Mother's Little Helper - The History of Amphetamine and Anti-Depressant Use in America

"Americans have swallowed it all," says author Charles Barber. "To say that we are the most medicated nation on earth is an absurd understatement. To say that we are the most psychiatrically medicated nation on earth is a prodigiously absurd understatement. Americans have the most luridly expensive urine in the world."

Bruce E. Levine is a practicing clinical psychologist since 1985. He believes a key to understanding depression is simple common sense — something he feels is often lost in professional training. "Depression is simply one of many human 'strategies' to shut down overwhelming pain," says Levine. "The price paid for the long-term reliance on depression is that it also shuts down energy, enthusiasm, sexual desire, concentration, memory and other cognitive skills, and can lead to guilt, hopelessness, problems in sleeping and eating, immobilization and thoughts of suicide."
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