Reimagining Healthcare
The conventional Western classification systems of health conditions are based on flawed science shaped by reductionist, hierarchical, and profit-driven ideologies. THEN wants to create a new paradigm built upon principles drawn from systems science, the life course perspective, developmental neurobiology, and other evidence-informed studies.
Bad-Science Warning: The âMinnesota Study of Twins Reared Apartâ (MISTRA)
The huge impact of the MISTRA, in addition to the harmful and regressive social and political policy implications that flow from it, necessitates a detailed analysis of the âscienceâ behind the studyâs major claims and conclusions. Here I offer a new critique of this famous and influential âseparated twin study.â
Hereditary Madness? The Genain Sisters’ Tragic Story
The story of the Genain quadruplets has long been cited as evidence proving something about the supposed hereditary nature of schizophrenia. But who wouldnât fall apart after surviving a childhood like theirs? The doctors attributed their problems to menstrual difficulties or excessive masturbation â anything except abuse.
The Trouble with Twin Studies
As most readers are aware, it is widely believed that both within and without of psychiatry genetic factors play an important role in causing major psychiatric disorders such as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, major depression, ADHD, autism, anxiety, and even post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Twin studies provide the main pillar of support for this belief which is often, though mistakenly, presented as a scientific fact.
Is an Ominous New Era of Diagnosing Psychosis by Biotype on the Horizon?
When former NIMH chief Dr. Thomas Insel speaks, people listen. Dr. Insel famously criticized the DSM a couple of years ago for its lack of reliability. He notably broke ranks with the APA by saying there were no bio-markers, blood tests, genetic tests or imaging tests that could verify or establish a DSM diagnosis of schizophrenia, bipolar or schizoaffective disorder. However in a new article he announces research that claims to have found bona-fide physiological markers that identify specific "biotypes" of psychosis. This system could, purportedly, identify a person as possessing a specific biotype of psychosis, instead of a DSM-category diagnosis.
The Scientism of Autism
Autism is now simply assumed to represent a real, tangible, identifiable âthing.â But no one is asking the obvious question: On what evidential basis can you conclude that autism represents a natural category that can be differentiated from other natural categories? According to the real science, autism should be seen as a fact of culture, not a fact of nature.
A Biopsychosocial Model Beyond the Mind-Body Split
Can a renewed biopsychosocial approach, grounded in an updated philosophy, foster person-centered medicine, and psychiatry?
Schizophrenia and Genetics: A Closer Look at the Evidence
âThe substantial hereditary component in schizophrenia,â a pair of researchers wrote in 1993, âis surely one of the two or three best-established facts in psychiatry.â But is it really? For mainstream psychiatry and psychiatric genetics, schizophrenia is âa severe mental disorder with a lifetime risk of about 1%, characterized by hallucinations, delusions and cognitive deficits, with heritability estimated at up to 80%,â or a âhighly heritable neuropsychiatric disorder of complex genetic etiology.â Many commentators have challenged these claims, and some have challenged the concept of schizophrenia itself.
Mental Health Professionals Critique the Biomedical Model of Psychological Problems
While a great deal of the excitement about advances in psychological treatments comes from the potential for research in neuroscience to unlock the secrets of the brain, many mental health experts would like to temper this enthusiasm. A special issue of the Behavior Therapist released this month calls into question the predominant conception of mental illnesses as brain disorders.
Large Rigorous Study Debunks Popular Gene-Environment Theory of Depression
A large and rigorous meta-analysis fails to find support for the gene-environment interaction theory of depression.
It is Time to Abandon the Candidate-Gene Approach to Depression
The candidate-gene approach to depression goes unsupported and is likely based on bad science, new research finds.
Brain Disease or Existential Crisis?
As the schizophrenia/psychosis recovery research continues to emerge, we discover increasing evidence that psychosis is not caused by a disease of the brain, but...
