Breaking News!

An excerpt from SONGS FROM THE BLACK CHAIR, called "The Weight of Spoons", will be published in AMERICAN LIVES: A READER, Edited by Alicia Christensen and with an Introduction by Tobias Wolff. Purchase from University of Nebraska Press or Amazon.

Read Charlie's latest article for Salon.com, "Are we really so miserable?"

Comfortably Numb has been nominated for the Connecticut Book Award.

Charlie was recently on WNPR - Connecticut Public Radio - read more and download the episode.

Charlie is now a regular blogger for the HUFFINGTON POST.
Read his latest entry here.

Recent News:

• VINTAGE BOOKS has released the paperback edition of COMFORTABLY NUMB, as of February 10, 2009.
  
• Charlie wrote about his top five mental health books for Amazon.com.
• Charlie was on National Public Radio's FRESH AIR, click here to listen.

Tour:
Over the last year and a half, I’ve been privileged to be on an extended book tour, which has brought me to New York City, Boston, Washington D.C., Miami, Chicago, Nebraska, Iowa, Montana, Vermont, Montreal, San Francisco and Seattle. I’ve spoken at medical schools, universities, advocacy organizations and social service agencies.

About the Book:
Public perceptions of mental health issues have changed dramatically over the last fifteen years, and nowhere is this more apparent than in the rampant
over-medicalization of ordinary Americans. In 2006, 227 million antidepressant prescriptions were dispensed in this country, more than any other class of medication; in that same year, two-thirds of the money spent globally on
antidepressants was accounted for by the United States. In Comfortably Numb, Charles Barber provides a much-needed context for this disturbing phenomenon.

Barber explores the ways in which the drug companies first create a need for a drug and then rush to fill it, and he reveals the increasing pressure Americans are under to medicate themselves (direct-to-consumer advertising, fewer nondrug therapeutic options, the promise of the quick fix, the blurring of the distinction between mental illness and everyday problems). Most importantly, he convincingly argues that without an industry to push them, non-pharmaceutical approaches that could have the potential to help millions are tragically overlooked by a nation that sees drugs as an instant cure for all emotional difficulties.

Here is an unprecedented account of the impact of psychiatric medications on American culture and on Americans themselves.

Compelling. In Comfortably Numb, Barber brings a street-smart perspective ... He worked for years with [the homeless mentally ill] in New York ... Comfortably Numb has a degree of sardonic anger powering its torrent of data and case studies.
— Salon.com