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DOSED

Name: DOSED
Author: Kaitlin Bell Barnett
ISBN: 978-0-8070-0134-9

THE MEDICATION GENERATION GROWS UP

by Kaitlin Bell Barnett ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 10, 2012

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A freelance journalist delves into what has been called a giant uncontrolled experiment using America’s children as guinea pigs.

As a member of this group herself, Barnett explores the issues faced by the first generation of children, now entering adulthood, who were treated with psychopharmaceutical drugs from the time they were youngsters. For the past two decades, American children have been increasingly prescribed psychiatric medications for a rainbow of conditions including depression, attention deficit disorder, bipolar disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and more general behavioral problems. The author notes most of the drugs “were and still are prescribed to children and teens without official FDA approval for the relevant condition and age group.” Childcare books during this period categorized kids with these issues as difficult or problem children, whose behaviors unsettled not just their family but became “a threat to the entire family dynamic that needed to be addressed and dealt with.” A new class of drugs developed during the 1990s, the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRI) held out the hope of relief, if not a miracle cure. During this period, the FDA allowed pharmaceutical companies direct access to consumers through TV advertising. Barnett tackles this complex saga by chronicling the stories of five individuals who were medicated as youngsters, weaving their narratives together with a learned discussion of psychiatric treatments, medical models, side effects breakdowns, and the numerous issues faced when medicated children attend school. The author began her research after reading an article about a woman in her 30s, who, having been on medication since she was 14, wondered how drugs “had shaped her psychological development and ultimately her identity.” The woman’s psychiatrist noted that his patient was just one of many who raised this question. Occasionally Barnett, who began taking Prozac when she was 17, adds her point of view to the discussion. The author’s clear rendering of the tough questions surrounding this knotty topic should make it required reading for anyone touched by this issue.

Pub Date: April 10, 2012

ISBN: 978-0-8070-0134-9

Page Count: 256

Publisher: Beacon Press

Review Posted Online: Jan. 31, 2012

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2012

Categories:

PSYCHOLOGY

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THE CULTURE MAP

BREAKING THROUGH THE INVISIBLE BOUNDARIES OF GLOBAL BUSINESS

by Erin Meyer ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 27, 2014

These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.

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A helpful guide to working effectively with people from other cultures.

“The sad truth is that the vast majority of managers who conduct business internationally have little understanding about how culture is impacting their work,” writes Meyer, a professor at INSEAD, an international business school. Yet they face a wider array of work styles than ever before in dealing with clients, suppliers and colleagues from around the world. When is it best to speak or stay quiet? What is the role of the leader in the room? When working with foreign business people, failing to take cultural differences into account can lead to frustration, misunderstanding or worse. Based on research and her experiences teaching cross-cultural behaviors to executive students, the author examines a handful of key areas. Among others, they include communicating (Anglo-Saxons are explicit; Asians communicate implicitly, requiring listeners to read between the lines), developing a sense of trust (Brazilians do it over long lunches), and decision-making (Germans rely on consensus, Americans on one decider). In each area, the author provides a “culture map scale” that positions behaviors in more than 20 countries along a continuum, allowing readers to anticipate the preferences of individuals from a particular country: Do they like direct or indirect negative feedback? Are they rigid or flexible regarding deadlines? Do they favor verbal or written commitments? And so on. Meyer discusses managers who have faced perplexing situations, such as knowledgeable team members who fail to speak up in meetings or Indians who offer a puzzling half-shake, half-nod of the head. Cultural differences—not personality quirks—are the motivating factors behind many behavioral styles. Depending on our cultures, we understand the world in a particular way, find certain arguments persuasive or lacking merit, and consider some ways of making decisions or measuring time natural and others quite strange.

These are not hard and fast rules, but Meyer delivers important reading for those engaged in international business.

Pub Date: May 27, 2014

ISBN: 978-1-61039-250-1

Page Count: 288

Publisher: PublicAffairs

Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014

Categories:

BUSINESS | PSYCHOLOGY

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THE 48 LAWS OF POWER

by Robert Greene ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 1998

If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.

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The authors have created a sort of anti-Book of Virtues in this encyclopedic compendium of the ways and means of power.

Everyone wants power and everyone is in a constant duplicitous game to gain more power at the expense of others, according to Greene, a screenwriter and former editor at Esquire (Elffers, a book packager, designed the volume, with its attractive marginalia). We live today as courtiers once did in royal courts: we must appear civil while attempting to crush all those around us. This power game can be played well or poorly, and in these 48 laws culled from the history and wisdom of the world’s greatest power players are the rules that must be followed to win. These laws boil down to being as ruthless, selfish, manipulative, and deceitful as possible. Each law, however, gets its own chapter: “Conceal Your Intentions,” “Always Say Less Than Necessary,” “Pose as a Friend, Work as a Spy,” and so on. Each chapter is conveniently broken down into sections on what happened to those who transgressed or observed the particular law, the key elements in this law, and ways to defensively reverse this law when it’s used against you. Quotations in the margins amplify the lesson being taught. While compelling in the way an auto accident might be, the book is simply nonsense. Rules often contradict each other. We are told, for instance, to “be conspicuous at all cost,” then told to “behave like others.” More seriously, Greene never really defines “power,” and he merely asserts, rather than offers evidence for, the Hobbesian world of all against all in which he insists we live. The world may be like this at times, but often it isn’t. To ask why this is so would be a far more useful project.

If the authors are serious, this is a silly, distasteful book. If they are not, it’s a brilliant satire.