In an interview with the Scientific American, Stanford psychiatrist and neuroscientist, Amit Etkin, comments on the “wrong path” that psychiatry has taken as a field and his hopes for the future. “A report that came out recently in Health Affairs showed that spending within our health system in the U.S. is greater for mental illness than for any other area of medicine, and yet our understanding of these illnesses is incredibly backwards. Treatments are no different than they were 40 years ago, so that feels like a problem that is only getting bigger without an obvious solution,” Etkin writes. “The long and short of it is that people have named syndromes or disorders that they don’t actually know represent a valid entity that is distinct from another entity.”
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“..The high cost of mental illness doesn’t get talked about..” This not true – I talk about it:- The neuroscientists and psychopharmacologists in Ireland get paid more than President Obama, and I also cost a lot of money in genuine disability while I followed their advice.
Psychotherepeutic recovery might be painful but I think its worth doing if it works.
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Szasz wrote the mental ill person is a moral agent, but a person can not be themselves while drugged(medicated), withdrawing from drugs(medications), or has brain damage from drugs(medications).
That they still use the word “medications” tells a story.
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Psychiatrist Amit Etkin is talking neurology, it is no longer psychiatry if it is a measurable brain defect.
Also the patient should have the choice to receive treatment ( for the defect) or not, which will not work with psychiatry.Psychiatry owns the patient and decides for the patient what is “correct”.
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2 comments and this is one of the “most read” articles? It’s probably because the headline in the “most read” box says “Psychiatry To Admit Failure,” not “Psychiatry Must Admit Failure.” (Big difference.)
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Oldhead,
Non drug Solutions for people diagnosed with “Schiz../BiPo…” are NOT being admitted to. These solutions really do exist.