Thinking differently about mental health

In a reply to a letter from Peter Gøtzsche, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency ( MHRA ) has made clear that it has no ...

Psychological problems are common. People don't always adjust to difficulties in life and relationships very well. They don't always...

Doctors have always exaggerated the advantages of medication. But medication, including recreational drugs, can’t just be eliminated. There ...

I worry that the clash between Joanna Moncrieff and Awais Aftab about her new book Chemically imbalanced has become too personal (see eg. la...

People are being misled about the nature of mental illness. Of course brain abnormalities can cause organic mental illness, such as delirium...

Functional mental illness is an abstract not concrete concept. It differs from organic mental illness where there is brain dysfunction. Illn...

As I’ve said before (see eg. previous post ), I’m inclined to believe that antidepressants are no better than placebo. I can’t prove this bu...

I’m not sure who advised the king about the appointment of Ed Bullmore as Regius Professor of Psychiatry at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psy...

I’ve mentioned before my concerns about the notion that antidepressants work through being emotional suppressants (see eg. previous post ). ...

Jo Moncrieff in her new book Chemically imbalanced (see eg. previous post ) discusses Peter Kramer’s 1993 book Listening to Prozac (see Wik...

Awais Aftab has responded (see his blog post ) to the Sunday Times  magazine article about Joanna Moncrieff (see eg. previous post ). He rai...

I mentioned the Sunday Times magazine article about Joanna Moncrieff in my last post , where I focused on the issue of whether antidepressa...

The Sunday Times magazine has an article about Joanna Moncrieff promoting the publication this week of her new book , Chemically imbalanced...

I talked about Jan Foudraine in the first  chapter of my edited Critical Psychiatry book . As I said, he became the ‘personal ambassador...

Owen Jones is a succesful Guardian journalist. He was central to the Jeremy Corbyn movement. He feels as though he has been held back by h...

Linda Gask, who I have mentioned before (see eg. previous post ), has reviewed Conversations in critical psychiatry (2024) edited by Awais ...

I responded (follow my Twitter thread ) to a  tweet  by  Justin Garson (mentioned in  previous post ) . What he said was:- I can’t fathom ho...

I was hoping the new government would revisit the Parliamentary Scrutiny Committee’s report on the last government’s draft Mental Health Bil...

I've said before it's been difficult to get the message of critical/relational psychiatry accepted (see eg. previous post ). People ...

I’ve said several times (see eg. previous post ) that biomedical psychiatry wishfully thinks that primary mental illness will be shown to be...

Scientific knowledge is seen as the most respectable form of knowledge (see eg. last post ). It is based on the scientific method of reasoni...

As I’ve said before, psychiatry tends to treat people as machines (see eg. previous post ). Newtonian physics sees existence in terms of cau...

Zhang et al ( 2024 ) have published a systematic review and meta-analysis of the incidence of antidepressant withdrawal symptoms. More than ...

I’ve changed the name of this blog before (see eg. previous post ). I’m not convinced it’s really made much impact in terms of attracting mo...

Terry Lynch , who wrote a chapter for my Critical Psychiatry edited book, has posted a video  asking why doctors pay so little attention t...

I’ve mentioned before the chapter written by key members involved in the foundation of the Critical Psychiatry Network (see previous post )...

George Dawson (mentioned eg. in a previous post ) and Ronald Pies (also mentioned eg. in another previous post ) argue in a Psychiatric Time...