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The problem with pills: The Octopus Man, by Jasper Gibson, reviewed

16 January 2021

9:00 AM

16 January 2021

9:00 AM

The Octopus Man Jasper Gibson

Weidenfeld & Nicolson, pp.368, 14.99

Having a breakdown? Try this pill, or that — or these? Built on the 1950s myth of a chemical imbalance in the brain, long since debunked, modern psychiatry still pours pills on trauma. While their general mechanisms are hypothesised, the specific consequences of different psychotropic drugs for individual brains remain haphazard.

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