The End of Mental Illness: How Neuroscience Is Transforming Psychiatry and Helping Prevent or Reverse Mood and Anxiety Disorders, ADHD, Addictions, PTSD, Psychosis, Personality Disorders, and More

by Daniel G. Amen

New hope for those suffering from conditions like depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, addictions, PTSD, ADHD and more.
Though incidence of these conditions is skyrocketing, for the past four decades standard treatment hasn’t much changed, and success rates in treating them have barely improved, either. Meanwhile, the stigma of the “mental illness” label—damaging and devastating on its own—can often prevent sufferers from getting the help they need.

Brain specialist and bestselling author Dr. Daniel Amen is on the forefront of a new movement within medicine and related disciplines that aims to change all that. In The End of Mental Illness, Dr. Amen draws on the latest findings of neuroscience to challenge an outdated psychiatric paradigm and help readers take control and improve the health of their own brain, minimizing or reversing conditions that may be preventing them from living a full and emotionally healthy life.

The End of Mental Illness will help you discover: Why labeling someone as having a “mental illness” is not only inaccurate but harmful Why standard treatment may not have helped you or a loved one—and why diagnosing and treating you based on your symptoms alone so often misses the true cause of those symptoms and results in poor outcomes At least 100 simple things you can do yourself to heal your brain and prevent or reverse the problems that are making you feel sad, mad, or bad How to identify your “brain type” and what you can do to optimize your particular type Where to find the kind of health provider who understands and uses the new paradigm of brain health

Genres: Psychology, Nonfiction, Health, Mental Health, Self Help, Science, Neuroscience

352 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 2020

About the author

The Washington Post called Dr. Daniel Amen the most popular psychiatrist in America and Sharecare.com named him the web's most influential expert and advocate on mental health.
Daniel Amen is a life-long Christian and graduate of Oral Roberts University School of Medicine. He is a double board-certified psychiatrist and multiple NY Times bestselling author, with such blockbuster books as Change Your Brain, Change Your Life, Healing ADD, Change Your Brain, Change Your Body, and The Daniel Plan, co-authored by Pastor Rick Warren and Dr. Mark Hyman. In November 2016, he and his wife Tana published The Brain Warrior's Way.
Dr. Amen is the founder of Amen Clinics, which has 6 locations across the United States. Amen Clinics has the world's largest database of brain scans related to behavior, totaling more than 125,000 SPECT scans on patients from 111 countries.
Dr. Amen's research team has published more than 70 scientific articles on a wide variety of topics related to brain health. He is the lead researcher on the largest brain imaging study on active and retired NFL players and was a consultant on the movie Concussion starring Will Smith. In 2016, Discover Magazine named his brain imaging work for psychiatric diagnoses as one of the top 100 stories in all of science.
Dr. Amen has also hosted 11 national public television shows about the brain, which have aired more than 80,000 times across North America and raised more than 75 million dollars for stations.

You can connect with Dr. Amen on Facebook and Twitter

Reviews

[Ozenc Demirkan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I started to read it as someone with ADHD diagnosis. His system is awesome and all but he is just selling his clinic and his SPECK scan which is not affordable if you are not rich. If you are a rich person or a celebrity yes you can try that out but it doesn't change the status quo of many people who suffer from these symptoms. In my opinion it only adds to the stigma around these diagnosis.

[JP · Rating 2 out of 5]

I want to love it, but:

1) It is a giant sales-pitch for his other books and his clinic.

2) The book is VERY redundant, and repetitive (see what i did there).

3) On occasion, very simple comprehensible language is used when describing things in his line of thought whereas complex terminology (without the usual explanation!) is used when explaining drawbacks. I find this unprofessional.

4) The book is one sided. Currently, research is inconclusive whether the scans he swears by are even usable.

5) The style of the book is clearly catered towards an American audience.

It is unfortunate as his core message (that Psychiatry neglects the physical and biological brain; and that we must improve our brains health) is interesting, plausible and perhaps essential. However, it is too much work to sift through the redundant information and constant sales pitches. Elsewhere there certainly exists a more scientific and objective rendering.

[Sammie Marshall · Rating 1 out of 5]

snake oil salesmen

[Nick K · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't write reviews, especially negative reviews like the following one, but this book deserves one for its problematic, borderline pseudo-scientific, narratives.

