“Psychiatric diagnoses are less reliable than star signs”
This is brilliant- a Times online article about Richard Bentall, who’s book “Doctoring the Mind” is out in September. He rages against the biomedical model and the failure of psychiatry to work with patients in psychotherapy, relying instead on drugs. A familar story, but there’s some astonishing stuff here. Not least his conviction that it would be better to be treated in Nigeria than in london, because “In Nigeria, people with severe mental illness tend to be looked after in an extended family system or by supportive religious leaders, who tell them not to worry about hearing voices.” Hence the recovery rate is better. Or that whilst the studies published by drug companies about SSRI drugs seem to show that they work, they suppress data, which when added to the mix under the Freedom of Information Act, reveals that they work only slightly better than placebos. Anyway, if you know anyone who’s on this shit, and if you live in New York then chances are you do, point them to this article.
June 23rd, 2009 at 1:12 am
Great article. Thanks for this, Robbie.