Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good by James Davies

Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good is a book by James Davies. It is presented as a critical, general-readership examination of modern psychiatry and the psychiatric drug industry.

Key details

• Author: James Davies
• Discusses the scale of psychiatric drug prescribing, including antidepressant prescriptions in the UK
• References changes in the number of recognised mental disorders from 1952 to the present
• Examines claims about the medicalisation of everyday difficulties into treatable illnesses
• Raises concerns about drug trials, research practices, and pharmaceutical influence on prescribing

Synopsis

In Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good, psychological therapist James Davies questions why psychiatry has become such a significant business and why psychiatric medication is prescribed so widely. He points to figures on antidepressant prescribing in the UK and highlights an increase in the number of defined mental disorders over time, arguing that ordinary life setbacks are increasingly framed as medical conditions requiring treatment.

Davies sets out a series of allegations about how evidence is handled and presented, including claims that negative drug trials are buried, that antidepressants perform no better than placebos, and that research is manipulated to generate positive outcomes. The book also argues that pharmaceutical incentives influence doctors, contributing to the creation of more disorders and higher prescribing, while ethical, scientific, and treatment flaws are concealed through mass marketing.