Twin Studies are Still in Trouble: A Response to Turkheimer
Human behavioral genetics and its allied field of psychiatric genetics are in trouble, as unfulfilled gene discovery expectations during the âeuphoria of the 1980sâ have continued to the present day, leading to researchersâ ânonreplication curseâ dysphoria of the 2010s. In my recent book The Trouble with Twin Studies: A Reassessment of Twin Research in the Social and Behavioral Sciences, I presented a detailed argument that genetic interpretations of the common âclassical twin methodâ finding that reared-together MZ twin pairs resemble each other more (correlate higher) for behavioral characteristics than do reared-together same-sex DZ twin pairs are invalid because, among other reasons, the twin methodâs crucial MZ-DZ âequal environment assumptionâ (EEA) is false.
Studies of Reared-Apart (Separated) Twins: Facts and Fallacies
Twin studies supply the most frequently cited evidence in favor of important genetic influences on human behavioral differences. In an extremely small yet influential handful of studies, twin pairs were said to have been reared apart in different families. Twin researchers and others view this occurrence as the ultimate test of the relative influences of nature (genes) and nurture (environment). According to this view all behavioral resemblance between reared-apart MZ twin pairs (known as âMZAâ pairs) must be the result of their 100% genetic similarity, because such pairs share no environmental similarity. But, far from being separated at birth and reared apart in randomly selected homes representing the full range of potential behavior-influencing environments, and meeting each other for the first time when studied, most MZA pairs were only partially reared apart, and grew up in similar cultural and socioeconomic environments at the same time.
Researchers Question the Utility of an ADHD Diagnosis
A new article examines the usefulness of the ADHD diagnosis and suggests alternatives
Mental Health Professionals and Patients Often Disagree on Causes of Symptoms
A new study finds that cliniciansâ disregard for mental health patientsâ insight into their own condition may be detrimental to treatment.
Brain Scans Cannot Differentiate Between Mental Health Conditions
A new study analyzing over 21,000 participants found that differences in activation of brain regions in different psychological âdisordersâ may have been overestimated, and confirms that there is still no brain scan capable of diagnosing a mental health concern.
Lancet Psychiatryâs Controversial ADHD Study: Errors, Criticism, and Responses
Amid calls for a retraction, Lancet Psychiatry publishes articles criticizing the original finding and a response from the authors.
Mental Health Concerns Not âBrain Disorders,â Say Researchers
The latest issue of the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences features several prominent researchers arguing that mental health concerns are not âbrain disorders.â
Researchers Fail to Replicate Evidence for âBiotypesâ of Depression
A new study casts doubt on whether such biotypes for depression exist.
Western âDepressionâ is Not Universal
Derek Summerfield, consultant psychiatrist at South London and Maudsley National Health Service Foundation Trust, challenges the assumption that Western depression is a universal condition.
Five Decades of Gene Finding Failures in Psychiatry
Two generations of molecular genetic researchers have attempted, yet failed, to discover the genes that they believe underlie the major psychiatric disorders. The most recent failure is a molecular genetic study that was unable to find genes for symptoms of depression. Like most genetic researchers in psychiatry, the authors failed to consider the possibility that no such genes exist.
Exposure to Antidepressants in the Womb Linked to Autistic Behavior in Mice
Researchers experimenting on mice found that exposure to fluoxetine (Prozac) in utero resulted in behaviors considered in animal studies to be analogous to autism in humans.
The Science and Pseudoscience of Womenâs Mental Health: Conversation with Kelly Brogan
A conversation with Dr. Kelly Brogan, a leading voice in natural approaches to womenâs mental health. With degrees from MIT and Weil Cornell Medical College, triple board certification in psychiatry, psychosomatic medicine and integrative holistic medicine, Dr. Brogan is uniquely qualified to challenge the pseudoscience of the chemical imbalance theory and the drug regimens that it spawned.
The Genetics of Schizophrenia: A Left Brain Theory about a Right Brain Deficit in...
In recent months, two teams of researchers in the UK and the US published complementary findings about the epigenetic origins of schizophrenia that have scientific communities who indulge in âgenetic conspiracy theoriesâ abuzz. While these results are intriguing, and no doubt involve pathbreaking research methodologies, this line of thought represents a decontextualized understanding both of the symptoms that are typically associated with schizophrenia, and their causes.