Charles Barber

Playboy.com intern Callie Enlow interviewed Yale University’s Charles Barber about his latest book, Comfortably Numb: How Psychiatry is Medicating a Nation.

The start of the interview:

PLAYBOY: Who did you write this book for?

BARBER: I think the natural audience is the people that have taken the drugs and have had a wide range of experiences on the drugs. I’ve also been contacted by a large number of their family members.

PLAYBOY: Some people don’t know the difference between a psychiatrist and a psychologist, not to mention a social worker and a counselor. Might that make it hard for people to seek appropriate treatment?

BARBER: That’s part of what I’m saying in the book. Therapists haven’t done a great job in marketing themselves. Most people who are drawn to the healing arts are not drawn to marketing themselves, and of course there’s not a product to push, like a pill.

PLAYBOY: Why have Prozac and other antidepressants have been so successful?

BARBER: In the early 90s, there was this sort of gee-whiz quality about anti-depressants. The previous generation of anti-depressants had much more side-effects and could be lethal in overdose. Prozac has much less side-effects and is basically non-lethal. We’ve been very quick to embrace this way of treating these illnesses and the rates of anti-depressant prescriptions continue to rise. The stigma of taking a pill has been largely eradicated. We’re drawn to quick fixes.

Read the entire Q & A.

--Marshal Zeringue