President-elect Dilip Jeste intends to lead the APA into an era of “positive psychiatry.” “We should not be satisfied merely with treating symptoms in patients with mental illness but also with improving their overall well-being,” he told Medscape Medical News. “There are many studies that have shown that positive traits like optimism and social engagement are associated with a significant decrease in mortality, and I think as psychiatrists, we are in a good position to incorporate these into psychotherapy and psychosocial interventions.”
Why is this guy classifying dementia and Alzheimer’s as mental illnesses. They are not mental illnesses but actual organic problems with the brain itself. Could it be that he plans to continue the drugging of older people in nursing homes with antipsychotics, which makes them even worse off than they originally were. He thinks the stigma of mental illness is going to decrease. What planet is this guy from and what is the name of the spaceship that he flew in on? The stigma is as strong as ever and will remain so. This guy says a lot of nice-sounding things but I know a Trojan Horse when I see one! Same old same old with different clothes on. He worries me because he kept mentioning children and older folks; just more attacks on groups of people who can’t defend themselves. Thanks, but no thanks, Dilip!
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If only psychiatrists bothered with psychotherapy or psychosocial interventions! I am glad he’s starting on this rhetoric, but there’s still no recognition that current treatment modalities are most likely making things worse. Positive psychiatry could start off by applying the Hippocratic Oath and stick to doing things that actually have been shown to work, or at a minimum have no risk of doing ongoing harm to the recipient while potentially being of service.
Being honest would be a great start!
—- Steve
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Sounds like the public relations staff did some focus group testing.
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These are the hatchet people for Big Pharma and the government authoritarian forces.
Yep they are going after the children and the older folks – a big market there -pills and more pills.
“we are in a good position to incorporate these into psychotherapy and psychosocial interventions.”
They don’t understand anything about psychotherapy, if they did they would cure people instead of drug them. – they use ‘social interventions’ and support groups to enforce drug compliance.
“We should not be satisfied merely with treating symptoms in patients with mental illness but also with improving their overall well-being,”
Yeah the people on psychotropics have a shortened life span – it’s detrimental to the profit margins.
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Well, he was hardly going to say ‘negative-psychiatry’, was he? Dear god.
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Studies by Schopenhauer have shown that optimism is also associated with wickedness and stupidity.
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