23. The Illusions of Psychiatry. The New York Review of Books

“Learning how to deal with feelings differently”: Psychotropic medications as vehicles of socialization in adolescence

“…His belief in the promise of biological reductionism persists despite his many concerns about the medications he prescribesdwhich include their efficacy and safetydand his commitment as a family therapist and psychoanalyst to recognizing the essential role of social and psychological processes in the health and development of young people. Biological psychiatry has been strongly criticized in the recent years in both academic circles and popular media, for its unhealthy alliance with the pharmaceutical industry (for example, Frances, 2013;Angell, 2011;Greenberg, 2013). Influential child psychiatrists have been exposed as receiving enormous monetary rewards for promoting diagnoses like childhood bipolar disorder or ADHD.…”

“…Here depression functions simultaneously as a medical entity caused by a "neurochemical imbalance" and a target symptom. Given the current status of psychiatric diagnosis, in which no independent measure of underlying pathology is available, clinicians organize and make intelligible patient distress around symptoms rather than diagnoses for drug treatment (Angell, 2011). Moreover, Dr. Heller's recommendation for family therapy suggests that the cause of this "depression" could be interpersonal or psychosocial, and that neurochemical dysfunction may be an effect as much as a cause of her difficulties.…”

Marry a quean and be merry: How objective are our notions of causation?

“…for therapy. You've seen the ads in which someone, usually, a nubile woman, puts the back of her hand against her forehead and gives you a pained expression, while the In a sense, we are in an epidemic of mental illness, 3,4 with expanding definitions that become codified (until the next revision) by a select inner circle of experts who presumably are disinterested. The results are published as the guidebook known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders 5 a growing tome that is today's version of Burton.…”

Culture and Context in Mental Health Diagnosing: Scrutinizing the DSM-5 Revision

“…Add to this the numerous experts who have been appointed in the revision process, and it is easy to see that the DSM is an industry in and of itself (Cosgrove and Wheeler 2013). Critics have also pointed to ties between some DSM panel members and the pharmaceutical industry that may have compromised the otherwise relatively open and transparent revision process (Cosgrove and Wheeler 2013;Angell 2011).…”