First, the intriguing part: a psychiatrist that seems motivated to apply "breakthrough" techniques to psychiatric diagnosis and therapy. Especially the part about psychiatry being the only medical specialty not looking at the organ-in-question, namely, the brain, resonated with me. This beautiful premise fell apart just after the first 100 pages and after a brief bibliographic search on the validity of the claims.

So, here comes the avalanche of problem areas (in bullet points, for your convenience):
- The title: pompous, even he admits having a 85% success rate. Also, the etiologies of many mental disorders have not been properly discerned, so claiming to end them without even knowing how they are manifested in the first place just makes my own brain hurt
- His methods (SPECT scanning) are not endorsed by any of the major scientific associations in US as a definite diagnostic tool for psychiatric disorders, due to inadequate evidence published in peer-reviewed scientific journals
- Even with a basic medical foundation, it is common knowledge that physical disease (like trauma, infections and endocrine disorders) should be ruled out before diagnosing someone with a mental disorder. Psychiatrists must go through 4 years of med school too, apparently.
- The "therapeutic" measures proposed can be summarized as follows: eat healthy, exercise, sleep well, don't do drugs. Who would have thought.
- I actually got a case of "health anxiety" just by reading about all the necessary nutrapharmaceuticalwhatevers for my brain. Provided with appropriate doses, because everyone has taken a course on pharmacokinetics and will be responsible enough not to mix 100 different "natural" pills.
- The use of the words "chemicals" and "toxins". A revelation: our whole body is made solely of chemicals. That is why doctors have to endure biochemistry. Additionally, water can be toxic too - if you drink 5 lts at once. Ask people with polydipsia.
- Product placement. Product placement everywhere. Isn't there something called conflict-of-interest, I wonder.

I have a few other points on style, but they seem irrelevant compared to the inaccurate content of this book. Sure, it may offer hope for people with psychiatric disease, because frankly, these diseases are harsh to live with. But thousands of scientists work day and night trying to fight them - in labs, in clinics, in the public health sector, without expecting huge salaries, just for the common good. Such a book offers empty hopes and hundreds of dollars to his author, giving back only basic healthy life advice.

For more info, check this out: https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifest...

[Sebastian Lombardi · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a psychologist, I found this to be a refreshing take on improving differential diagnosis and avoiding using only symptom clusters. The harping on SPECT becomes a bit repetitive, but I understand his purpose is to inform others to take this procedure into account with mental illness treatment. Overall, this book was enlightening.

[Ilana (illi69) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Need to write that review because this book needs to be read. It will help you HEAL YOURSELVES. Only that. It helped me SO MUCH and I dislike self help books so that says a lot.

[Aidan · Rating 1 out of 5]

Started reading "The End of Mental Illness" by Dr. Amen a bit ago. Page 31 is where I call the effort dead. I am very disappointed in the attempts at manipulation, the clear agenda over truth and facts, the poor logic, and the lack of intellectual and academic honesty. I do not recommend it.

[Willie Elliott · Rating 2 out of 5]

If I actually hear Dr. Amen refer to his clinic ONE more time in this book I think I may lose it. As others have said here, I appreciate what he is trying to do for the field of psychiatry, which has much redundancy in diagnosing mental illness and often refers to the DSM-5 for current diagnoses, a tool that is skeptical to say the least. The alternative that Dr. Amen suggests is to use SPECT scans, which is a great tool to use for getting a better looking at brain ACTIVITY, but guess why a lot of doctors don't use it? It's expensive and on top of that, there is one thing to say that you have decreased activity in a specific brain area and another to jump to a conclusion and say that this is the result of a mental illness....it's not that easy and neither is it necessarily diagnostic of mental illness either. Also, Dr. Amen should be WELL aware that you can not just throw out "nutriceuticals" in a book in a way that makes them appear as the savior to curing mental illness, because these nutritional supplements can definitely interact with medications people are on or make some individuals with comorbidities even worse. At the end of the day, it's important to talk to your doctor before jumping to the conclusion of taking these nutritional supplements and I suppose that is why he keeps referencing the Amen clinics...Lastly, the book is clearly biased and only mentions good outcomes, hence why he is trying to advertise his clinic. The book fails to mention how nutriceuticals can have adverse outcomes depending on the health of a patient and/or patient allergies and how it's very much quite possible that not all patients who receive a nutriceutical and stick to his advice are getting better. 2/5 and I expect more from someone who's been through 10+ years of higher education.

