Aug 19, 2019 07:22 PM
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cro...al-itself/
EXCERPT (John Horgan): . . . I recently reviewed Medical Nihilism, in which philosopher Jacob Stegenga mounts a scathing critique of medicine, arguing that many common treatments don’t work very well, if at all. In this post, I look at Mind Fixers: Psychiatry’s Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness by historian Anne Harrington, which corroborates and complements Medical Nihilism. "Mind-Fixers" is more measured than most critiques of psychiatry. Harrington seems almost pained to deliver bad news, making her indictment all the more damning.
Upbeat accounts of modern psychiatry, like A History of Psychiatry by Edward Shorter, present it as a story of good science triumphing over bad. Biological theories of and treatments for the brain, notably drugs like Thorazine, lithium, Valium and Prozac, displaced Freudian psychobabble and transformed psychiatry into a truly scientific discipline.
This story is false, Harrington asserts. She writes: “Today one is hard-pressed to find anyone knowledgeable who believes that the so-called biological revolution of the 1980s made good on most or even any of its therapeutic and scientific promises.” Bio-psychiatry “overreached, overpromised, overdiagnosed, overmedicated and compromised its principles.”
"Mind Fixers" starts in the 19th century, when the insane were housed in asylums...
[...] Harrington’s book chronicles the largely futile efforts of scientists to find such causes and cures...
[...] The media hailed these alleged advances, exaggerating benefits and downplaying risks...
[...] The eugenics movement, which assumed mental illness is hereditary, sought to eradicate it by preventing the mentally “unfit” from reproducing...
[...] The practical and ethical flaws of these biological methods allowed psychological approaches to mental illness to flourish...
[...] Harrington is hard on the Freudians, accusing them of arrogance, dogmatism and cruelty, especially toward women...
[...] But modern bio-psychiatrists are Harrington’s main target. ..
[...] Psychiatry’s biological “revolution,” which Harrington calls a “False Dawn,” now appears to have been motivated as much by greed as compassion...
[...] Psychiatrists did their job well. Sales of medications for mental illness increased by a factor of six between 1987 and 2001...
[...] Some of the bleakest assessments of bio-psychiatry come from insiders, including two former directors of the National Institute of Mental Health, the world’s largest funder of mental-health research...
[...] Harrington concludes her book with a call to action. She says psychiatry’s current “crisis” is also an opportunity for reform, and she urges the profession to take various steps to break out of its “stalemate”... (MORE - details)
RELATED (scivillage): Why the constant trashing of antidepressants is absurd
EXCERPT (John Horgan): . . . I recently reviewed Medical Nihilism, in which philosopher Jacob Stegenga mounts a scathing critique of medicine, arguing that many common treatments don’t work very well, if at all. In this post, I look at Mind Fixers: Psychiatry’s Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness by historian Anne Harrington, which corroborates and complements Medical Nihilism. "Mind-Fixers" is more measured than most critiques of psychiatry. Harrington seems almost pained to deliver bad news, making her indictment all the more damning.
Upbeat accounts of modern psychiatry, like A History of Psychiatry by Edward Shorter, present it as a story of good science triumphing over bad. Biological theories of and treatments for the brain, notably drugs like Thorazine, lithium, Valium and Prozac, displaced Freudian psychobabble and transformed psychiatry into a truly scientific discipline.
This story is false, Harrington asserts. She writes: “Today one is hard-pressed to find anyone knowledgeable who believes that the so-called biological revolution of the 1980s made good on most or even any of its therapeutic and scientific promises.” Bio-psychiatry “overreached, overpromised, overdiagnosed, overmedicated and compromised its principles.”
"Mind Fixers" starts in the 19th century, when the insane were housed in asylums...
[...] Harrington’s book chronicles the largely futile efforts of scientists to find such causes and cures...
[...] The media hailed these alleged advances, exaggerating benefits and downplaying risks...
[...] The eugenics movement, which assumed mental illness is hereditary, sought to eradicate it by preventing the mentally “unfit” from reproducing...
[...] The practical and ethical flaws of these biological methods allowed psychological approaches to mental illness to flourish...
[...] Harrington is hard on the Freudians, accusing them of arrogance, dogmatism and cruelty, especially toward women...
[...] But modern bio-psychiatrists are Harrington’s main target. ..
[...] Psychiatry’s biological “revolution,” which Harrington calls a “False Dawn,” now appears to have been motivated as much by greed as compassion...
[...] Psychiatrists did their job well. Sales of medications for mental illness increased by a factor of six between 1987 and 2001...
[...] Some of the bleakest assessments of bio-psychiatry come from insiders, including two former directors of the National Institute of Mental Health, the world’s largest funder of mental-health research...
[...] Harrington concludes her book with a call to action. She says psychiatry’s current “crisis” is also an opportunity for reform, and she urges the profession to take various steps to break out of its “stalemate”... (MORE - details)
RELATED (scivillage): Why the constant trashing of antidepressants is absurd