Rethinking Psychiatry/Medical Model

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.

Officials at a school that was more focused on ADHD diagnoses described children’s behavior in terms of individual illnesses, taking children out of the context of their social interactions, race, gender, and socioeconomic status.

A new article explores how psychiatric diagnoses are differentially applied to people of different racial and class backgrounds.

A review of mental health anti-stigma campaigns finds psychosocial models are effective in reducing stigma, while biogenetic models often worsen attitudes.

On the 6th of June 2013, ITV's This Morning hosted the News Review. One story was about the actor Stephen Fry and his recent publicity on how he has battled with his ‘bipolar’ condition and suicide attempts. While we don’t have any issue with this and the important message Mr Fry was trying to put across, we do have grave concerns over the comments made by the two guest speakers, and with what was imparted to This Morning’s vast susceptible viewing audience.

In 2012, I found out that the ten biggest drug companies in the world commit repeated and serious crimes to such a degree that they fulfill the criteria for organised crime under US law. I also found out how huge the consequences of the crimes are. They involve colossal thefts of public monies and they contribute substantially to the fact that our drugs are the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer.

The team that developed the Power Threat Meaning framework as a diagnostic alternative reflects on the response to the framework after one year.

The candidate-gene approach to depression goes unsupported and is likely based on bad science, new research finds.

Robert Whitaker extended one of his core arguments from Anatomy of an Epidemic in a blog post last week. His argument revolves around the claim that psychiatric drugs are the principal cause of increasing psychiatric disability, as measured by U.S. social security disability claims. But does this really explain the rise in recipients of these SSI & SSDI benefits?

MIA's Peter Simons interviews David Cohen, PhD, on his path to researching mental health, coercive practices, and discontinuation from psychiatric drugs.

Historical, current, and potential future complexities of cognitive assessment; a longstanding, controversial fixture in schools throughout the United States.

Researchers investigate the first-person experiences of people who disagreed with their psychiatric diagnosis of psychosis.

Meta-analytic study finds that psychodynamic therapy outcomes are equivalent to those of CBT and other empirically supported treatments.

The study results suggest that experiences of childhood trauma impact the development of symptoms associated with psychosis.

A new study explores feelings of belongingness as a protective factor for childhood trauma and adult mental health outcomes.

In-depth interviews find that those who screened positive for depression did not explain their experience in terms of diagnostic symptoms.

The authors outline reasons for renaming schizophrenia and the way a change can reform practice.

Findings show that participants with lower levels of education and SES suffer from more chronic pain.

In a new report, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the right to health, Dr. Dainius Pūras, calls for a move away from the biomedical model and “excessive use of psychotropic medicines.”

The authors of a large scale well-conducted systematic review of methylphenidate, also known as Ritalin, conclude that there is a lack of quality evidence for the drug’s effectiveness. Their research also revealed that Ritalin can cause sleep problems and decreased appetite in children.

Dr. Johnathan Shedler recently published a paper critiquing how the term “evidence-based” is being used in the field of psychotherapy.

I was honored to both attend and participate in the recent Mad In America Film Festival. I was asked to join a panel of psychiatrists who were asked to respond to the themes and questions explored in the festival. What follows are a lightly edited version of my remarks.

On November 12th, 2015, the third anniversary of the day that I abruptly stopped taking benzodiazepines, my dear friend, J. Doe, published a two-part article here on Mad in America examining the language that is commonly used to describe benzodiazepine (benzo) iatrogenesis. I wanted a summary of these articles captured in a Youtube video so that those in the thick of benzo neurotoxicity could tune into these ideas in a way that might be more easily digestible. I hoped more benzo sufferers would begin to question how they describe (and allow others to describe) an illness that remains decades behind in understanding and recognition. I also wanted to draw attention to the content again in hopes that more medical professionals would read and understand the crucial distinctions in language surrounding this problem.

People diagnosed with severe depression show the same changes in brain scans when they respond to a placebo as they do when they take an actual antidepressant, according to a new study. Researchers also found that those whose symptoms were decreased by a placebo were more likely to report relief from antidepressant drugs.

Much of what we term “madness” is, in fact, the awakening of the "Self" to its own Wholeness/Divinity. We are born totally pure. Throughout our lives we are subject to projections, flung at us from a multitude of directions: from Mom and Dad, from schools, religious institutions, the media, and the medical model. We are all buried, to some degree, under projections, and interesting symptoms emerge: nightmares, stress and anxiety, fear, flashbacks, and so on. These are not "Madness," but symptoms of health; of a "Self" attempting to break free from lies.