[Michael Reyes · Rating 5 out of 5]

In this paradigm-shifting book, Amen argues that mental health should really be framed as brain health, and that when you frame it this way, it removes stigma because “everyone wants a better brain.” Early on in his training to become a psychiatrist, Daniel Amen realized this simple truth: psychiatrists are the only doctors that treat an organ (the brain) that they never actually look at. With the expertise gained from 100,000+ SPECT scans (a form of brain imaging), Amen has learned how if you can change your brain you can change your life (also the title of another of his books). Amen advocates for treatment that places more emphasis on lifestyle changes and natural solutions than a traditional pharmaceutical approach. Amen details eleven risk factors that everyone can address to optimize brain health that range from common ones such as sleep and exercise to lesser known ones like head trauma and toxins. Scientific, yet easy to understand, Amen gives us a glimpse into what the future of treating psychiatric illness might look like.

[Steve Vaughn · Rating 2 out of 5]

I like the direction Dr Amen is going in: looking for physically measurable symptoms to explain what we call mental illness. He suggests that Brain Disease is more logical way to discribe much of what we have been calling Mental illness.

But having already accepted that idea, there is just not much more in the book for me. And on top of that, he makes the same points over and over again. The repeatitiveness is irritating to me.

Again, I think the work he is doing is important, but the book is more of a sales pitch than anything else.

Buy the book if you want to support his promising research, but i did not enjoy this reading experience.

[Holly · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing 2 stars. I usually enjoy books by this author, but this was too full of lists, repetitive and annoying references to his nieces, contradictions, sexism, and outdated info. This would be better as a webpage with clickable lists based on symptoms or goals. It also felt like a giant ad for his clinic, coaching, and his wife’s cookbook. Skip it.

[Iryna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely must read, don’t listen to cynics and bitter ripple reviews.
I literally used 1 thing from the book and my mental health improved 80%. Before that I would have to meditate and train everyday to reach that effect.
Read it, use what appeals to you.
And hello! All the books are written for business and selling things))) Good businesses sell needed and useful things

[Maria Bakos · Rating 1 out of 5]

Even in the title it says “how to prevent …” it literally is not about that. It’s just facts but not a single way on how to deal with mental issues.
I legit got this book thinking that it would help me but No it is just about him talking about his very amazing clinic and his experience.
If I wanted I could have just looked up ok google.
The only thing I liked was the little history at the start and the neurons and sebacee glands that’s all.
400 pages of bullshit.
If you know a book when they really help you pls tell me
1⭐️
PS: Just an ad for his clinic and him being a “genius”😧

[Andi Fritz · Rating 5 out of 5]

After reading this book, I wish brain scans were a typical practice in the mental health field and that there were more Amen clinics nationwide. The future of brain health/mental illness treatment will be positively impacted by the implementation of the Amen practices in the book. I’m looking forward to reading more books by Dr. Amen. Love your brain!

[Myles · Rating 3 out of 5]

I understand that books written by scientists are held to a different standard. But this book was a little rough.

Dr. Amen's premise is that mental illness is a side-effect of damage to and disease in the brain, that many of us are living with low-functioning brains, and that we can fix it even without knowing which issues are by following his plan.

Unfortunately, his plan is not particularly well-presented. After getting you on board with his idea of brain imaging and mental health risk factors, he writes a chapter for each risk factor — eleven, total. However, his book is written in a way that seems like it should be for kids — there's an evil king trying to steal your mental health and a good king trying to save it — and for advanced readers — he doesn't explain some medical terminology and concepts that adult readers may not understand. He also has numerous appeals to emotion; while I understand starting each chapter off with a story to explain what can happen if you fix this particular issue, the chapters inevitably end by saving his nieces, who he names. It feels kind of gross to be so blatantly exploiting their story when they're still teenagers.

However, the real problem with this book is the readability. Not only does it not explain important things, it also doesn't lay out how to fix or mitigate certain issues in a sensical manner. Much of the chapter was anecdotes about patients, with very little devoted to why that particular topic was a risk factor and what could be done. On the other hand, each chapter had two or three different ways to explain what could be done, though not in any straightforward manner.

Then there was the fact that many chapters referenced issues with other chapters. I recognize that with health, issues overlap (sleep issues can cause obesity, obesity can slow blood flow, low blood flow can cause low immunity, and so on), but it doubled back over certain topics so many times that I couldn't tell whether we were still on the same risk factor anymore.

The book was hard to get through and hard to retain because so much of it was unhelpful drivel. The concepts are interesting and helpful to apply, but the editors and reviewers should have been more judicious with what they allowed out the door.

[John Zimmerman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Another celebrity doctor claiming they can cure what no one else can while they deter sufferers of mental illness away from established effective treatments and towards pseudoscience treatments which they personally profit from! Amen is either totally deluded or straight up psychopathic. But the worst part is the book is well written and compelling, effective in sucking in more victims. His lies are cleverly hidden between numerous segments of genuine good advice. Please be cautious with this one. Listen to the science of happiness podcast instead.

[Ietrio · Rating 1 out of 5]

Amen is a simple mind who can't read the statistics: sure, there is an increase in diagnosis, but why has never crossed his mind. Of course it's because homosexual marriage, or some other point of dogma in his church. And ”end”, really? Just because the abstract of a dubious study Amen can't understand mentioned something in that general direction?

[beautyandthebookworm_ · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was such a fascinating read. I’ve followed Dr Amen for a long time, and while I don’t necessarily agree with all that he says, he is the most informative and interesting Doctor when it comes to brain health.

This book is a very detailed look at why we should be looking at mental health as brain health, and how much the state of the brain effects everything.

I loved and agreed with the importance of new learning. A brain that is no longer learning dies- this is so evident in people who retire too early, and do very little. Their brain and physical health usually declines very quickly.

The importance of diet and the side affects of sugar, alcohol and caffeine in the brain was very interesting and in fact eye opening to me, especially as a sugar addict.

I think what fascinated me most was the relationship between head trauma and the brain’s health/mental health issues. Very, very often, mental health issues can be related to a prior brain injury (sometimes a very small one too).

Dr Amen highlights inflammation as a root cause of brain and mental health issues which have not responded to medication/treatment.

The author’s entire view point is that brain health should be well examined and scanned before treatment for mental health issues. Often the issues are physical and result in the awful conditions that many of us suffer with.

I must note here, that the one thing I cannot agree with is his reluctance to treat many mental health conditions with medication. Whilst I do agree, that the prescribing of anti-depressions and many other meds is out of control, medication saved me. I would never want others to go through the desperation of not having access to the right medication. It is very easy to judge if you have never suffered from a mental illness, or declining mental health, but those who have, truly understand the power the right medication and treatment can have.

[Brian Sachetta · Rating 4 out of 5]

I’m a big fan of Dr. Amen’s work. I read “Change Your Brain, Change Your Life” a few years ago and was totally floored. I’d never heard of SPECT brain imaging before, never mind its use in diagnosing and treating various forms of mental illness.

This book builds on the SPECT-inspired “Change Your Brain, Change Your Life,” much like Amen’s other works do. I guess that’s to be expected since SPECT scanning is his “thing” and is what he’s based so much of his career on.

This one opens strongly, citing daunting statistics around mental illness and calling for change. From there, Amen paints a historical picture of how our approaches to mental health have changed over time, then introduces his “BRIGHT MINDS” framework / acronym to outline the subjects he’ll discuss in the book.

Once he jumps into his framework, he dedicates one chapter to each underlying word in that BRIGHT MINDS acronym. For example: “B is for Blood Flow” and “R is for Retirement and Aging.” Within each chapter, he discusses what it is about each subject that can be so detrimental to our mental health. He then goes on to recommend behaviors, habits, and supplements that we can implement / take in order to improve our standing in regard to each word / phrase in the acronym.

The reason why I’d give this book four stars instead of five is that these BRIGHT MINDS chapters become a little disengaging or repetitive after a while; I found myself spacing out sometimes during a few of them. Don’t get me wrong, the information in each one is valuable. It’s just that when you’re on the 300th recommended supplement of the book, each additional one holds, marginally, less weight.

My guess as to why this was the case is that the topics within the BRIGHT MINDS framework are wide-ranging, meaning several of them won’t apply to you. For example, not everyone reading the book is heading for retirement in the next few years.

