Everything you need to know to ensure you have a "soft landing" as you come off antidepressants A guide to getting off SSRI antidepressants and starting your drug free life again, from Benjamin Kramer, best-selling author of "Brain Renovation". In this clear and concise guide, Benjamin Kramer gives you an easy to implement blueprint for coming off antidepressants such as SSRIs (Selective Serotonin Re-uptake Inhibitors) using a variety of little-known techniques and tips. With a scientifically-designed tapering plan, including the use of certain other drugs and supplements where required, you can avoid coming in for landing too hard and crashing. Done properly, you CAN have a soft landing off antidepressants. If you are reading this, you are probably taking one of the following drugs and have decided that it is time to slowly start tapering down - Prozac (Fluoxetine) Lexapro (Escitalopram) Zoloft (Sertraline) Effexor (Venlafaxine) Cymbalta (Duloxetine) Or one of the other atypical antidepressents such as mirtazapine (Remeron/Avanza), buspirone (Buspar), tianeptine (Stablon) or moclobemide (Aurorix) In his typical balanced style, Kramer does not tell you whether you should or shouldn't be on antidepressants. This is a decision for you and your doctor. Antidepressants help a lot of people around the world get their life back and regain the ability to enjoy living again. However, if the decision has been made to stop taking antidepressants, this book contains all the information you will need to succeed, including - - Planning ahead to maximize your chances of success - Lifestyle changes that may be required during and after the process of quitting - How to minimize the nasty effects of 'discontinuation syndrome', where your body takes time to adjust to life without the drug in your system - The correct nutrition to rebuild your brain - Recommended supplements to assist the process - Potential short term medication options to manage the acute phase ˃˃˃ Kramer doesn't promise it will be a walk in the park. However what he does make clear is that with a little effort and planning, you can regain your drug free life again.

This easy-to-read, inspirational and supportive guide is essential reading for anyone struggling to overcome prescription drug dependency. Drawn from the author's personal knowledge of coming off benzodiazepine tranquillisers and her experience as a counsellor, this book explores everything you need to know before, during and after withdrawal, from how to recognise the symptoms to how to manage them and make firm steps towards recovery. With a focus on recovery and empowerment, it provides all the practical and emotional support needed to help you cope and regain control. This book will be a lifeline for anyone taking or withdrawing from sleeping pills, other benzodiazepine tranquillisers and antidepressants. It will also equip family and friends to offer support and provide counsellors, psychotherapists, complementary therapists and other health professionals with invaluable insight critical to providing best care.

More than half of those who recover from depression will suffer a relapse within three years. This book helps readers beat these repeating cycles. It includes self-assessment tools, engaging exercises, and practical advice about antidepressant medication and psychotherapy. Readers will come away with everyday strategies for thinking realistically, having fun, and being physically well.

Even though statisticians report that more than 37 million Americans suffer from diagnosable social phobia, common sense suggests that nearly all of us have, at one time or another, had clammy palms and knocking knees because of an intimidating, uncomfortable social situation. The party where you donít know a single soul, the crowded lobby of a movie theatre, the presentation youíve been dreading for weeks-any of these have the potential to ruin your week without necessarily sending you to the psychiatristís couch. The ten simple exercises in this book help you shed your shyness and start socializing with confidence and Èlan. 10 Simple Solutions to Shyness examines shyness by symptoms: physical discomfort, anxious thoughts, and bothersome behaviors. Solutions follow, directly addressing all three. You can carry the book in a briefcase or purse for last minute support and extra confidence. Once the ten simple solutions are learned, they will become your constant companions, providing courage, poise, and composure whenever you need them most.

