Behaviorism and Mental Health

Alternative perspective on psychiatry's so-called mental disorders | PHILIP HICKEY, PH.D.

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The Need for Social Change

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There’s a recent post, The role of the psychologist in social change, on Peter Kinderman’s blog that is well worth reading. Peter begins with Martin Luther King’s 1967 statement: “…there are some things in our society, some things in our world, to which we … must always be maladjusted if we are to be people of… Continue Reading

DSM-5: How to Salvage a Shipwreck

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DSM-5 was published on May 18, 2013, amidst great criticism.  The fundamental criticism was, and is, that the problems listed in the manual are not illnesses in any ordinary sense of the term.  Other critics focused on the pathologizing of normality, the expansion of the diagnostic net by the lowering of thresholds, and the lack… Continue Reading

Psychiatry Still Doesn’t Get It

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BACKGROUND On 3-4 June, the Institute of Psychiatry in London hosted an international conference to mark the publication of DSM-5.  On June 10, Sir Simon Wessely, a department head at the Institute, published a paper called DSM-5 at the IoP.  The paper is a summary of the conference proceedings, and also, in many respects, a… Continue Reading

What Is Mental Illness?

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BACKGROUND I recently received the following question from Disparity, on Twitter. “I’m interested in all your posts, but they’re always telling us what mental illness ‘isn’t.’  Do you have many on what it ‘is’? I referred him/her to the post There are No Mental Illnesses and received the following reply: “I have read it a… Continue Reading