As such, if I were to give a conclusion / recommendation, it would be this: read part one, then focus on the BRIGHT MINDS related chapters that are most relevant to you. All the content in the book is interesting, as is the book as a whole, but some of it will more be more engaging for you specifically depending on your age, genetics, and personal history.

-Brian Sachetta
Author of “Get Out of Your Head: A Toolkit for Living with and Overcoming Anxiety”

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Repetitive and lacking a bit.
I didn't get a whole ton out of it..
Until the end there was some good advice about supplements.
If you're new to brain health then yes this might be interesting for u.

[Ana Luyza · Rating 1 out of 5]

If I could give it half a star, I would. Hell, if I could give it ZERO stars, I would. I actually had to DNF it halfway through because it just seems a huge advertisement for himself, his clinics and his books. The fact that this has a average 4 stars on goodreads makes me question if I’ll ever trust a goodreads ratings for nonfiction ever again. (Not saying everyone should dislike it, just saying that I’m surprised my taste differs so much from so many people’s).

[Andrew Pixton · Rating 2 out of 5]

Honestly didn't finish this. It started sounding very guru. All the experts are getting mental health treatment wrong, but he's here to fix all that. Mind you I do think his holistic approach is worth considering but there's no way I'd be able to get my clients to eat healthier and exercise as well as do therapy and meds. We can barely get them to do the second two.

[Kayla · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is a poorly written add for his clinic. A clinic that is only available in America and likely not accessible for most people.

[⁺₊✧ MYRA ✧₊⁺ · Rating 4 out of 5]

obviously dr amen used this book to promote his clinic as well, but there is a lot of useful information regarding our brain, health and well-being in general, really enjoyed it

[Ashley · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh no. This book was so annoying. I did learn a few useful things so I’ll give it 2 stars, but overall this was one giant advertisement for his clinics. And if I had to hear his nieces’ names one more time (I listened to it) I was going to scream.

The frustrating thing about this one was I think there’s a lot of promising ideas here, and looking at mental health more holistically is a good idea in my opinion, but a lot of his research felt lacking and also that he was condescending toward any other approaches. Not great.

[Miral · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very enlightening book. I watched a YouTube video of Dr. Amen responding to questions about brain health from Twitter users. I became enthralled right away.
The book was surprisingly helpful to me and altered my perspective on mental illness. I gained a lot of useful knowledge. Also, the book encourages positive habits! Dr Amen’s scientific results are very clear that there is a bigger cultural issue at play when it comes to our health habits.

[Ismael Lazreg M · Rating 4 out of 5]

información super detallada y todo bien citadito en apa... y no se queda en lo teórico sino q proporciona ciertos pasos para llevarlo todo a la práctica. el único contrapunto es que ha querido hacer tan accesible que me parece que los finales de los capítulos son un poco redundantes, parecen la conclusión de un essay, ahí repitiendo todo lo que ya has leído en las 10 paginas previas.

[Kristi · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved it!
changed the way I look at and understand mental illness and also was surprisingly beneficial for me! I got it from the library but am tempted to buy it and just have it around as a reference.

[Fabián Sanhueza · Rating 3 out of 5]

El único problema con este libro es que parece más un texto promocional que cualquier otra cosa, ya que el Dr. Amen no para de hablar de lo buenas que son sus clínicas, sus doctores, sus técnicas de diagnóstico y sus tratamientos. Sin embargo, a pesar de que puede resultar un tanto agotador en ese sentido, la verdad es que contiene un montón de datos que pueden resultar útiles para quienes padecen (padecemos) de trastornos mentales y que están buscando alternativas a su tratamiento actual (no recomendable) o maneras de complementar o potenciar su tratamiento actual (altamente recomendable). Es un buen compendio del estado del arte (para quienes no somos especialistas del área, por supuesto) de los últimos veinte años en relación al uso de psicofármacos y sus potenciales alternativas naturales, y cada consejo se encuentra debidamente respaldado con la fuente bibliográfica asociados generalmente a estudios experimentales con doble-ciego, por lo que resultan bastante confiables.

[Jennifer Barnickel · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book gave an incredible amount of insight into brain health and its importance in our daily lives. I think it’s a topic that everyone should be informed about. I highly recommend this book to learn about the necessity of a happy, healthy, & optimized brain!