More on psychiatry and psychiatric drugs

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

So, I was reading my New Scientist today and came across a book review for Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic bullets, psychiatric drugs, and the astonishing rise of mental illness. Surprisingly, while the book's about how psychiatry is to blame for the rise in mental illness, the reviewer gave it a positive review and said it was "frighteningly persuasive."

 

So I headed to the Internet and dug up some stuff. Here's a paper by the author in Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry:

 

http://psychrights.org/articles/EHPPPsychDrugEpidemic%28Whitaker%29.pdf

 

Some quotes:

 

In short, psychiatric drugs induce a pathology. Princeton neuroscientist Barry Jacobs has explicitly made this point about SSRIs .

 

In the wake of that disturbing report, the NIMH conducted two medication-withdrawal studies. In each one, relapse rates rose in correlation with neuroleptic dosage before withdrawal.

 

Once again, the results suggested that neuroleptics increased the patients' biological vulnerability to psychosis. Other reports soon deepened this suspicion . Even when patients reliably took their medications, relapse was common, and researchers reported in 1976 that it appeared that relapse during drug administration was greater in severity than when no drugs were given (Gardos & Cole, 1977).

 

It goes on from there, and I suggest you take a read. I'm going to see if I can get the book from my library or on my Kindle soon.

 

I realize that we like to come to the defense of psychiatry here. But could Mr. Whitaker have a valid point? His paper seems to be well-supported.

[stradi]

 

I realize that we like to come to the defense of psychiatry here. But could Mr. Whitaker have a valid point? His paper seems to be well-supported.

 

 

SSRI drugs may reduce serotonin receptors in humans as they're known to do in rats.

 

But the main failure of psychiatry in its current incarnation is the complete failure to physically examine the patient and either deduce what is causing a patient's symptoms at the physical level, or rule out the possibility of phycisal causes.