Sunday, June 16, 2013

International Psychiatry Journals Review - 6/16/2013: Scientists in Ireland Link Autism to Lack of Stomach Bacteria

Scientists in Ireland Link Autism to Lack of Stomach Bacteria ...

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Scientists say their findings demonstrate the critical role stomach bacteria plays in the development of normal social behavior. Their findings were published May 21 in the international psychiatry journalMolecular Psychiatry.

A Coffee Withdrawal Diagnosis (The Wall Street Journal ...

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There are reasons for this, and now there's also a diagnosis in the latest version of the AmericanPsychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, according to The Wall Street Journal. The latest ...
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Two visions for understanding illness: DSM and the International ...

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Following the Second World War, the American Psychiatric Association was taken over by a group of young practitioners influenced by the Freudian model, with its emphasis upon neurotic illnesses. They met with some ...

Health News - Analysing Psychiatry's Diagnostic Bible

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Findings from new research carried out by an international team of researchers led by Professor Susan Leekam from Cardiff University, and published today in the Journal of Child Psychology andPsychiatry, indicate that ...

Global psychiatric war hits home | Focus Online

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The international war raging between the titans of psychiatry and psychology may not seem like “local” news. However, tens of thousands of local citizens have been seriously injured and now desperately need caring attention. The stage was ...

International Relations in Psychiatry Britain, Germany, and the ... 

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The decades around 1900 were crucial in the evolution of modern medical and social sciences, and in the formation of various national health services systems. The modern fields of psychiatry and mental health care are ...

DSM-V background and critical response | Speak Out Against ... 

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world and is used by the full range of mental health professionals as well as primary care physicians. There is a startling absence of mental health disciplines other than psychiatry within the groups that developed the DSM-5.

Bad Diagnosis For New Psychiatry "Bible" | WAMC 

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The new edition of the DSM, the so-called "Bible" of psychiatry, is out. But many psychiatrists and psychologists say the manual's approach. ... Bad Diagnosis For New Psychiatry "Bible". Share · Tweet. E-mail. Comments · Print ... At Paul Smith's College VIC. May. 31. Art & Museum Exhibits. Grande Unveiling Event for Museum Hall of Fame and Sculpture Project. At National Museum of Dance and Hall of Fame. May. 31. Live Music: International. McAuley, Horan, O' ...
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Global Mental Health, Public Health and Cultural Psychiatry ...

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The recent series of Satander lectures on global mental health and cultural psychiatry held at the Wolfson Institute of Preventive Medicine, Queen Mary University of London, highlighted the synergies between cultural...

Psychiatry Is Not Based On Science - Behaviorism and Mental Health 

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“In comparing psychiatry with astronomy, however, Mr. Brooks should remember that in 2006, theInternational Astronomical Union voted on whether Pluto is a planet. Even astronomy, the hardest of sciences dealing with the ...

Down the wrong path: Book details psychiatry's lack of objective science - EurekAlert (press release)

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Down the wrong path: Book details psychiatry's lack of objective science
EurekAlert (press release)
"Mad Science" is the most comprehensive of five recently published, scholarly books that take acritical look at the notion of medical psychiatry and the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM ...

and more »

Column: Mental health is not determined by brain function alone - thejournal.ie

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Column: Mental health is not determined by brain function alone
thejournal.ie
This is something that is increasingly being recognised and affirmed by a range of mental health professionals, including those involved in the critical psychiatry network. Critical psychiatrychallenges the notion that mental health problems can be ...

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David Brooks: History's Greatest Monster? - Wall Street Journal

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David Brooks: History's Greatest Monster?
Wall Street Journal
Barack Obama is "pushing liberals over the edge," according to The Atlantic's Molly Ball. Sounds like breaking news from 2008 to us, but Ball is reporting on the reaction among some leftists to recent news reports about the National Security Agency's ...

Critical Psychiatry Review - 6/16/2013

Call to embrace social paradigm

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Leaders of British academic social psychiatry argue in BJPsycheditorial that the rules regulating research and the dominant neurobiological paradigm may have stifled creativity. The new charity MQ: Transforming Mental may need to take this perspective more on board. (Why's it called MQ?)
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Phantasy dreams about NEI congress

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I've mentioned before the apparent fun people have at NEI congresses (see previous post). The latest video from neipsychopharm gives an idea about what you missed from the recent congress. I suppose we can hope that what happened at the congress may help patient care but it's difficult to see how it would.

Invitation to Radical Caucus Events at APA on May 18th

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THE RADICAL CAUCUS HAS MANY IMPORTANT ACTIVITIES THIS YEAR, AND OUR COLLEAGUES FROM THE CRITICAL PSYCHIATRY NETWORK WILL BE JOINING US. PLEASE COME TO DISCUSS PLANS FOR COLLABORATIVE GLOBAL ACTIVITIES.(NOTE: IF YOU PLAN TO COME TO DINNER PLEASE LET ME KNOW, ALTHOUGH LAST MINUTE GUESTS ARE STILL WELCOME.) ALSO NOTE NEW LOCATION FOR DINNER.

RADICAL CAUCUS
EVENTS AT THE 2013 AMERICAN PSYCHIATRIC ASSOCIATION ANNUAL MEETING IN SAN FRANCISCO

Saturday May 18, 2013:9AM to 12 Noon: Moscone Center, Street Level, Gateway Ballroom 102
Presidential Symposium: “Envisioning a New Psychiatry: Radical Perspectives”
Chairs: Carl I. Cohen , MD; Kenneth Thompson, MD;
Discussants: Sami Timimi, M.D., Helena Hansen, M.D., Ph.D.
Presentations:
·Jean Furtos, MD: “Globalization and Mental Health: The Weight of the World, the Size of the Sky
·Sandro Galea, M.D.: “Re-Engaging Research Around the Socail and Economic Production of Mental Health:Toward a Comprehensive Model of Mental Illness”
·Pat Bracken, M.D, Ph.D: ” Beyond the Technological Paradigm: A Positive Path for psychiatry”
·Steven Moffic, M.D.: Eco-Psychiatry: Why We Need to Keep the Environment in Mind”
·Keris J. Myrick, MBA, Ph.D(cand): Alternative, Complimentary, or Traditional: A Radical Approach from the C/S/X Perspective”

Saturday May 18, 2013; 3:30PM -5:00PM; Moscone Center
Issue Workshop:United Kingdom Critical Psychiatry Network: Implications for the APA and Global Psychiatry”
Chairs: Helena Hansen, M.D. , Ph.D.; Bradley Lewis, M.D., Ph.D.
Presenters:
Dr Hugh Middleton, MA. MD. MRCP. FRCPsych.
Professor Sami Timimi, MBChB FRCPsych
Dr Pat Bracken, DPM,MA,MD,PhD,MRCPsych

Saturday, May 18, 2013; 6:30PM -8:30PM Hilton San Francisco; Union Square Rooms 19/20 4th Floor, Tower 3
“Radical Caucus Meeting–Open Discussion and Planning Session”
Light Snacks and Beverages

8:30 PM Radical Caucus Annual DinnerDinner (note new location)
Basil Canteen located on Folsom street at 11th1489 Folsum St (at 11thSt); 415-552-3963.
All Welcome!!!!
For more information contact:carl.cohen@downstate.edu.
Also visit our new Web site athttp://www.radicalcaucus.com.
Please post comments and suggestions.

Carl I. Cohen , M.D.

SUNY Distinguished Service Professor & Director
Division of Geriatric Psychiatry
SUNY Downstate Medical Center
Box 1203
450 Clarkson Avenue
Brooklyn, N.Y. 11203
ph: 718-287-4806
fax: 718-287-0337 7
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Abandoning diagnostic criteria for research in mental health

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The blog entryby Thomas Insel, NIMH director, has created much comment (eg. New Scientistarticle and blog postby Phil Thomas). I've mentioned before how grandiose Insel can become in his claims for mental disorders as biological disorders involving brain circuits (eg. see previous post). His RDoC projectwill not create a new nosology despite his wishful thinking. As he says, we lack the data to "design a system based on biomarkers or cognitive performance". We need to accept the uncertainty of psychiatric practice and medicine in general, rather than promote 'precision medicine' as the solution to mental disorders as he proposes. 

Nonetheless, we should welcome NIMH re-orientating its research away from DSM categories. It may actually be progress if this means funding research on patients without relying on diagnostic criteria.

The ethical corruption of academic psychiatry

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Phil Thomas asks why Charles Nemeroff has been asked to give the inaugural annual lecture of the new Centre for Affective Disorders at the Institute of Psychiatry (IOP) (see blog post). After all, Nemeroff has been one of the most blatant examples of psychiatrists' wrongdoing by under-reporting of pharmaceutical company earnings (see previous post). It's this sort of thing that makes even the most biological of psychiatrists concerned about the moral integrity of modern psychiatry (eg. see post by Michael A Taylor).

Ironically, from his previous published research (eg. Nemeroff et al 2003), Nemeroff may be seen as promoting psychotherapy in his lecture rather than necessarily any psychotropic medication. Nonetheless, of course, he does think monaminergic drugs are therapeutic in depression. His speculation is that the reason some people survive early life stress (ELS) is because of their genes. In a clinical trial, it was found that depressed patients with a history of early childhood trauma did better with psychotherapy alone than antidepressant monotherapy. Don't be misled by this! Maybe paradoxically, Nemeroff thinks psychotherapy is a "biological treatment". He believes it changes gene expression. As I've warned previously (see previous post), don't be taken in by such neuropsychotherapy.

Nemeroff's lecture at IOP may be not that much different from the one he gave at NYU last year (seevideo). It may not be that exciting or interesting. His NIH grant in 2012 caused controversy because of his past ethical problems (eg. see letter from Senator Grassley). The project information for the study explains that he's wishfully looking for the genetic risk factors for PTSD. Maybe the Centre for Affective Disorders will also undertake similarly misguided research. Let's at least know from IOP where it's getting its funding from, because choosing Nemeroff as its inaugural lecturer for its new centre does not bode well.