Sunday, December 03, 2006

Meet The Last Psychiatrist

Great post over at The Last Psychiatrist regarding the biological bias that is predominant in psychiatry: biology counts, while other factors are negligible. Here's a snippet:

"This is an interesting cover [which states the consequences of a poor fit for therapy can be disastrous]. No one would ever have thought to create a similar warning about the disastrous consequences of a poor fit for, say, Depakote. We know it has side effects, but using it would never be disastrous, right?

But why would bad therapy be disastrous? If psychiatry is so biologically based that the a bad environment is not the main cause of illness, why should bad therapy be so powerful? If bad parenting can't cause ADHD, how could bad therapy make it worse?

--SNIP--

"The Art of Psychotherapy". Ok. But why the "science of pharmacology?" Because we sling "5HT2A" around like we know what we're talking about?"

Very interesting social commentary in a concise format follows over at his post, which can be accessed here.

If you've not yet visited his site, I'm sorry. I've not done my part by linking there until now, and for that I apologize to my readers. I don't rubber stamp all of the commentary at his site, but his arguments are always insightful and thoughtful. There are precious few sites that consistently focus on mental health treatment issues and do so in a manner that is not just a reflection of the conventional wisdom/propaganda that dominates the field. I encourage my regular readers to frequently read his stuff as well. Start by checking out his list of the ten biggest mistakes psychiatrists make here.

No comments: