It's a Great Day for Humanity

Today, after two years of deliberation, the Division of Clinical Psychology (which is part of the British Psychological Society) issued a Position Statement on the Classification of Behavior and Experience in Relation to Functional Psychiatric Diagnosis. It is subtitled “Time for a Paradigm Shift.” The DCP summarizes its paper as follows: "The DCP is of the view that it is timely and appropriate to affirm publicly that the current classification system as outlined in DSM and ICD, in respect of the functional psychiatric diagnoses, has significant conceptual and empirical limitations. Consequently, there is a need for a paradigm shift in relation to the experiences that these diagnoses refer to, towards a conceptual system not based on a ‘disease’ model." ...

May 13, 2013 · PhilHickeyPhD

Great Article by Brett Jason Deacon

In the current issue of Clinical Psychology Review (April 8, 2013), you will find a very interesting article by Brett Jason Deacon, PhD, who is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Wyoming. The article is called The Biomedical Model of Mental Disorder: A Critical Analysis of its Tenets, Consequences, and Effects on Psychotherapy Research. You can see it here. The article is a critique of the biomedical model from a theoretical and a practical perspective. The author has managed to elucidate a comprehensive range of criticisms of the biomedical model, and has blended them together into a coherent and compelling account. ...

May 11, 2013 · PhilHickeyPhD

Psychiatry – Embracing a Social Paradigm?

There’s an interesting article in the May 2013 issue of the British Journal of Psychiatry. It’s called “The future of academic psychiatry may be social” by Stefan Priebe, Tom Burns, and Tom K. J. Craig. You can see it here. The abstract states: "The past 30 years have produced no discoveries leading to major changes in psychiatric practice. The rules regulating research and a dominant neurobiological paradigm may both have stifled creativity. Embracing a social paradigm could generate real progress and, simultaneously, make the profession more attractive." ...

May 8, 2013 · PhilHickeyPhD

Mental Distress Is Not An Illness

BACKGROUND Sam Thompson (University of Liverpool) posted the following tweet on April 27: Can anyone point me to a good, succinct summary of the case for equating mental distress with illness? (serious, non-sarcastic question) On the face of it, this looks like a straightforward question, and one might think that a straightforward answer could be found. But this is not the case, because ultimately it boils down to a matter of definition. And psychiatry is a field where definitions are notoriously fuzzy. MENTAL DISORDER ...

May 7, 2013 · PhilHickeyPhD

"Mental Illness" Under Fire

There’s a very interesting article by Paris Williams on Mad in America, The “Mental Illness” Paradigm: An “Illness” That is out of Control. You can see it here. The author gives us a compelling critique of the “mental illness” model, and also presents us with an alternative paradigm. The alternative is: "… to see those conditions we generally refer to as 'mental illnesses' as instead the natural manifestations of an individual’s struggles with the fundamental dilemmas inherent in simply being alive." ...

May 3, 2013 · PhilHickeyPhD

Do We Need More Mental Health Services?

In the wake of the Sandy Hook massacre, there were a great many calls for “more mental health services” or “better access to mental health services.” Many of us on this side of the fence groaned, because we knew that any official or private response to this call would be on the lines of more of the same. The same spurious concepts; the same pseudo-illnesses; the same destructive drugging; the same destructive electric shock “treatment”; the same involuntary confinement; and the same stigmatization and loss of empowerment. ...

May 2, 2013 · PhilHickeyPhD

More Antidepressant Risks

There’s an article in Science Daily (April 29, 2013) titled “Antidepressants Linked with Increased Risks After Surgery,” which I found courtesy of Monica on Twitter. You can see it here. The article is a report of a study published in JAMA Internal Medicine. You can see an abstract of the study here. The study was conducted by Andrew Auerbach MD et al, and involved examining the records of 530,416 patients who had undergone major surgery between January 2006 and December 2008 at 375 US hospitals. ...

April 30, 2013 · PhilHickeyPhD

Psychiatry and the Other Professions

I don’t have precise figures, but I would guess that psychiatrists constitute less than 5% of the professional staff in the mental health system The other 95% are psychologists, counselors, social workers, case managers, behavior analysts, case aides, art therapists, occupational therapists, job coaches, etc., etc… All of these other professions have specialized training, both theoretical and practical, and it is reasonable to suppose that they bring to their jobs a wide range of conceptual orientations, and an equally wide range of practical skills. ...

April 29, 2013 · PhilHickeyPhD

Another Good Website: by Mick Bramham

I recently came across Thinking About Mental Health: Myths, treatment risks & alternatives. You can find it here. It’s written by Mick Bramham, from Dorset, England. Here are some quotes: From the post Depression: Serotonin Imbalance? "The whole idea of antidepressants supposedly correcting chemical imbalances has more to do with drug company marketing than evidence-based science." "Unfortunately, drug companies are known to exaggerate the benefits of their products and to play down the risks;" ...

April 28, 2013 · PhilHickeyPhD

More on Postpartum Depression

I recently wrote a post on postpartum depression which has generated a certain amount of negative comment. For this reason, I thought it might be helpful to clarify some points. DEFINITION AND EXPLANATIONS The DSM makes no mention of postpartum depression as such. The closest it comes is major depressive disorder with postpartum onset. In other words, the APA conceptualizes postpartum depression as ordinary major depression (which can incidentally range in severity from mild to severe) which happens to occur in the postpartum period. This is in marked contrast to the popular notion that postpartum depression is somehow a function of the postpartum woman’s hormones, and is fundamentally different from other forms of depression. ...

April 26, 2013 · PhilHickeyPhD