adds a personal aspect to the book which is absolutely felt. Although a lot of the writing was quite scientific, Bergner also included a personal atmosphere that made for a deeper, more meaningful, read.
  
  It set a great tone to be so factual and talk so in depth about the history of medication but to also add personal stories. As Bergner says; it’s easy to forget the individual when treating someone with a mental illness and many doctors first instinct is to treat it with medication. By highlighting three individuals stories and showing how different they are and also that medication impacted them negatively in some ways, underlines that no one persons experience will be the same and allows the reader to connect mental illness and medicalisation to real people such as Caroline, David and Bob.
  
  The book focuses on America (which was interesting to read as a Scot) and it’s problem with labelling people as mentally ill or neurodivergent only to immediately medicate them, even though these medications have some truly horrendous side effects. This is definitely a topic that I’d love to read more into and I’m really pleased that this book started this interest off for me.
  
  Overall, this is a greatly informative book and one that more people should read to grasp a greater understanding of mental illness and the medications used to treat it.
  
  Thank you so much for sending it to me Daniel!
• 
  Karen Prive

  In “The Mind and the Moon” Daniel Bergner deftly explores the failures of American psychiatry, by expertly researching the science, and through case studies of people who chose to treat their symptoms without medication.
  
  Bergner describes the “desperation” of psychiatrists to establish their practice as legitimate science, especially through the publication of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), which starting with the DSM-III provided concrete categorization of various disorders with the aim to standardize diagnosis and possibly treatment. What he doesn’t actually cover is the driving forces behind this legitimization, which include the demands of a health insurance industry loathe to pay for mental health treatment. Yet mental health challenges only sometimes fit is a straightforward fashion – my own challenges cross these lines, and my working diagnoses have changed over the years depending on the provider.
  
  For decades, the cause of psychosis has been assumed to be related to dopamine levels in the brain, and the favored treatment to be anti-psychotic medications designed to raise those levels. Second-generation (or atypical) anti-psychotics work on the same mechanism as Thorazine, originally introduced in 1952. Anti-psychotics often have intense side-effects, yet research on other treatments has been spotty and without significant gains. He looks at this, as well as the parallel serotonin-based medications for depression, through talking with several researchers and physicians.
  
  Unfortunately, Bergner looks only at psychiatry, and not psychotherapy. Of the mental health professionals, only psychiatrists and psychiatric nurse practitioners can prescribe medication, but psychologists, clinical social workers, and mental health counselors are trained specifically to provide therapeutic support. Some psychiatrists provide these services in addition to medication management. While Bergner addresses peer support positively, there is a lack of attention to another source of help that has no side effects.
  
  The book is not anti-psychiatry, although it may seem that its whole purpose is to malign a medical field that still falls short. Rather, I read this as a report on a practice that must develop new ideas for the treatment of mental health conditions. There was no singing from the rooftops to not take medication – there was singing about the importance of being more creative and kind about how we address each other, and not necessarily assuming medication will fix everything.
  
• 
  Rubiareads

  In The Mind and the Moon, author Daniel Bergner walks us through modern medicine's approach to treating mental illness, starting with bloodletting, progressing to lobotomies, and landing on the strange evolution of medical psychiatry - that is, the effort to understand the brain as an organ like any other, where the problem can be identified and fixed through medication. He educates on the history of scientific discovery as it relates to mental illness, which in many ways boils down to the mind versus the brain paradigm. Can Freud fix our feelings? Or can scientists medicate us into happiness? Ultimately, it seems medicine won out (as evidenced by all those Zoloft commercials on television), and he discusses the evolution of psychotropic drugs (and dang, have scientists discovered/tested/touted some intense medications). He talks about the role that major pharmaceutical companies have had in pushing the "medication will cure depression" agenda, even as the doctors and scientists he interviews admit that really, they don’t know what they’re doing at all. He presents this discussion through the story of his younger brother, Bob, who was committed to psych wards in the 1980s, as well as other folks he meets - David, Caroline, Chacku - who have endured their own experiences with efforts to treat mental illness and lived to tell the tale.
  
  I prefer books nonfiction books written by journalists and this one is no exception. Imagine taking a topic as academic as neurotransmitters and making it accessible and engaging. I found it so interesting to learn the history and science behind mental health treatment, but the real strength of this book is the application of those facts to the personal stories the author tells.
• 
  Pam

  The Mind and the Moon is me of the most riveting books I’ve read. I’m not in the medical field, so the first chapters giving historical data regarding drugs for the mentally ill and the psychiatrists who promoted them was a bit of a rough go. But those who were featured in the book who opted in the end to befriend their minds, forgoing extreme medications, were (are) inspirational and lend a shoulder to others with the same personality “disorders”. I read it via my library app, then bought it so I can go back and re-read the beginning chapters. I highly recommend this book!!
• 
  Tara Cignarella

  I truly enjoy reading psychology and self-help books and I was happy to accept a gifted copy of this book. The first half was truly engaging as the author incorporated real life stories of psychiatric patients (one is his brothers) along with a history of psychiatric medications. There was a wealth of very interesting data, a lot I did not know. The second half dragged a little but was still a good read.
  Recommended For: Those interested in psychology books.
  
• 
  Sève Verine

  Au début je me suis un peu mélangé les pinceaux au niveau de la temporalité. L'autrice passe du passé au présent sans prévenir et il m'a fallu un peu de temps pour m'y habituer. Toutefois, ça ne m'a pas trop perturbée. La plume est poétique et il faut bien avouer que ça aide à faire passer ce sujet douloureux et poignant. Je ne me suis pas spécialement attachées aux personnages, il manquait un petit quelque chose pour ça, mais j'ai été très touchée par leur histoire et leur combat !
• 
  Elaine Burnes

  The book is crazy interesting (no pun intended). Incendiary toward psychiatry and the psychopharmaceutical industry. They literally know their drugs are causing more harm than good but don’t care because it makes them money. Shades of tobacco, oil, and the Sacklers. The profiles are fascinating. Caroline with her voices, Daniel’s depression, the author’s brother Bob.
• 
  Jane

  This was a really interesting exploration of how we have used science to manage symptoms of mental illness throughout history. While weaving in the perspectives of various individuals who suffer from different forms of mental illness, Bergner used research and historically relevant information to portray the complexity of living with, embracing, and medicating mental illness.
• 
  Marla Dudak

  Audiobook. Really good, well researched, nonfiction book on mental illness. The author combines the science and history of the disease and intersperses the facts with three patient’s stories, one of whom is his brother. 👍🏻
• 
  Persephone Zephyr

  
  https://hc.a.bigcontent.io/v1/static/...
• 
  Kent Winward

  A good review on how we look at mental illness as a society and our rather dismal record of handling the human experience in all its varieties.
• 
  Melody

  The Mind and the Moon: My Brother's Story, the Science of Our Brains, and the Search for Our Psyches by Daniel Bergner is a well-written book about mental illness. It tells the story of Bergner's brother, who was diagnosed as bipolar. The author explores psychiatry, the pharmaceutical industry, and other treatment options. This book was extremely in depth, but it was still easy to understand. Thanks to NetGalley for the free digital review copy. All opinions are my own.
• 
  Taylor

  This book had so much potential in its description, but I found it hard to follow throughout. The author would have me, then he’d lose me. Then he’d have me again. Otherwise, the premise of the overmedication of psychological issues is fascinating and goes hand in hand with “How to Change Your Mind” by Michael Pollan.
• 
  Mfred

  Challenges the science behind mental illness and standard pharmaceutical treatments. At once eye-opening, engrossing, and also emotional.