A Special Evening with Robert Whitaker
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
The First Unitarian Church • 1101 SW 12th Ave • Portland, OR
A Journey of Transformation and Inspiration
7:00 – 9:00 PM: “Where We’ve Been and Where We’re Going” Main Street Sanctuary
$5 – $20 donation requested * – No one turned away for lack of funds.
Join us in the celebration of two extraordinary years since the publication of Robert Whitaker’s award winning book, Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America. Whitaker has spent the two years traveling the United States, Canada, Europe and New Zealand having been invited by scientists, psychiatrists, health care workers, government officials and mental health survivors and activists to support, defend and expand on the validity of his work. In these two years, Whitaker and his book have continued to lay a firm, scientifically based and inspirational foundation for the transformation of the existing mental health system into a more holistic, hopeful and effective one.
Award Winner for best investigative journalism
In April 2011, Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE) presented Anatomy of an Epidemic its award as the best investigative journalism book of 2010.
This eye-opening investigation of the pharmaceutical industry and its relationship with the medical system lays out troubling evidence that the very medications prescribed for mental illness may, in increasing measure, be part of the problem. Whitaker marshals evidence to suggest medications “increase the risk that a person will become disabled” permanently by disorders such as depression, bipolar illness and schizophrenia. This book provides an in-depth exploration of medical studies and science and intersperses compelling anecdotal examples. In the end, Whitaker punches holes in the conventional wisdom of treatment of mental illness with drugs.
See Robert Whitaker’s talk at ISEPP. click here
* All proceeds go to fund Rethinking Psychiatry events. For more information, call Marcia Meyers at 503-665-3957.