I found the above image online yesterday, at the site The Things We Say. Mental illness is also man-made. It is the invention of psychiatry - their spurious medicalization of all significant problems of thinking, feeling, and/or behaving. Its purpose is to legitimize the prescription of dangerous psychotropic drugs to as many people as possible. It benefits psychiatrists and drug companies, but damages, stigmatizes, and disempowers its victims. ...
Joanna Moncrieff is an eminent British psychiatrist, a founding member of the Critical Psychiatry Network, and the author of several papers and books, including The Myth of the Chemical Cure and Bitterest Pills. I have discussed both of these books on this website, and I recommend them highly. Dr. Moncrieff speaks out clearly and fearlessly about the concepts and practices that drive modern psychiatry. In both of the books mentioned above, Dr. Moncrieff advocates a shift from a disease-centered model of drug action to a drug-centered model. ...
I’ve recently read an article called Safeguarding a Generation of Children from Over-diagnosis and Prescription of Psychotropic Drugs. It’s written by Dave Traxson, who works as an Educational Psychologist in the UK, and is posted on the DxSummit website, an online platform for rethinking mental health, a forum in which the concepts underlying pharma-psychiatry are questioned and challenged. Here are some quotes from the article: "I view the trend towards mass medication of children with mind altering and potentially toxic drugs and ‘drug cocktails’ as a form of psycho-economic imperialism. By that I mean that young peoples’ developing minds are being colonized, using biochemicals, for huge commercial profit and in effect, increased social control. This has resulted from carefully constructed ‘business plans’ in boardrooms which some years ago saw the population of children in the western world as a great market expansion opportunity. The pharmaceutical companies have reaped the huge financial rewards of this rich and very bitter harvest ever since." ...
On October 28, Allen Frances, MD, Chairperson of the DSM-IV task force, published an article on Psychology Today. It is titled Does It Make Sense To Scrap Psychiatric Diagnosis? and is essentially a response to the British Psychological Society’s Division of Clinical Psychology’s (DCP) call to abandon the medical model in situations where it is not appropriate, and to embrace a psychosocial approach. You can see a copy of the DCP’s May 13, 2013, statement here. ...
One of the criticisms that I routinely make of psychiatry is that its primary agenda during initial evaluations is the assignment of a “diagnosis,” and that ongoing “treatment” consists of 15-minute “med checks,” during which drug regimens are changed and adjusted. The essence of my criticism is that this kind of approach inevitably oversimplifies human problems, and in practice does more harm than good. My contentions in this regard have from time to time been challenged. It has been said that my portrayal of psychiatry is a kind of misleading caricature, and that in reality, psychiatrists do, in fact, concern themselves with human issues over and above “diagnosis” and drugs. This debate will, of course, continue, but I recently read an article on Psychiatric Times that has some bearing on the matter. [Thanks to Nick Stuart for the link.] The title is Conduct Disorder, ADHD – or Something Else Altogether? The author is Steven Dilsaver, MD, and the piece is dated October 11, 2013. The article is a case study of the psychiatric “treatment” of an eight-year-old boy (John). ...
I have recently read De-Medicalizing Misery [palgrave macmillan, 2011]. It’s a comprehensive collection of articles, edited by Mark Rapley, Joanna Moncrieff, and Jacqui Dillon. The table of contents provides a sense of the book’s scope. Table of Contents Carving Nature at its Joints? DSM and the Medicalization of Everyday Life, Mark Rapley, Joanna Moncrieff, and Jacqui Dillon Dualisms and the Myth of Mental Illness, Philip Thomas and Patrick Bracken Making the World Go Away, and How Psychology and Psychiatry Benefit, Mary Boyle Cultural Diversity and Racism: An Historical Perspective, Suman Fernando The Social Context of Paranoia, David J. Harper From Bad Character to BPD: The Medicalization of 'Personality Disorder', James Bourne Medicalizing Masculinity, Sami Timimi Can Traumatic Events Traumatize People? Trauma, Madness, and Psychosis, Lucy Johnstone Children Who Witness Violence at Home, Arlene Vetere Discourses of Acceptance and Resistance: Speaking Out about Psychiatry, Ewen Speed The Personal is The Political, Jacqui Dillon 'I'm Just, You Know, Joe Bloggs': The Management of Parental Responsibility for First-episode Psychosis, Carlton Coulter and Mark Rapley The Myth of the Antidepressant: An Historical Analysis, Joanna Moncrieff Antidepressants and the Placebo Response, Irving Kirsch Why Were Doctors So Slow to Recognize Antidepressant Discontinuation Problems? Duncan Double Toxic Psychology, Craig Newnes Psychotherapy: Illusion with No Future? David Smail The Psychologization of Torture, Nimisha Patel What Is to Be Done? Joanna Moncrieff, Jacqui Dillon, and Mark Rapley Each author brings to the general topic his or her unique perspectives, and the result is persuasive and inspiring. Here’s a quote from the final chapter: ...
On January 17, 2013, Peter Kinderman, PhD, Professor of Clinical Psychology at the University of Liverpool, wrote an article titled Grief and Anxiety are not mental illnesses. On February 4, 2013, Steven Novella, MD, wrote a critique of Dr. Kinderman’s article. On February 20, I wrote a critique of Dr. Novella’s article. And finally, on September 17, Dr. Novella wrote More On Mental Illness Denial and How Not to Argue, a critique of my critique. ...
There’s an interesting article on Mad in America dated September 17, 2013. It’s titled Psychiatry & Suicide Prevention: A 30-year Failed Experiment, and was written by Maria Bradshaw. Maria Bradshaw is the founder of CASPER, an organization that rejects the medical model of suicide prevention in favor of a sociological model. Ms. Bradshaw founded CASPER after her son’s antidepressant-induced suicide. Here’s the gist of Ms. Bradshaw article: Roger Mulder, MD, is head of psychiatry at Otago University in New Zealand. For at least the last 15 years, he has supported the notion of psychiatric intervention as a suicide-prevention measure. For instance, here’s something he wrote in 2008 in an article published in Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica: ...
There’s an interesting article by J. Sareen et al on Cambridge Journals Online, September 2013. It’s call Common mental disorder diagnosis and need for treatment are not the same: findings from a population-based survey. Five of the six authors are working at universities in Canada, the sixth at a university in California. [Thanks to Mad in America for the link to the abstract. The full article is, unfortunately, behind a paywall.] ...
On September 12, Jeffry Lieberman, MD, President of the APA, posted an article on Psychiatric News titled IPS to Feature Patrick Kennedy, Celebrate Community Psychiatry. The article is a preview of an APA conference scheduled for October 10-13 in Philadelphia: “Transforming Psychiatric Practice, Reforming Health Care Delivery.” Dr. Lieberman tells us that he is very excited about the conference, and that the theme is particularly relevant "…given the changes we are experiencing in the profession and some of the exciting program events that I hope will support APA’s goal of being in the forefront of changes in the profession under health care reform." ...