{"schema_version":"bf_book_companion_v1","release_id":"20261010T034321Z-reviewed-full-unique-works","book":{"amazon_purchase_url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/0062229265?tag=bookfrontie00-20","asin":"0062229265","authors":["Allen Frances"],"book_id":"9780062229267","canonical_url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/saving-normal-9780062229267","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780062229267.jpg?v=d90461869c543449","description":"International Bestseller • \"An extraordinarily important book.\" —Marcia Angell, Harvard Medical School A deeply fascinating and urgently important critique of the widespread medicalization of normality, by \"one of the world's most prominent psychiatrists\" ( The Atlantic ) Anyone living a full, rich life experiences ups and downs, stresses, disappointments, sorrows, and setbacks. Today, however, millions of people who are really no more than \"worried well\" are being diagnosed as having a mental disorder and receiving unnecessary treatment. In Saving Normal , Allen Frances, one of the world's most influential psychiatrists, explains why stigmatizing a healthy person as mentally ill leads to unnecessary, harmful medications, the narrowing of horizons, the misallocation of medical resources, and the draining of the budgets of families and the nation. We also shift responsibility for our mental well-being away from our own naturally resilient brains and into the hands of \"Big Pharma,\" who are reaping multi-billion-dollar profits. Frances cautions that the newest edition of the \"bible of psychiatry,\" the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 ( DSM-5) , is turning our current diagnostic inflation into hyperinflation by converting millions of \"normal\" people into \"mental patients.\" Saving Normal is a call to all of us to reclaim the full measure of our humanity.","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9780062229267","publication_date":"20140812","publisher":"HarperCollins","slug":"saving-normal","subtitle":"An Insider's Revolt Against Out-of-control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life","title":"Saving Normal"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"PSY022050","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Schizophrenia","score":0.7709,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"PSY022030","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Bipolar Disorder","score":0.7496,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"PSY022080","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Personality Disorders","score":0.7488,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"PSY022050","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Schizophrenia","score":0.7709,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"PSY022030","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Bipolar Disorder","score":0.7496,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"PSY022080","confidence_band":"medium","label":"Personality Disorders","score":0.7488,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"MED039000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Medical History","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"MED050000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Medical Ethics","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"MED057000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Neuroscience","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"MED058180","confidence_band":"high","label":"Mental Health Nursing","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"MED074000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Doctor-Patient Relations","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"MED104000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Physician Practice","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"MED105000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Psychiatry / General","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"PSY000000","confidence_band":"high","label":"Psychology","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"Schizophrenia","score":0.7709,"slug":"schizophrenia"},{"label":"Bipolar Disorder","score":0.7496,"slug":"bipolar-disorder"},{"label":"Personality Disorders","score":0.7488,"slug":"personality-disorders"}],"reader_fit":["For readers interested in critiques of psychiatric overdiagnosis and medicalization"],"related_lists":[],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["Robert Whitaker"],"book_id":"9780307452429","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780307452429.jpg?v=9fd102170c58a8da","score":0.7346,"title":"Anatomy of an Epidemic","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780307452429"},{"authors":["McNally"],"book_id":"9780674066205","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780674066205.jpg?v=02fd9f400eb88d69","score":0.708,"title":"What Is Mental Illness?","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780674066205"},{"authors":["Robert Chapman"],"book_id":"9780745348667","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780745348667.jpg?v=c360d77adfb87327","score":0.6973,"title":"Empire of Normality","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780745348667"},{"authors":["Ron Powers"],"book_id":"9780316341134","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780316341134.jpg?v=48681e0ca96992ff","score":0.6941,"title":"No One Cares About Crazy People","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780316341134"},{"authors":["Paul Lysaker","John Lysaker","John T. 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Lieberman","Simon & Schuster Audio","& 0 more"],"book_id":"9781982136437","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781982136437.jpg?v=842e63e21a782171","score":0.6922,"title":"Malady of the Mind","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781982136437"},{"authors":["Robert Whitaker"],"book_id":"9781541618060","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781541618060.jpg?v=56c7bbe66c503c35","score":0.6856,"title":"Mad in America","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781541618060"},{"authors":["Anne Harrington"],"book_id":"9780393358063","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780393358063.jpg?v=e8655c58d255fae5","score":0.6836,"title":"Mind Fixers","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780393358063"}],"topics":[{"evidence_refs":["keyword:history of psychiatry"],"label":"History","score":0.4536,"slug":"history"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:historical analysis"],"label":"Historical","score":0.1137,"slug":"historical"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:medicalization of ordinary life"],"label":"Life","score":0.0567,"slug":"life"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:call to action"],"label":"Action","score":0.0371,"slug":"action"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:mental disorder"],"label":"Mental","score":0.0313,"slug":"mental"}],"what_you_get":["Themes: Medicalization of normality, Psychiatric diagnostic inflation, Pharmaceutical influence.","Themes: History, Historical, Life.","Reading lane: Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder."]},"llm_signals":{"confidence":0.91,"pacing":"unknown","reader_fit":["For readers interested in critiques of psychiatric overdiagnosis and medicalization"],"themes":["Medicalization of normality","Psychiatric diagnostic inflation","Pharmaceutical influence"],"tropes":[]},"source_presence":{"amazon":true,"book_detail":true,"goodreads":true,"llm_signals":true,"similarity_seed":true},"stats":{"amazon_ratings_count":583,"goodreads_ratings_count":1840,"goodreads_reviews_count":222,"quality_score":0.9416}}