Critical Psychiatry

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Stuck on antidepressants

Critical Psychiatry

A Sunday Times investigation found that a quarter of women in their fifties and sixties take antidepressants, and 15% of women over 50 have been on them for longer than five years (see article ). As the article also says, some people on antidepressants also experience emotional blunting and difficult withdrawal symptoms. James Davies, who I have mentioned before (see eg. previous post ), is quoted as saying, “[T]he evidence base [for antidepressants] suggests they’re no more effective than place

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How we have been misled about the nature of depression

Critical Psychiatry

Joanna Moncrieff’s abstract for her Sowerby Project 10 year anniversary public lecture, ‘Changing our minds: How we have been misled about the nature of depression and mental disorder’, emphasises that most people generally have come to accept that it’s reasonable to believe that depression is a brain disorder which is specifically targeted by antidepressants (see lecture information ).

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Universal remedies for mental health problems

Critical Psychiatry

I’ve mentioned the problems with mental health services in Greater Manchester before (eg. see previous post ). Mental health workers in Manchester have recently called off their strike having obtained more funding for services (see Big Issue article ). As I’ve said before (see eg. previous post ), the problem isn’t just about more funding. The fundamental problem is the management of demand for mental health services.

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Vision for mental health policy

Critical Psychiatry

Penelope Camplings book On the brink with patients stories from her life in psychiatry starts at the end of the asylum years, when many of us, as she says, were optimistic about the development of community care. But as I keep saying (see eg. previous post ), mental health care, like much of NHS provision, has become too dysfunctional and fragmented.

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Taking the debate about antidepressants forward

Critical Psychiatry

Joanna Moncrieffs book Chemically imbalanced at least seems to have ruffled a few feathers, as it has led to a Lancet editorial. Its not clear, though, from the editorial how the debate about antidepressants can be taken forward. Of course many people say they have been helped by antidepressants. But the question is whether the outcome is any better than placebo.

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Making psychiatry more open-minded

Critical Psychiatry

Peter Gtzsche is not joking when he asks if psychiatrists are more mad than their patients (see his Mad in America blog post ). I understand what he means about the wishful thinking of biomedical psychiatrists (see eg. previous post ). Its important not to distance ourselves from people with whom we disagree by labelling them insane (see eg. previous post ).

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Difficulties of identifying as a psychiatrist with the profession

Critical Psychiatry

Ive mentioned the 1996 article by David Kaiser Against biologic psychiatry in a previous post. He described why he found it increasingly difficult for him as a psychiatrist to identify with his profession. Biologic psychiatry seems to have become even more dominant since then with the increasing overmedicalisation of psychiatry (see eg. previous post ) and fragmentation and dysfunction of services (see eg. another previous post ).

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