Author Charles Barber To Chat At September 15 NAMI Fairfield Book Club Meeting

FAIRFIELD — On Thursday, September 15, the NAMI Fairfield Book Club will host author Charles Barber to discuss his book Comfortably Numb, How Psychiatry is Medicating a Nation. Released in 2008, Comfortably Numb explores the ways in which the drug companies first create a need for a drug and then rush to fill it.

Mr Barber reveals the increasing pressure Americans are under to medicate themselves through direct-to-consumer advertising, fewer nondrug therapeutic options, the promise of the quick fix, and the blurring of the distinction between mental illness and everyday problems. Most importantly, he convincingly argues that without an industry to push them, nonpharmaceutical approaches that could have the potential to help millions are overlooked by a nation that sees drugs as an instant cure for all emotional difficulties.

Mr Barber was educated at Harvard and Columbia and worked for ten years in New York City shelters for the homeless mentally ill. His work has appeared in The Washington Post, The New York Times, The Nation and Scientific American Mind.

He is currently director of The Connection Institute for Innovative Practice, part of The Connection, Inc, a leading social service agency, and a lecturer in psychiatry at the Yale University School of Medicine.

NAMI is the National Alliance on Mental Illness. From its inception, NAMI Fairfield has been dedicated to improving the lives of individuals and families affected by mental illness by offering programs that provide support, education, and advocacy.

The NAMI Book Club meets from 7 to 8:30 pm, on the third Wednesday of every other month at the Fairfield Public Library Main Branch, 1080 Old Post Road.

Reserved copies of the selected book are available at the library. To obtain a reserved copy from the circulation desk, you must say you are from the NAMI Book Club.

For more information about NAMI Book Club, call the library at 203-256-3160. For more information on NAMI Fairfield, call 203-650-3463.

Books by Charles Barber will be available for sale that evening.