Hippocrates Cried

Reviews / Votes

"Dr. Taylor's Hippocrates Cried is an amazing read. Michael brings a wealth of history and clinical insights to bear on the evolution of psychiatry and the emergence of neuropsychiatry. Although billed as a book on the decline of American psychiatry, I found it to be an uplifting account of the emergence of neuropsychiatry and the benefits of marrying neuroscience with psychiatry and behavioral health. It is a provocative forward-looking history that
entertains, teaches, and provokes thought."
-- Jeffrey L. Cummings, MD, ScD, Director, Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health, Camille and Larry Ruvo Chair for Brain Health, Cleveland Clinic , Las Vegas, NV
"I found myself breaking into involuntary laugher at points in reading this manuscript, not because the stories are really funny - they are horrifying - but because they illustrate the failure of American psychiatry in the last third of the twentieth century... Doctor Taylor gives us a view from the trenches. He is actually a psychiatrist of great international distinction, and he says that the changes in psychiatry he describes here have been even more
worrying than we thought. One might have imagined that after the destruction of Freud's psychoanalysis, things would have gone well. Not a bit of it! The field's unhappy lurch towards cookbook diagnosis
and psychopharm simplehood have had a very unhappy influence on patient care. Taylor has experienced all this ringside over the last 45 years, and he is forceful, well-spoken, and amusing."
-- Dr. Edward Shorter, Professor of the History of Medicine, Professor of Psychiatry, Faculty of Medicine, University of Toronto, Ontario, Canada
"According to Michael Taylor, American psychiatry is on life support and fading fast. In this thoughtful and well-written book, Taylor details the grievous wounds inflicted on the profession first by Freudian theory and then by the pharmaceutical industry, but psychiatrists also have themselves to blame. Taylor champions neuropsychiatry and decries the deterioration of his profession over the past half century. Given his analysis, the ultimate integration of
psychiatry and neurology is inevitable and should be most welcome. This is a very useful book for anyone using psychiatrists, or wondering why they did."
-- Fuller Torrey, MD, Executive Director, Stanley Medical Research Institute, Chevy Chase, MD
"Dr. Taylor's stories may be emotionally charged and somewhat one-sided, but when he moves away from his own experiences and surveys the present state of psychiatry, he offers a sound critique of the pillars of American Psychiatry... His larger argument is convincing because it marshals evidence, not simply his own opinion. ... So read his anecdotes with an understanding of his frustration, and wait for Dr. Taylor's cooler analyses. The content of his arguments
are well worth consideration." --New York Journal of Books
"Whether Taylor is correct that biologically based neuropsychiatry will someday subsume psychiatry, his provocative book will give many clinicians and trainees considerable pause." --Publishers Weekly
"The book is written as if you are sitting with Dr. Taylor on his back porch, as he recounts his life. It is well written, frank, and clear. ... If it receives the attention it deserves, his laudable effort here would benefit humanity multiple times more than all the other pseudo-critiques of psychiatry combined." --Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica