Psychiatrists under fire in mental health battle

[DeSwiss]

British Psychological Society to launch attack on rival profession, casting doubt on biomedical model of mental illness

Jamie Doward
the guardian | The Observer
Saturday 11 May 2013


[font color=darkgray]British psychologists are to say that current psychiatric
diagnoses such as bipolar disorder are useless. Photograph:
Justin Paget/Fuse/Getty[/font]

There is no scientific evidence that psychiatric diagnoses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder are valid or useful, according to the leading body representing Britain's clinical psychologists. 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," Johnstone said.

The provocative statement by the DCP has been timed to come out shortly before the release of DSM-5, the fifth edition of the American Psychiatry Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

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The Rosenhan experiment

[HiPointDem]

1. kr

[Ron Green]

2. I hope we can move the needle

a bit in this direction. I believe some "Axis I" people are still going to have to be always on their meds, but I also believe it's high time we recognize how this toxic goddamn Capitalist system is driving mental illness.

[LuvNewcastle]

3. A lot of mental 'illnesses' are caused by socio-economic factors.

They're reactions to a hostile environment. Meds are a lifesaver for a lot of people, but in many cases they treat the symptoms rather than the cause. The cause cannot be treated because it is our capitalistic, highly competitive, materialistic society itself. Maybe one day.

[DeSwiss]

5. Mad In America

Why Anti-Authoritarians are Diagnosed as Mentally Ill

Bruce Levine, Ph.D.
February 26, 2012

In my career as a psychologist, I have talked with hundreds of people previously diagnosed by other professionals with oppositional defiant disorder, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, anxiety disorder and other psychiatric illnesses, and I am struck by (1) how many of those diagnosed are essentially anti-authoritarians, and (2) how those professionals who have diagnosed them are not.

Anti-authoritarians question whether an authority is a legitimate one before taking that authority seriously. Evaluating the legitimacy of authorities includes assessing whether or not authorities actually know what they are talking about, are honest, and care about those people who are respecting their authority. And when anti-authoritarians assess an authority to be illegitimate, they challenge and resist that authority—sometimes aggressively and sometimes passive-aggressively, sometimes wisely and sometimes not.

Some activists lament how few anti-authoritarians there appear to be in the United States. One reason could be that many natural anti-authoritarians are now psychopathologized and medicated before they achieve political consciousness of society’s most oppressive authorities.

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[center]''Happiness is a direction, not a place.'' - Sydney J Harris[/center]

[LuvNewcastle]

8. Good article.

The fact that a lot of psychiatrists and psychologists are conservative and authoritarian complicates a lot of people's treatments and diagnoses.

[DeSwiss]

10. Yes, and I found this passage.....

...at the end puts it all succinctly:

The reality is that depression is highly associated with societal and financial pains. One is much more likely to be depressed if one is unemployed, underemployed, on public assistance, or in debt (for documentation, see “400% Rise in Anti-Depressant Pill Use”). And ADHD labeled kids do pay attention when they are getting paid, or when an activity is novel, interests them, or is chosen by them (documented in my book Commonsense Rebellion).

In an earlier dark age, authoritarian monarchies partnered with authoritarian religious institutions. When the world exited from this dark age and entered the Enlightenment, there was a burst of energy. Much of this revitalization had to do with risking skepticism about authoritarian and corrupt institutions and regaining confidence in one’s own mind. We are now in another dark age, only the institutions have changed. Americans desperately need anti-authoritarians to question, challenge, and resist new illegitimate authorities and regain confidence in their own common sense.

In every generation there will be authoritarians and anti-authoritarians. While it is unusual in American history for anti-authoritarians to take the kind of effective action that inspires others to successfully revolt, every once in a while a Tom Paine, Crazy Horse, or Malcolm X come along. So authoritarians financially marginalize those who buck the system, they criminalize anti-authoritarianism, they psychopathologize anti-authoritarians, and they market drugs for their “cure.”

[LuvNewcastle]

11. " We are now in another dark age, only the institutions have changed."

It's just going to get darker if we don't continue to speak out. People will call us names (Naderites, Ron Paul supporters, etc.) but it's the duty of anti-authoritarians to speak up and remind people where we've been and warn them about where we're headed.

[pennylane100]

4. Is there any scientific data that support their findings.

This seems to be a dramatic change in the way mental health issues are diagnosed. Is there any supporting data to back up this change or is this Cameron's latest idea on how to reduce the healthcare costs by excluding a few million people from receiving care.

[LuvNewcastle]

6. Some of these ideas are rather radical, such as

the statement that schizophrenia and bipolar disorder diagnoses aren't valid or useful, or there's no scientific evidence that they are. Other ideas, like the classification of Asperger's as an autism spectrum disorder, aren't so controversial. I've seen DUer's with Asperger's say the same thing. If their ideas are considered too radical, I don't think most psychiatrists will get on board with this. It will be interesting to see if the British conservatives try to use the book to change the mental health care over there. The article says that British psychiatrists use a different manual, however, so I don't think they'll be able to make serious changes to the system. The new DSM will cause some arguments, though, that's for sure.

[Dorian Gray]

13. I agree

I think that the statement that bipolar disorder and shizophrenia diagnoses as being invalid is sort of a frightening 180 turn for accepted psychological practice. Their ideas are worth debating and medically testing, I suppose. But in reading their initial statement in the OP, I felt as those it was a Scientology esque denial of mental health issues in society.

(Having said that, I do think some doctors are quick to medicate rather than get to the root of the issue.)

[napoleon_in_rags]

7. I think its very positive that someone has decided to stir the pot on this.

Meds can be necessary, they may be the first line of treatment in a crisis situation, such as a situation where an individual is ready to kill themselves over mental suffering. (The first step is to manage the pain they are feeling, and meds can do that.) But long term treatment with meds often underestimates the amazing power of the human brain to heal itself, and often involves too narrow a definition of what normal human experience actually is. It takes all kinds, and nature in her wisdom has produced all kinds of different people to fill up a balanced and healthy world, even though some of them seem a bit odd to many of us. I believe they are there to make us strong - not as individuals, but as a society. (Richard Dawkins pointed out the unit of genetic selection in evolution is the whole, not the individual.)

The problem is we aren't really living in a balanced and healthy world right now, and we should be listening to the warning calls coming from so many different human directions. We should also look at all the people driven to mental illness by the realities of their life experience, remembering they have become that way to survive what they have seen, what they have been through.

Nature provided all of us with a DEEP toolkit. It's inside most of us, deeper than any of our normal experiences. Its the awareness that comes to us at the level of dreams, of the gut. Its the level of madness, and its part of us all. Its not our enemy in the big picture, but our friend, and the fact that its being triggered in so many people right now isn't a reason to question those people, its a reason for deep heartfelt questioning of our whole way of life right now.

PEace

[LuvNewcastle]

9. Well said.

[unreadierLizard]

12. As someone with medically diagnosed mental illness

I don't know what's more disturbing - this article or some of your comments involving it.

Sickening.

[Dorian Gray]

14. I'm interested in hearing more about your perspective on this situation

I agree that it's disturbing that some people want to do away with current diagnoses and treatment plans. I also believe with my whole heart that some people with very real diagnoses need medication to maintain a healthy life. I've had friends who have suffered some serious diagnoses (including schizophrenia) and without her medication combo, she'd have a very difficult time living in the relationship and world in which she does. (She hallucinated and spoke to demons/angels when she was unmedicated.)

There are degrees of mental health disorders, and then there is general situational depression. A doctor once tried to put me on antidepressants when I was depressed. (Not a mental health professional. A general practitioner.) I declined and worked out my issues on my own. I think some other people have experience with that and are quick to think that the medical field is too quick to prescribe certain medications. But, as I said initially, they're very important for the people with more serious diagnoses. They are a part of life's protocol, ensuring their ability to participate in our world.

It makes me very uncomfortable that that is under attack by this organization.

There are people I know who could not co-exist with our world without their medications. I've seen them go off of them. And it's a disaster.