Over-Medicalization of Everyday Life

On Monday, October 7, 2013, The Sun, a British tabloid newspaper ran the following headline: 1,200 Killed By Mental Patients. Shock 10-year toll exposes care crisis. It took up almost all of the front page. The headline precipitated a great deal of protest from politicians, advocacy groups, mental health professionals, and others. The general points in most of these protests were that the headline was sensationalistic, misleading, and would serve to increase the stigma associated with “mental illness.” ...

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.] ...

Thanks to Graham Davey and Richard Pemberton on Twitter for the link to an interesting article in the August 29, 2013 issue of the Lancet. It’s titled Global burden of disease attributable to mental and substance use disorders: findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010, and was written by Harvey A. Whiteford, et al. The Global Burden of Disease survey is a systematic, scientific attempt to quantify the comparative magnitude of disease, injuries, and risk factors by age, sex, and geography over time. ...

The book Madness Contested has recently been published by PCCS Books. It’s a collection of articles, edited by Steven Coles, Sarah Keenan, and Bob Diamond. The book is a remarkable piece of work. It covers just about every contentious concept in the present “mental illness” debate, and brings to bear an abundance of new insights and up-to-date research findings. There are 21 articles plus an introduction by the editors. Here’s the name of each article with a brief quotation from each: ...

If we’re happy to take some of the credit for our children’s successes, we should also accept a share of the responsibility when they don’t do so well. In the late 70’s, I met an elderly gentleman in a social context. I’ll call him James. He was in his early 80’s. We got to talking, and found that we had a good deal in common – primarily a love for the land, the forests, gardening, and just generally being active. ...

There’s an interesting article, recently published in Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy, on Springer Link. It’s titled Shooting the Messenger: The Case of ADHD, and it was written by Gretchen LeFever Watson, PhD, et al. Apparently some of the authors had noted in 1995 a marked increase in the “diagnosis” and “treatment” of the condition known as ADHD in southeastern Virginia. This is a large urban conglomeration of six different cities, including Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Virginia Beach. ...

BACKGROUND In the last ten years or so, the anti-psychiatry movement has been gaining adherents, and has been growing more focused and more outspoken. But we are not a unified group. I, for instance, take what I think would be considered a fairly extreme position. I believe that there are no mental illnesses; that the clusters of thoughts, feelings, and actions labeled as mental illnesses are better conceptualized as habits that have been acquired in accordance with the normal principles of behavior acquisition or as understandable responses to extreme life stressors. I further believe that conceptualizing these problems as illnesses has been disastrous for the individuals involved, and for society in general. In particular, I believe that psychiatry’s promotion of the idea that all problematic thinking, feeling, and behaving is caused by brain illnesses and can only be treated with drugs is causing extraordinary levels of physical damage to their clients. It is also severely stigmatizing and disempowering. As a culture, we are losing the notion that people can improve their lives through effort and application, and through mutual assistance and support. ...

I’ve mentioned the CATIE study before. CATIE (Clinical Antipsychotic Trials of Intervention Effectiveness) was a NIMH-funded double blinded, randomized controlled trial comparing the effectiveness and side effects of newer-generation neuroleptics versus an older neuroleptic. CATIE-AD was a part of CATIE. The AD stands for Alzheimer’s disease. CATIE-AD was published in the New England Journal of Medicine in October 2006. The results of the study were as follows: "There were no significant differences among treatments with regard to the time to the discontinuation of treatment for any reason" ...

On Twitter yesterday, Robert Stamatakis commented: "I have to ask, I don't understand. Do you work in the UK? Your descriptions of psychiatry are nothing I recognize. These descriptions of psychiatry are nothing like the practice I see on a daily basis." I am certainly a very outspoken critic of psychiatry, and in that regard Robert's question/challenge is a fair one, to which I will try to respond. My primary criticism of modern psychiatry – and indeed the criticism that underpins all the others – is that its fundamental concepts are spurious. ...

There’s a very important article on Mad in America. It’s called Does NIMH Follow the Rules of Science? A Startling Study, by Niall McLaren, MD, dated July 9, 2013. Dr. McLaren is an Australian psychiatrist who has relentlessly combed the literature for proof of the fundamental psychiatric claim – “…that a full understanding of the brain will give a full understanding of mental disorder, with no questions unanswered.” He found nothing in the way of proof! ...