A Behavioral Approach to Mental Disorders

Professor Sir Simon Wessely is a British psychiatrist who works at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, London. He is also the new President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and in that capacity, he recently wrote his first blog, titled, appropriately enough, My First Blog (May 24, 2014). The article is essentially a perusal of, and commentary on, the program for the RCP’s Annual Congress, about which Sir Simon expresses considerable enthusiasm. He also engages in a little cheerleading. ...

Recently I received a very nice email from Laura Chapman. Here’s the text: "Hi there, My name is Laura and I am emailing because I recently produced a guide on postpartum depression and wanted to share it. Here is the guide I have helped to make - http://www.psychguides.com/guides/living-with-postpartum-depression/http://www.psychguides.com/guides/living-with-postpartum-depression/ Earlier this year a friend of mine suffered from maternity blues shortly after giving birth to her first child. Coaxing her through it, as I've had two children of my own, made me think about postpartum depression. It got me thinking about what advice or information to give new mothers and their family. ...

As my readers know, I am a great fan of former APA President Jeffrey Lieberman, MD. His regular articles on Psychiatric News were always helpful to the anti-psychiatry cause, and he will be greatly missed. But his successor, Paul Summergrad, MD, has recently posted his first presidential message, APA Poised to Take Advantage of Unique Time in History, and it is already clear that not much has changed. Cheerleading and unabashed self-congratulations are still the order of the day. ...

On May 29, Psychiatric News ran an article titled Lieberman Sees Promising Future for Psychiatrists, Patients. The author is Mark Moran, a senior reporter for the American Psychiatric Association. The post is an account of Dr. Lieberman’s outgoing presidential address to the APA conference in New York, and contains many quotes from this most eminent and memorable psychiatrist. "Our future is now. We have been waiting, many of us our whole lives, for the chance to change the way the world thinks of psychiatry and the way we think of ourselves as psychiatrists. Let’s use the momentum we have to plunge ahead into the next year with our confidence brimming, our energy renewed, and our sights set high." ...

A very important and compelling article was posted on Mad in America on June 18. It’s by Andrew L. Yoder, and is called An Open Letter to Persons Self-Identifying as Mentally Ill. Here are some quotes: "My physician was not so cautious. He was a very pleasant man that always seemed to take his time with me and did not talk down to me. Yet as I described some of the emotional distress I was experiencing, and the ways it was affecting my life, he told me with great certainty that mine was a totally common experience. He told me that I had a biological condition in my brain, one in which certain chemicals were 'imbalanced.' He told me that there should be no stigma about asking for assistance from him. Specifically he told me, 'Trying to not be depressed is like telling a diabetic to just make more insulin.' He prescribed an antidepressant medication, saying that this was no different than taking medication to regulate blood pressure or manage cholesterol. I was told of the likelihood that I would need to remain on some form of medication for an indefinite future." ...

I guess everybody knows by now that Justina Pelletier is back with her parents after 16 months in the custody of Massachusetts Department of Children and Families. According to a Boston Globe report dated June 9, top DCF officials recently submitted papers to the court asking that Justina be returned to the custody of her parents, and a June 19 Boston Globe article confirmed that Judge Joseph Johnstone had, on June 18, issued an order to that effect. ...

In the last decade or so psychiatry has received a great deal of criticism. The fundamental point of contention is psychiatry’s insistence that an ever increasing range of problems of thinking, feeling, and/or behaving are in fact illnesses that need to be aggressively treated with drugs, intracranial electric shocks, and other somatic interventions. It is further contended, by those of us on this side of the debate, that this spurious medicalization of non-medical problems was not an innocent error, but rather was, and is, a self-serving and deliberate policy designed to expand psychiatric turf and to create an impression of psychiatry as a legitimate medical specialty. ...

On June 6, I wrote a post titled Psychiatry DID Promote the Chemical Imbalance Theory. The article was published on Mad in America, and generated a number of comments on that site, five of which were from TherapyFirst, who in his first comment identified himself as Joel Hassman, MD, a practicing psychiatrist. Dr. Hassman did not argue with the general notion that psychiatric practice today consists almost exclusively of the prescription of drugs. Indeed, in one of his own blog posts on June 16, 2013, he wrote in an open letter to newly qualified psychiatrists: ...

On February 14, 2013, Oscar Pistorius, a South African Olympic runner, shot and killed his girlfriend in his home in Pretoria, South Africa. Mr. Pistorius’ defense is that the shooting was accidental – that he shot his girlfriend through the bathroom door in a state of panic because he believed she was an intruder. Prosecutors contend that the killing was intentional - and the trial is ongoing. On May 12, 2014, the defense introduced testimony from Merryll Vorster, MD, a psychiatrist. According to an article in BBC News Africa, Dr. Vorster told the court that Mr. Pistorius has generalized anxiety disorder, and that because of this mental disorder his actions on the occasion in question would differ from those of a “…normal able-bodied person without generalized anxiety disorder.” ...

On April 15, Ronald Pies, MD, an eminent and widely published psychiatrist, wrote an article for Medscape.com. The piece is titled Nuances, Narratives, and the ‘Chemical Imbalance’ Debate in Psychiatry. The main thrust of the article is that: "…the 'chemical imbalance theory' was never a real theory, nor was it widely propounded by responsible practitioners in the field of psychiatry." This is not the first time that Dr. Pies has made this claim, On July 11, 2011, he wrote an article for Psychiatric Times titled Psychiatry’s New Brain-Mind and the Legend of the “Chemical Imbalance.” In that article he wrote: "In truth, the ‘chemical imbalance’ notion was always a kind of urban legend- – never a theory seriously propounded by well-informed psychiatrists." ...