Bias against critical psychiatry in peer-reviewed publications

I used Kam Bhui's photo to accompany my previous post. Kam is editor of the British Journal of Psychiatry (BJPsych). In the past, he was chair of the Transcultural Special Interest Group of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and, I thought, sympathetic to critical psychiatry.

I congratulated the previous BJPsych editor for publishing a special article a few years ago written from a critical perspective (see previous post). It is not always easy to get such articles published in mainstream journals. One advantage of the internet is that it allows free expression. However, it does mean that it can be difficult to distinguish quackery from mainstream science.

I have always argued for the mainstream presence of critical psychiatry. However, particularly over recent years, I have resorted to blogademia (see post on personal blog) to express my views. I don't think this makes my critical psychiatry blog any less scientific. But, we do need psychiatric journal editors to take a balanced perspective and be willing to publish critical articles. Considering my comments in my previous post, I'm not convinced that Kam is brave enough to do this. True, The Lancet Psychiatry editor published a letter of mine following a previous post. But, critical psychiatry needs to have more presence in mainstream psychiatry journals. Because of the bias against it, this process does need to be facilitated by journal editors. After all, having obtained the power of such influential positions, why not use it?