Myth of Mental Illness

BACKGROUND On May 17, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a report titled Mental Health Surveillance Among Children – United States, 2005-2011. The CDC is based in Atlanta, Georgia and is a part of the US Department of Health and Human Services. The CDC’s report runs to 40 pages, including tables and references. It received a fair amount of media coverage, and will likely inform legislation and other government action for several years. ...

There’s a very interesting article by Kyle Arnold on DxSummit.org. It’s titled DSM: Letting Go of the Big Lie. Here are two quotes: "The lie is that we have succeeded in domesticating emotional suffering, that we have placed it in a grid with clear and familiar boundaries. The lie is that we know the line between mad and normal, and can tell you on which side of the fence you belong. The lie is that it is science, rather than ethics or social norms, that can tell us what kind of behavior is acceptable and what is not. The lie is that psychiatric treatment is objective medical treatment, as clear and direct as your medical doctor treating a broken wrist. The lie is that by accepting a psychiatric label, you embark on the road to being cured. The lie is the provision of false hope at the price of a stigmatized identity." ...

On June 1, 2012, I wrote a post titled There Are No Mental Illnesses. Yesterday a comment came in on this post. Here’s a quote: "When my brother was thirty years old, he started to see objects, which was far away, like hawk. His "mind" wanted to understand it, so he started to think he became a cybrog. Doctor said: you are ill". When I saw strange things, I said to myself: "Well, I see strange things" that's all. And I'm healthy..." ...

There’s an interesting article in the NY Times Sunday review. You can see it here. It was written by Sally Satel MD, a psychiatrist, currently a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. The article is called: “Why the Fuss Over the DSM-5?” Dr. Satel’s central point is that psychiatrists only treat symptoms anyway and pay little attention to the DSM. She expresses the belief that the manual’s diagnoses are “…passports to insurance coverage, the keys to special education and behavioral services in school and the tickets to disability benefits.” ...

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." ...

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 ...

BACKGROUND On April 29, Thomas Insel, Director of NIMH, published a paper called Transforming Diagnosis. You can see it here. Dr. Insel is critical of DSM: "While DSM has been described as a 'Bible' for the field, it is, at best, a dictionary, creating a set of labels and defining each." "The weakness is its lack of validity." This has created quite a stir, in that it appears to support the position of those of us who have been criticizing the DSM on these kinds of grounds for decades. It also suggests a fundamental rift between the NIMH and the APA, two groups who up till now had appeared to be joined at the hip. The article has generated a great deal of comment. So far, there’s been nothing from the APA. ...

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. ...

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;" ...

BACKGROUND The primary purpose of the bio-psychiatric-pharma faction is to expand turf and sell more drugs. This is a multi-faceted endeavor, one component of which is disease mongering. This consists of using marketing techniques to persuade large numbers of people that they have an illness which needs to be treated with drugs. With regards to postpartum depression, it is an obvious fact that some mothers do indeed experience a measure of depression in the period after giving birth. The term postpartum depression has in the past been generally understood to mean that the problem had something to do with hormones. Today brain chemicals are blamed. ...