A Behavioral Approach to Mental Disorders

On October 23, 2015, Jeffrey Lacasse, PhD, and Jonathan Leo, PhD, published an interesting article on Florida State University’s DigiNole Commons. The title is Antidepressants and the Chemical Imbalance Theory of Depression: A Reflection and Update on the Discourse. Dr. Lacasse is assistant professor in the College of Social Work at Florida State University; Dr. Leo is Chair of Anatomy and Professor of Neuroanatomy at Lincoln Memorial University. The article was originally published in the Behavior Therapist in the October 2015 issue, pages 206-213. ...

On October 13, 2015, Allen Frances, MD, published a post on his Psychology Today blog Saving Normal. The post is titled What Drives Our Dumb and Disorganized Mental Health Policies, and the subtitle is “Naming and shaming the power players.” The article has also been published in Psychiatric Times and the Huffington Post. Dr. Frances is a professor emeritus of psychiatry at Duke University, and was chairman of the DSM-IV Task Force. ...

Ronald Pies, MD, is one of American’s most eminent and prestigious psychiatrists. He is the Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of Psychiatric Times, and he is a Professor of Psychiatry at both Syracuse and Tufts. I disagree with many of Dr. Pies’ contentions, and I have expressed these disagreements in detail in various posts (for instance, here, here, and here). But there is one area where I have to acknowledge Dr. Pies’ efforts: he never gives up in his defense of his beloved psychiatry, even in the face of the most damaging counter-evidence. ...

A few months ago, I became aware of various articles online that stated “Robert F Kennedy Jr. says 70% of news advertising revenue comes from Big Pharma”. In the articles there is a link to a May 18, 2015 video in which Jesse Ventura, former Governor of Minnesota, interviews Robert F. Kennedy Jr. on an episode of Off the Grid. Off the Grid is a talk show on Ora.tv, an online network. ...

One of psychiatry’s most obvious vulnerabilities is the fact that various so-called antidepressant drugs induce homicidal and suicidal feelings and actions in some people, especially late adolescents and young adults. This fact is not in dispute, but psychiatry routinely downplays the risk, and insists that the benefits of these drugs outweigh any risks of actual violence that might exist. There are two research studies that indicate a link between SSRI’s and violence, but both studies have limitations that make it difficult to draw firm conclusions. The studies are: ...

Integration of physical and “mental health” care has been a popular topic in psychiatric circles in recent years. During his term as President of the APA, the very eminent psychiatrist Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, made frequent references to this matter in his posts on Psychiatric News (the APA’s online newspaper). For instance, on December 6, 2013, Dr. Lieberman, with co-author Richard Summers, MD, wrote: "The momentum for patient-centered care, the medical home, and integration of behavioral health with primary care creates a new role for psychiatrists." [Emphasis added] ...

Hugh Middleton, MD, posted an interesting article on Mad in America, October 1, 2015. It’s called Hey; Don’t Just Shoot the Messenger! Dr. Middleton is a British psychiatrist who is a founding member of the Critical Psychiatry Network, and was a co-author of the cardinal paper, Psychiatry beyond the current paradigm. (2012). Dr. Middleton had attended a conference in London on September 18. The conference had been organized by the Council for Evidence-based Psychiatry in order to address the topic: “the iatrogenic harm caused by the over-prescription of psychiatric medications.” ...

On April 25, 2014, Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, then President of the APA, announced that the association had engaged the services of Porter Novelli, a prestigious PR company based in Washington DC and currently operating in 60 different countries. "Mindful of the continuing stigma associated with mental illness and psychiatric treatment, we retained an outside consultant agency (Porter Novelli) to review APA’s communications capabilities, needs, and opportunities. Based on its report, we are now moving forward with an initiative to enact a sophisticated and proactive communications plan that will be directed both internally to APA members and externally to the media, mental health stakeholder groups, and the general public." ...

It’s no secret that at the present time, psychiatry is reeling under a barrage of scrutiny and criticism. Their long-standing contention that all significant problems of thinking, feeling, and/or behaving are brain illnesses “just like diabetes”, which need to be “treated” with drugs and high-voltage electric shocks to the brain, has been thoroughly discredited. And yet they go on peddling their spurious , self-serving ideology and the products of their pharma partners. ...

I imagine that everybody on this side of the issue knows by now that the eminent psychiatrist Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, Chief Psychiatrist at Columbia, and past President of the APA, called Robert Whitaker “a menace to society.” This outburst of petulance – the latest in a string of similar deprecations – occurred on April 26, 2015 during an interview with Michael Enright on CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) radio’s “The Sunday Edition.” The grounds for Dr. Lieberman’s vituperation were that Robert had dared to challenge some of psychiatry’s most sacred tenets! ...