Now on Netflix as a 4-part documentary series! “Pollan keeps you turning the pages . . . cleareyed and assured.” —New York Times A #1 New York Times Bestseller, New York Times Book Review 10 Best Books of 2018, and New York Times Notable Book A brilliant and brave investigation into the medical and scientific revolution taking place around psychedelic drugs--and the spellbinding story of his own life-changing psychedelic experiences When Michael Pollan set out to research how LSD and psilocybin (the active ingredient in magic mushrooms) are being used to provide relief to people suffering from difficult-to-treat conditions such as depression, addiction and anxiety, he did not intend to write what is undoubtedly his most personal book. But upon discovering how these remarkable substances are improving the lives not only of the mentally ill but also of healthy people coming to grips with the challenges of everyday life, he decided to explore the landscape of the mind in the first person as well as the third. Thus began a singular adventure into various altered states of consciousness, along with a dive deep into both the latest brain science and the thriving underground community of psychedelic therapists. Pollan sifts the historical record to separate the truth about these mysterious drugs from the myths that have surrounded them since the 1960s, when a handful of psychedelic evangelists inadvertently catalyzed a powerful backlash against what was then a promising field of research. A unique and elegant blend of science, memoir, travel writing, history, and medicine, How to Change Your Mind is a triumph of participatory journalism. By turns dazzling and edifying, it is the gripping account of a journey to an exciting and unexpected new frontier in our understanding of the mind, the self, and our place in the world. The true subject of Pollan's "mental travelogue" is not just psychedelic drugs but also the eternal puzzle of human consciousness and how, in a world that offers us both suffering and joy, we can do our best to be fully present and find meaning in our lives.

From "the most powerful psychiatrist in America" (New York Times) and "the man who wrote the book on mental illness" (Wired), a deeply fascinating and urgently important critique of the widespread medicalization of normality Anyone living a full, rich life experiences ups and downs, stresses, disappointments, sorrows, and setbacks. These challenges are a normal part of being human, and they should not be treated as psychiatric disease. However, today millions of people who are really no more than "worried well" are being diagnosed as having a mental disorder and are receiving unnecessary treatment. In Saving Normal, Allen Frances, one of the world's most influential psychiatrists, warns that mislabeling everyday problems as mental illness has shocking implications for individuals and society: stigmatizing a healthy person as mentally ill leads to unnecessary, harmful medications, the narrowing of horizons, misallocation of medical resources, and draining of the budgets of families and the nation. We also shift responsibility for our mental well-being away from our own naturally resilient and self-healing brains, which have kept us sane for hundreds of thousands of years, and into the hands of "Big Pharma," who are reaping multi-billion-dollar profits. Frances cautions that the new edition of the "bible of psychiatry," the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5 (DSM-5), will turn our current diagnostic inflation into hyperinflation by converting millions of "normal" people into "mental patients." Alarmingly, in DSM-5, normal grief will become "Major Depressive Disorder"; the forgetting seen in old age is "Mild Neurocognitive Disorder"; temper tantrums are "Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder"; worrying about a medical illness is "Somatic Symptom Disorder"; gluttony is "Binge Eating Disorder"; and most of us will qualify for adult "Attention Deficit Disorder." What's more, all of these newly invented conditions will worsen the cruel paradox of the mental health industry: those who desperately need psychiatric help are left shamefully neglected, while the "worried well" are given the bulk of the treatment, often at their own detriment. Masterfully charting the history of psychiatric fads throughout history, Frances argues that whenever we arbitrarily label another aspect of the human condition a "disease," we further chip away at our human adaptability and diversity, dulling the full palette of what is normal and losing something fundamental of ourselves in the process. Saving Normal is a call to all of us to reclaim the full measure of our humanity.

Genre studies and genre approaches to literacy instruction continue to develop in many regions and from a widening variety of approaches. Genre has provided a key to understanding the varying literacy cultures of regions, disciplines, professions, and educational settings. GENRE IN A CHANGING WORLD provides a wide-ranging sampler of the remarkable variety of current work. The twenty-four chapters in this volume, reflecting the work of scholars in Europe, Australasia, and North and South America, were selected from the over 400 presentations at SIGET IV (the Fourth International Symposium on Genre Studies) held on the campus of UNISUL in Tubarão, Santa Catarina, Brazil in August 2007—the largest gathering on genre to that date. The chapters also represent a wide variety of approaches, including rhetoric, Systemic Functional Linguistics, media and critical cultural studies, sociology, phenomenology, enunciation theory, the Geneva school of educational sequences, cognitive psychology, relevance theory, sociocultural psychology, activity theory, Gestalt psychology, and schema theory. Sections are devoted to theoretical issues, studies of genres in the professions, studies of genre and media, teaching and learning genre, and writing across the curriculum. The broad selection of material in this volume displays the full range of contemporary genre studies and sets the ground for a next generation of work.