Cultural forces shape much of medicine including  psychiatry, and medicine shapes much of our culture. Medicine provides  us with beneficial treatments of disease, but it also causes harm,  increasingly so in the form of overmedication enhanced by the  pharmaceutical industry. The book explores boundaries of medicine and  psychiatry in a cultural setting by building bridges between  unconnected literatures. Boundaries have to be redrawn since effects  of the environment, biological, social and political, on health and  disease are undervalued. Potential beneficial effects of diet  therapies are a recurrent theme throughout the text, with particular  emphasis on omega-3 fatty acids. Deficiencies of these acids in common  diets may contribute to many chronic diseases and psychiatric  disorders. The book uncovers limitations of evidence-based medicine,  which fosters a restrictive view of health and disease. Case studies  include: the biology of migraine; limitations of biological  psychiatry; conventional versus alternative medicine; science,  religion and near-death experiences.

Beyond Boundaries of Biomedicine: Pragmatic Perspectives on Health and Disease (At the Interface Probing the Boundaries 4) PDF

The list of books you might like