A Behavioral Approach to Mental Disorders

INTRODUCTION Earlier this year, Alan Schwarz, an investigative reporter for the New York Times, published his latest book: ADHD Nation. The blurb on the jacket states: "More than 1 in 7 American children get diagnosed with ADHD—three times what experts have said is appropriate—meaning that millions of kids are misdiagnosed and taking medications such as Adderall or Concerta for a psychiatric condition they probably do not have. The numbers rise every year. And still, many experts and drug companies deny any cause for concern. In fact, they say that adults and the rest of the world should embrace ADHD and that its medications will transform their lives. ...

Bonnie Burstow, PhD, is a faculty member at the University of Toronto, and an antipsychiatry activist. She writes about topics that include institutional ruling, resistance, and social change. On October 7, 2016, the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto announced that they had established a scholarship for students doing theses in the area of antipsychiatry. The scholarship committee has issued a statement providing details, and requesting donations. Please take a look, and pass the link on to others who might have an interest. ...

On July 6, HB 2646 (the Tim Murphy Bill) passed the US House and was sent to the Senate. At the present time, a related bill is working its way through the Senate. This is SB 2680, The Mental Health Reform Act 2016. It is sponsored by Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Patty Murray (D-WA), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Chris Murphy (D-CT), David Vitter (R-LA), and Al Franken (D-MN). The wording of the bill was finalized in March of this year, and it passed out of committee on March 16. ...

On June 9, 2016, the very eminent psychiatrist Allen Frances, MD, published an article on the Huffington Post Blog. The piece was titled Trump Is Breaking Bad, Not Clinically Mad. The gist of the article was that, although the Republican presidential candidate has many flaws, he does not have a mental disorder. Here are some quotes: "Trump obviously does have an outsize, obnoxious personality, but most certainly does not have a Personality Disorder (and there is no evidence that he has now, or ever has had, any other mental disorder)." ...

INTRODUCTION On Wednesday, July 6, the US House of Representatives passed a watered down version of HB 2646, the so-called Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act. The bill, which is now a House Resolution, is usually referred to as the Tim Murphy bill, after its principle author, Representative Tim Murphy, PhD, who is also a clinical psychologist. The bill passed the house with a noteworthy tally of 422-2, with nine abstentions. ...

[Note: In this post, “APA” refers to the American Psychological Association] There is an article in the current (July/August) issue of The National Psychologist titled “Iowa becomes 4th state to approve RxP”. The author is James Bradshaw, Associate Editor. RxP is a commonly used abbreviation for prescription authority for psychologists. Here are some quotes from the article, interspersed with my comments. "Iowa Gov. Terry E. Brandstad has signed a law granting prescription authority to properly trained psychologists, making Iowa the fourth state where psychologists can prescribe drugs from a psychotropic formulary." ...

I know from my own experience and from emails I receive from readers that a great many non-psychiatrists who work in the mental health system have seen through the psychiatric hoax. These individuals, who are growing in number, realize that the problems for which clients seek help are not illnesses in any meaningful sense of the term. They also realize that the psychiatrically-controlled mental health system, with its emphasis on drugs and electric shocks, is doing enormous harm to the people it purports to serve. ...

INTRODUCTION On May 23, the very eminent psychiatrist Allen Frances, MD, published on the HuffPost blog an article titled Conclusive Proof ADHD is Overdiagnosed. The general theme, that various “mental illnesses” are being “overdiagnosed” is gaining popularity in recent years among some psychiatrists, presumably in an effort to distance themselves from the trend of psychiatric-drugs-on-demand-for-every-conceivable-human-problem that has become an escalating and undeniable feature of American psychiatric practice. The assertion in Dr. Frances’s title – that the label “ADHD” is being applied to too many people – is obviously true. But the implicit assumptions – that there is a correct level of such labeling, and that the label has some valid ontological significance – are emphatically false. But Dr. Frances affords no recognition to this aspect of the matter. ...

On May 7, Allen Frances, MD, posted an article on the HuffPost site. The piece was titled Antidepressants Work, But Only For Really Depressed People. Superficially, the article presents itself as a call to limit the prescribing of the so-called antidepressant drugs to severe cases; but the piece can, I suggest, be more accurately characterized as Dr. Frances’s latest attempt to distance himself, and psychiatry in general, from the pill-peddling frenzy that has characterized the profession for the past thirty or forty years ...

At the risk of stating the obvious, ADHD is not an illness. Rather, it is an unreliable and disempowering label for a loose collection of arbitrarily chosen and vaguely defined behaviors. ADHD has been avidly promoted as an illness by pharma-psychiatry for the purpose of selling stimulant drugs. In which endeavor, they have been phenomenally successful, but, as in other areas of psychiatry, the hoax is unraveling. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ...