Blogs

For three decades, it has been clear to me that governments and the public alike have made – and continue to make – a very serious error in trusting mainstream psychiatry with the emotional and mental health care of the general public.

Let’s try to get some other messages out there that challenge the old, tired, damaging narrative of diagnosis and disorder. Messages that offer hope and solidarity to people and messages that put the responsibility for the primary causal factors of emotional distress firmly back where it belongs.

The Journal of Addictive Behaviors has today published a new systematic review which shows that antidepressant withdrawal is much more widespread, severe and long-lasting than indicated by current guidelines, with millions of antidepressant users in the U.K. potentially affected.

This week on MIA Radio we turn our attention to a recent debate held at the Institute of Psychology and Psychiatry, Kings College, London. "This house believes that ECT has no place in modern medicine".

The very first Maudsley debate in January 2000 was on the topic of Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT). The motion was ‘This house believes ECT is barbaric and ineffective.’ Clinical Psychologist Doctor Lucy Johnstone shares her recollections and notes.

On Tuesday 25th September, The Times published a front-page article entitled: “Drugs adviser David Baldwin quits after being branded ‘worse than Hitler’ in online abuse row.”

We hold the view that a caring and morally mindful society must better safeguard children by allowing them to develop their unique personalities and behaviours without the use of a first response to prescribe psychiatric drugs for behavioural difficulties.

For many people, the current political situation around the world is intensely frightening and not without cause.  Depression and anxiety are on the rise, but we need a social model revolution in order to look at why this is happening. 

Despite my experiences, I remain hopeful. The array of dissenting voices against traditional psychiatry has never been more compelling. The next five to ten years offers an exceptional opportunity to transform the way we, as a society, respond to mental health problems.

For many decades the ‘mental patient’ has been ruled and corralled which has inflicted deep fear and inferiority in us, distancing us further from society. We are petrified of the entire mental health system, and society, in turn, fears us. Removing someone’s basic liberty, when they have committed no crime, is cruelty and enslavement.