About the Book

"Psychiatry's clinical exam is a conversation that begins with, "Can you help me understand what's going on?" But two psychiatrists might observe the same patient and disagree about how to help. How can psychiatry define reliable data to ensure it makes good decisions? In other words, is a conversation the best we can do? In the last hundred years, practically every field of medicine has progressed in immense and unforeseeable ways, largely by the development of clinical technologies. To share in this progress, psychiatry must move beyond conversation and adopt sensors, numbers, and algorithms in clinical practice. Changes in a patient's online behavior, activity, sleep pattern, geolocation, facial expression, and speech pattern can provide a wealth of measurements. These data are already used by Big Tech to understand our likes and dislikes to sell us products, yet psychiatry lags far behind in its adoption of Big Data to benefit patients. Daniel Barron, a psychiatrist who trained at the Yale School of Medicine, asks a provocative and important question: Is psychiatry scientific enough? At once pioneering and engaging, "Reading Our Minds" steps readers through a standard psychiatric exam and, through a real patient's case, introduces readers to a series of digital tools that might help revolutionize psychiatry, and bring the practice firmly into the 21st-century and into the fold of medical science"--

Book Synopsis

What is psychiatry and how can we improve it?

In the last hundred years, most of the medical sciences have progressed in immense and unforeseeable ways--except for psychiatry, which has somehow remained immune to this progress. Daniel Barron, a psychiatrist who trained at the Yale School of Medicine, asks an important question: What's holding psychiatry back?

Reading Our Minds takes us to a psychiatric hospital, where Barron evaluates a young woman with psychosis, and shows how his exam is limited by his own ability to ask questions and observe, and by his patient's ability to sense, interpret, and report her experience. Barron shows why psychiatry must move beyond conversation--and how sensors, measurements, and algorithms might progress psychiatric practice. At once pioneering and engaging, Reading Our Minds introduces readers to the Big Data technologies that might revolutionize the way we evaluate, diagnose, and treat mental illness and bring psychiatry firmly into the fold of 21st-century medical science.

Review Quotes

"Psychiatry needs innovation. While new insights may come from genetics and imaging, the smartphone and our digital data may prove an even better tool for objective evidence about our minds and brains. Daniel Barron takes us through the possibilities of this brave new world where technology, often cited as the problem, can become part of the solution for our mental health. With clarity and clinical relevance, he shows us that the future of psychiatry may be already in our hands (or our pockets)." --Tom Insel, Former Director, National Institute of Mental Health, and co-founder of Mindstrong, Humanest Care, Neurawell Therapeutics

"Barron's Reading Our Minds is wonderfully written and fun to read, a smart and lively exploration of how we can leverage the richness of digital data in a transparent and ethical way to make psychiatry more precise and better understand--and ultimately help--our patients. Barron shows how psychiatry can use technology and keep its humanity." --Richard A. Friedman, M.D., Professor of Clinical Psychiatry, Director of Psychopharmacology Clinic, Weill Cornell Medical College

"Reading Our Minds is a fascinating book about how psychiatrists (and others) can think about and use large quantities of everyday information to refine diagnoses and even employ the results to determine therapeutic success. It reflects the future of psychiatry by bringing hard evidence to a 'soft' specialty." --Robert I. Grossman, M.D., Dean & CEO, NYU Langone Health