The Latest Gene Finding Claim in Psychiatry

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On February 28th, the New York Times reported the latest psychiatric disorder “gene finding” claim in an article entitled “5 Disorders Share Genetic Risk Factors, Study Shows,” The Times reporter described a study that claimed to have identified shared genes associated with five psychiatric disorders: autism spectrum disorder, attention/deficit-hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder, and schizophrenia. We have seen thousands of such claims in psychiatry since the 1960s, and we have also seen that these claims do not survive replication attempts.

Diagnosis Dilemma

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Not long ago I had a conversation with a psychiatrist. He told me about a diagnostic dilemma he’d run up against at work; When a judge makes an unfunded treatment mandate as part of her judgment, she pressures the doctor to make a “payable” psychiatric diagnosis. If the doctor stretches the truth out of sympathy and provides an inaccurate but payable diagnosis so that his patient can have access to medical care and money to live on, he is committing fraud that can mean heavy fines and incarceration for himself.

The Politics of Systems Change: Lessons Learned from the Launch of the DSM-5 Boycott

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Machiavelli had it right. “There is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order to things.” Ever since we launched our DSM-5 Boycott three weeks ago, we’ve received support from organizations and individuals but have become entangled in more wrangling than I ever would have anticipated.

Robot Bullies Rats into Depression to Test Antidepressant Medication

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Japanese engineers have devised a robotic rat that bullies laboratory rats into a state of depression, creating a model of human depression they deem...

Five Decades of Gene Finding Failures in Psychiatry

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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.

We Are The Ones

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My public writing has brought my mother and I closer together than we’ve been in decades. There have been disagreements. But now, my almost ninety-year-old mother tells me she reads everything I write. She recently told me that she’s glad I see things so clearly.

Emotional CPR as a Way of Life

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Many of us are taught to fear the expression of strong emotions, and to hide or suppress big feelings. We have also erroneously been taught that only specially trained people or “professionals” are equipped to handle these experiences. But people knowledgeable in conventional treatment often aren’t exposed to community-based, holistic, common sense, person-to-person approaches. Many people have gained wisdom and resiliency by working through emotional distress, and it is helpful to do this with someone who understands the growth potential in these experiences.

Psychiatric Survivors Speak Up: Harm From Psychiatric Diagnosis, and a Start on Solutions

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Clinical and research psychologist Paula Caplan presents a keynote address entitled "Psychiatric Survivors Speak Up: Harm From Psychiatric Diagnosis, and a Start on Solutions" at the 2012 National Association for Rights Protection and Advocacy (NARPA) Conference in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Violence, Depression in Parents Linked to Kids’ ADHD, Depression

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A prospective study of 2,422 children from 2004 to 2012 found that children whose parents reported Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and depressive symptoms were...

Effects of Stress Can Cross Generations

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Researchers from the University of Cambridge have found, for the first time, that genes affected by stress during life can be passed to the...

Scapegoating Persons Labelled Mentally Ill: The Politics of Marginalization

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Scapegoating is an ancient human practice that probably dates from the time the first human beings decided to circle their huts -- what we fondly term the dawn of civilization. When things got tense in the compound, penalties got handed out to one or more individuals or families, those usually at the low end of the pole, the politically powerless or vulnerable.

Youth Violence is a Family Therapy Issue

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Family therapists view violent young people in the context of the wider social systems of which they are a part. This typically means the youth’s parents, but it can also include grandparents, teachers, or even friends. Framing youth violence in terms of the social context or family system--rather than as a psychological problem of the individual-- is the most effective way of putting an end to the violent behavior.

The Problem with PTSD

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“The voices, they tell me they gonna kill me, and it’s my fault.” “Sometimes, when we hear voices, they just reflect our own anxieties, sometimes they can echo things we’ve been told in the past. When the voices tell you that they’re going to kill you, does that echo anything you may have been told in the past?” I ask.

More Thinking about Alternatives to Psychiatric Diagnosis

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In my last post, I argued that the single most damaging effect of psychiatric diagnosis is loss of meaning. By ruthlessly divesting experiences of their personal, social and cultural significance, diagnosis turns ‘people with problems’ into ‘patients with illnesses.’ Horrifying stories of trauma, abuse, discrimination and deprivation are sealed off behind a pseudo-medical label as the individual is launched on what is often a lifelong journey of disability, exclusion and despair.

“As Diagnostic Thresholds Are Lowered, Being Normal Ends Up Being as Difficult as Being...

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"We are in the process of turning the disease into the norm and where the normal becomes the exception. If this continues, we will...

“Drop the Language of Disorder”

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Peter Kinderman, John Read, Joanna Moncrieff and Richard Bentall write, in Evidence-Based Mental Health this month, that "While some people find a name or...

The Hearing Voices Movement: Beyond Critiquing the Status Quo

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We have just celebrated the anniversary of the rapidly expanding global Hearing Voices Movement which was founded more than twenty-five years ago following the ground-breaking research of Professor Marius Romme and Dr Sandra Escher. Romme and Escher have advocated for a radical shift in the way we understand the phenomenon of Hearing Voices; in contrast to traditional, biomedical psychiatry which views voices as an aberrant by-product of genetic, brain and cognitive faults, their research has firmly established that voices make sense when taking into account the traumatic circumstances that frequently provoke them.

From Psychiatry and Psychotherapy’s Grand Delusion Toward Constructions of a Post-Therapeutic State

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by Eugene Epstein, Manfred Wiesner, and Lothar Duda Over the past 50 years, the psychiatric and psychotherapeutic discourses of the western first world have infiltrated...

Backsliding in the Bay State

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The drumbeat for more "Risk Management" just gets louder. And nowhere is this so alarmingly evident as a new policy proposed by the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health (DMH) in November 2012.

Beyond Meds: “Childhood Abuse is ‘Unpalatable’ and so the Epidemic of Abuse Goes Unchallenged”

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Beyond Meds, continuing its legacy of bringing attention to the causes and cures of what is often called "mental illness", presents an article, video,...

“Last Plea To DSM-5: Save Grief From the Drug Companies”

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Allen Frances, writing in the Huffington Post, calls the decision in the forthcoming DSM-5 to call grief in the bereaved a disorder as soon as...

Thinking about Alternatives to Psychiatric Diagnosis

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I want to follow up my first post by outlining the principles of possible alternatives to psychiatric diagnosis – that is, alternatives in addition to the most obvious one, which is simply to stop diagnosing people.

Trauma, First-Episode Schizophrenia, and Brain-Derived Neurotrophic Factor

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A team of Egyptian researchers found, in a sample of 74 outpatients, a relationship between trauma and first-episode schizophrenia, with a "mediating" role of...

Introduction: The Gene Illusion Continues

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I am pleased to have the opportunity to be part of the Mad In America website. I plan to provide a critical perspective on genetic theories and research in psychiatry and psychology. I will highlight the numerous problems with widespread claims that studies of families, twins, and adoptees have provided indisputable evidence that psychiatric disorders and psychological traits have an important underlying genetic basis.

Sudden Death of a Relative in Early Childhood Increases Risk of Psychotic Disorder

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A team from Ireland, Finland and Sweden found, in a study of all those born in Helsinki in a 30-year period (1960 to 1990)...