Beyond Prozac

Before he trained as a therapist in 1997, Terry Lynch worked as a GP for over ten years. During this time he became increasingly concerned about fundamental issues such as the quality of medical training in mental health, the excessive reliance on medication to treat mental health problems and the pervasive influence of the pharmaceutical industry on medical practice. In 2003, he was appointed by the Irish Ministry for Health to the government-appointed Expert Group on Mental Health Policy: the remit of this group is to shape the direction of mental health policy over the next two decades.

Beyond Prozac is in my view the single most important contribution to our understanding of suicide in the past ten years - As a statement by a qualified and practising doctor of something which many of us instinctively know to be true, it is the vital articulation of the unsayable. John Waters, The Irish Times.

• Foreword by Dr Dorothy Rowe Introduction 1. Medical Research 2. Does 'mental illness' exist? 3. Depression 4. Other 'mental illnesses' 5. Why people kill themselves: the medical view 6. Why people kill themselves: an alternative view 7. The medical profession's approach to suicide 8. Preventing suicide