Exposing the Mythmakers (original) (raw)

This article, a magazine style version of a chapter that Jacqueline Sparks and I wrote in the first edition of The Heroic Client, was originally published in the Psychotherapy Networker, March/April 2000 and was recognized by Project Censored as one of the ten top underreported stories by mainstream media of 2000. This article also received recognition as one of the top ten most influential articles in the Networker’s first 20 years. It was inspired by a brochure that came in the June (1998) issue of the Family Therapy News. The splashy “Intimacy and Depression” brochure made our hearts sink when its exquisite design, original art, glossy photos, poignant text, heavy paper, and devastating message washed over us—profoundly disheartening us with the feel, look, and smell of creative marketing that could only come from big corporate money. But no it couldn’t be. Our national organization surely wouldn’t enter a relationship with a drug company or promote its products. Say it ain’t so. But it was. Glaxo Wellcome, a drug company, funded the project.It opened our eyes to the extent of drug company influence and fueled Jackie and my continued interest in mythmakers of psychiatric drugs.