Post by Deleted on May 6, 2020 16:38:55 GMT
www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/books/2009/jun/21/doctoring-the-mind-richard-bentall
Bentall's thesis is that, for all the apparent advances in understanding psychiatric disorders, psychiatric treatment has done little to improve human welfare, because the scientific research which has led to the favouring of mind-altering drugs is, as he puts it, "fatally flawed". He cites some startling evidence from the World Health Organisation that suggests patients suffering psychotic episodes in developing countries recover "better" than those from the industrialised world and the aim of the book is broadly to suggest why this might be so.
The first part describes the historical evolution of different kinds of treatment, moving on to dismantle some myths about the nature of severe mental illness. On the way, Bentall addresses the problem of diagnostic categories, suggesting that what are conventionally called psychiatric "symptoms" are more accurately termed "complaints". A particular focus of his critique is the notion of heritability, the theory that mental illness has a genetic basis. According to Bentall, there exist grave flaws in the research methods adopted and the stigma of an inescapable genetic stamp baselessly fuels discrimination against those suffering mental disarray. In addition, the dangers of long-term exposure to many psychotropic drugs appears to outweigh their usefulness.
Here it is important to explain something that is not always understood, which is that mental "illness" is not strictly comparable with physical illness. There are several reasons for this, one being that the aetiology (causation) of so-called mental disease is not yet identifiable in the way that, say, measles is. The precise causal relationship between or mind and body remains misty, but that strong emotional states have an impact on physical states is recognisable in everyday life. We do not feel fear because we have paled or experience anxiety because we sweat. We blush or, if we have penises, have erections because strong emotions trigger these normal physical responses.
The second reason for distinguishing between physical and mental illness is that diagnostic concepts defining "mental disease" are, in Bentall's words, "invented, not discovered". They arise out of a collective decision, rather than scientific discovery (you can't test for schizophrenia in the way you can for diabetes). Schizophrenia and bipolar disease (once called "manic depression") are merely the names given to a loose collection of "symptoms" and the decision to plump for one diagnosis over another will be influenced by the doctor's interpretation of the current psychiatric scoreboard.
Bentall is not the first to call attention to a drugs industry whose success is based on the efficacy of its marketing techniques rather than of its medications. But it is useful to be reminded of the massive financial forces behind the enthusiasm for drugs. It has become standard practice among psychiatrists to medicate for life those diagnosed with serious psychoses when, demonstrably, more is not better, either in dosage or time scale. In the US, children are being prescribed anti-psychotic drugs for "disruptive" behaviour. Grief, disappointment and old age are nowadays routinely met with serotonin-reuptake inhibitors.
www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/26/mental-illness-misery-childhood-traumas
Recent studies have pointed to a wide range of social and environmental factors that increase the risk of mental ill health. These include poverty in childhood, social inequality and early exposure to urban environments; migration and belonging to an ethnic minority (all trending in the wrong direction); early separation from parents; childhood sexual, physical and emotional abuse; and bullying in schools.
Why is all this important? For one thing, many psychiatric patients in Britain feel that services too often ignore their life stories. In the words of Eleanor Longden, a mental health activist, “They always ask what is wrong with you and hardly ever ask what happened to you.” Patients are routinely offered powerful drugs (which clearly have a place but only help some patients), but very rarely the kinds of psychological therapies that may help them come to terms with these kinds of experiences, or even practical advice (debt counselling probably has a place in the treatment of depression, for example).
A narrow medical approach has been extraordinarily unsuccessful, despite what many people assume. Whereas survival and recovery rates for severe physical conditions such as cancer and heart disease have improved dramatically since the second world war, recovery rates for severe mental illness have not shifted at all. Those countries that spend the least on psychiatric services have the best outcomes for severe mental illness, whereas those that spend the most have the highest suicide rates.
----
One thing in one of his videos he said was that hallucinations weren't linked to a particular area unlike things like depression and paranoia.
Bentall's thesis is that, for all the apparent advances in understanding psychiatric disorders, psychiatric treatment has done little to improve human welfare, because the scientific research which has led to the favouring of mind-altering drugs is, as he puts it, "fatally flawed". He cites some startling evidence from the World Health Organisation that suggests patients suffering psychotic episodes in developing countries recover "better" than those from the industrialised world and the aim of the book is broadly to suggest why this might be so.
The first part describes the historical evolution of different kinds of treatment, moving on to dismantle some myths about the nature of severe mental illness. On the way, Bentall addresses the problem of diagnostic categories, suggesting that what are conventionally called psychiatric "symptoms" are more accurately termed "complaints". A particular focus of his critique is the notion of heritability, the theory that mental illness has a genetic basis. According to Bentall, there exist grave flaws in the research methods adopted and the stigma of an inescapable genetic stamp baselessly fuels discrimination against those suffering mental disarray. In addition, the dangers of long-term exposure to many psychotropic drugs appears to outweigh their usefulness.
Here it is important to explain something that is not always understood, which is that mental "illness" is not strictly comparable with physical illness. There are several reasons for this, one being that the aetiology (causation) of so-called mental disease is not yet identifiable in the way that, say, measles is. The precise causal relationship between or mind and body remains misty, but that strong emotional states have an impact on physical states is recognisable in everyday life. We do not feel fear because we have paled or experience anxiety because we sweat. We blush or, if we have penises, have erections because strong emotions trigger these normal physical responses.
The second reason for distinguishing between physical and mental illness is that diagnostic concepts defining "mental disease" are, in Bentall's words, "invented, not discovered". They arise out of a collective decision, rather than scientific discovery (you can't test for schizophrenia in the way you can for diabetes). Schizophrenia and bipolar disease (once called "manic depression") are merely the names given to a loose collection of "symptoms" and the decision to plump for one diagnosis over another will be influenced by the doctor's interpretation of the current psychiatric scoreboard.
Bentall is not the first to call attention to a drugs industry whose success is based on the efficacy of its marketing techniques rather than of its medications. But it is useful to be reminded of the massive financial forces behind the enthusiasm for drugs. It has become standard practice among psychiatrists to medicate for life those diagnosed with serious psychoses when, demonstrably, more is not better, either in dosage or time scale. In the US, children are being prescribed anti-psychotic drugs for "disruptive" behaviour. Grief, disappointment and old age are nowadays routinely met with serotonin-reuptake inhibitors.
www.google.com/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/26/mental-illness-misery-childhood-traumas
Recent studies have pointed to a wide range of social and environmental factors that increase the risk of mental ill health. These include poverty in childhood, social inequality and early exposure to urban environments; migration and belonging to an ethnic minority (all trending in the wrong direction); early separation from parents; childhood sexual, physical and emotional abuse; and bullying in schools.
Why is all this important? For one thing, many psychiatric patients in Britain feel that services too often ignore their life stories. In the words of Eleanor Longden, a mental health activist, “They always ask what is wrong with you and hardly ever ask what happened to you.” Patients are routinely offered powerful drugs (which clearly have a place but only help some patients), but very rarely the kinds of psychological therapies that may help them come to terms with these kinds of experiences, or even practical advice (debt counselling probably has a place in the treatment of depression, for example).
A narrow medical approach has been extraordinarily unsuccessful, despite what many people assume. Whereas survival and recovery rates for severe physical conditions such as cancer and heart disease have improved dramatically since the second world war, recovery rates for severe mental illness have not shifted at all. Those countries that spend the least on psychiatric services have the best outcomes for severe mental illness, whereas those that spend the most have the highest suicide rates.
----
One thing in one of his videos he said was that hallucinations weren't linked to a particular area unlike things like depression and paranoia.