Category: psychiatry

Standard psychiatric care is coercive (yes, the United Nations calls forced treatment torture)

As a person who has experienced involuntary commitments, seclusion, restraints, forced medication, and intentional humiliation as part of my “mental health” treatment, I am still working through the severe and persistent effects of force and coercion. Being in relational dynamics in which I had no voice and in which I was not treated as a human being with viable thoughts and legitimate feelings impacted my sense of self in ways that were incredibly destructive. I didn’t have a word for it when it was happening. Torture was something that happened to prisoners of war in faraway places and in terrible movies. It was not something that happened to young Americans in modern hospitals. … [click on title for the rest of the post]

Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry, Gary Greenberg (Madness Radio)

picture of Gary greenberg for book of woe

Why did the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual become so controversial? Is it possible to alleviate human suffering without classifying it as a mental disorder? Gary Greenberg, psychotherapist, author of Manufacturing Depression and The Book of Woe: The DSM and the Unmaking of Psychiatry, and journalist for Harper's, the New Yorker, and Rolling Stone, discusses the politics behind psychiatry's new Bible. … [click on title for the rest of the post]

Reframe bipolar disorder

gustave klimpt like decorative reframe bipolar disorder

it's clear that the collection of phenomena that is labeled bipolar varies from individual to individual and they have many different etiologies. Labeling them as if they are all the same monolithic thing only serves to muddy the waters and often serves to trap the individual in a toxic prison of confusion and psychopharmaceuticals that are difficult to get off of. ... this post includes an article and then a collection on the subject.

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Redefining mental illness — Robert Whitaker and Allen Frances on Al Jazeera TV (video included)

Inside Story Americas, with presenter Shihab Rattansi, discusses with guests: Dr Allen Frances, former chair of the psychiatry department at Duke University and author of the book Saving Normal; and Robert Whitaker, a journalist and author of the book Anatomy of an Epidemic. … [click on title for the rest of the post]

Will Hall at Grand Rounds, OHSU Department of Psychiatry – Oregon Health And Sciences University

My Grand Rounds talk at OHSU Department of Psychiatry was both video archived on their website, as well as live broadcast to several remote sites, including Oregon State Hospital. Much of the presentation followed my APA talk last October, compressed into an impossibly short timeframe made even shorter by a late start. With one or two exceptions, the crowd filling the lecture room was very welcoming and positive; it was an overall inspiring experience for me to see so much openness to change. A special thank you to Dr. Neil Falk, who helped out when OHSU asked that I have a doctor as sponsor for my talk. … [click on title for the rest of the post]

DSM5 the latest news and happenings…collected (updating regularly)

A collection of articles on the DSM in the news today and recently. We're watching a house come down!! It looks like the publication of DSMV is -- not at all by design -- turning into a watershed event. … [click on title for the rest of the post]

Psychiatry under fire in the UK — British Psychological Society takes issue with the bio-medical model

In a groundbreaking move that has already prompted a fierce backlash from psychiatrists, the British Psychological Society's division of clinical psychology (DCP) will on Monday issue a statement declaring that, given the lack of evidence, it is time for a "paradigm shift" in how the issues of mental health are understood. The statement effectively casts doubt on psychiatry's predominantly biomedical model of mental distress – the idea that people are suffering from illnesses that are treatable by doctors using drugs. The DCP said its decision to speak out "reflects fundamental concerns about the development, personal impact and core assumptions of the (diagnosis) systems", used by psychiatry.

Dr Lucy Johnstone, a consultant clinical psychologist who helped draw up the DCP's statement, said it was unhelpful to see mental health issues as illnesses with biological causes.

"On the contrary, there is now overwhelming evidence that people break down as a result of a complex mix of social and psychological circumstances – bereavement and loss, poverty and discrimination, trauma and abuse," … [click title for link]

NIMH is abandoning the DSM!

Another big WOW piece of news. I'll let it stand alone. Thank you for alerting us Mind Hacks.

It's not like Insel is generally an enlightened sort, but this remains fascinating!

UPDATE: I read the NIMH announcement. (when I first posted this I had just woken up) As I said above, Insel is hardly an enlightened sort. This probably isn’t as positive as it sounds. Although acknowledging the limitations of DSM is good, what will eventually replace it is likely to be even more reductive, i.e. the criteria for diagnosis will likely become all biological based on genetics, scans and other kinds of testing without reference to anything involved outside the patient’s body.

That’s not to diminish the value of discarding conceptual categories. It’s not that long ago that mental illness was mostly classified as hysteria. … [click on title for the rest of the post]

Chronic illness: legacy effect from psych meds

multicolored abstract wall art for Chronic illness: legacy effect from psych meds: "benefits" become crippling illness.

"Aside from dead bodies,we know that many of those who “benefit” will have enduring problems from physical dependence and other legacy effects from treatment. This is not effectiveness as the 1962 regulations envisaged. We have ended up instead in a world in which hints of an effect are used to gain market entry for drugs and when we use these drugs mindlessly on the basis that they are effective, if the RCT evidence is to be believed, we produce greater disability in the long run than if we never had them. The effects may turn out to be worse than if we had encouraged chronic alcohol intake."

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Forced treatment does not work (Lancet reports on a study)

Conclusion:

In well coordinated mental health services the imposition of compulsory supervision does not reduce the rate of readmission of psychotic patients. We found no support in terms of any reduction in overall hospital admission to justify the significant curtailment of patients' personal liberty. … [click on title to read the rest]

In honor of the woman I witnessed being tortured

moon through the trees Since I learned and posted about the UN report that explicitly called forced psych treatment torture, I've been haunted by a memory of something I witnessed during a hospitalization as a very young woman.

Since posting about the UN report that called forced psych treatment torture, I've been haunted by a memory. It was something I witnessed during a hospitalization as a very young woman. I have my own radical experiences of such torture. I wrote about it in 2007 here. It's not what I've been struggling with in the last few days, however. Instead what plagues me is knowing that this is happening everyday, all over this country and nothing is being done to stop it.

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