‘Ναί’ ή ‘όχι’ στα ψυχοφάρμακα; Δεν είναι τόσο απλή η απάντηση. Για πολλούς ανθρώπους έχουν αποτελέσει σωτηρία και στήριξη για μια πιο λειτουργική ζωή. Για άλλους έχουν γίνει φυλακή. Αφορμή για αυτό το post, μια είδηση από το Alternatives Conference 2010. Ο συνάδελφος Will Hall παρουσίασε ένα εργαστήρι που αφορούσε και την ‘ελαχιστοποίηση βλάβης από την διακοπή φαρμάκων’. Βρέθηκε έτσι μέσα στη ζώνη πολέμου ανάμεσα στους υπερασπιστές και επικριτές των ψυχοφαρμάκων. Διάβασε το άρθρο στο Psychology Today, για να ταξιδέψεις στον πολυτάραχο και πολύπλοκο κόσμο των συνεδρίων, φαρμακευτικών εταιριών και επαγγελματικών οργανισμών.
Πηγή: Psychology Today
SAMHSA, the Alternatives Conference, and the Story of an Opportunity Lost
By Robert Whitaker
In the last chapter of my book Anatomy of an Epidemic, I noted that if our society is going to stem the epidemic of disabling mental illness that has erupted during the past twenty years, then it needs to have an honest discussion about what is truly known about the biological causes of psychiatric disorders, and an honest discussion about how the medications affect the long-term course of those disorders. The illuminating powers of science could work their usual magic. But that is a discussion that many in our society don’t want to have, and my recent experience at the Alternatives conference in Anaheim illustrates that point, and reveals too why this is such a loss.
The Background to the “Controversy”
In Anatomy of an Epidemic, I basically followed a tried-and-true journalistic path. I followed the evidence. I looked at how the chemical imbalance theory of mental disorders arose, how it was investigated, and how it never panned out. As Kenneth Kendler, coeditor in chief of Psychological Medicine wrote in 2005, “We have hunted for big simple neurochemical explanations for psychiatric disorders and have not found them.” Then I investigated how psychiatric medications affect the long-term course of four major mental disorders (schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, and bipolar illness), and that involves doing an exhaustive survey of studies conducted (or funded) by the National Institute of Mental Health, the World Health Organization, and foreign governments for the past 50 years.
Now, when you do that, you discover a story of science quite at odds with our societal belief that psychiatric medications fix chemical imbalances in the brain and that they have dramatically improved long-term outcomes. And when you write up this history of science, as I did in Anatomy of an Epidemic, you do become unpopular in certain circles.
In July, the National Empowerment Center, which is a peer-run advocacy organization, invited me to be a keynote speaker at the Alternatives Conference. The National Empowerment Center is funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and SAMHSA, I was told, had signed off on having me speak. However, once the National Empowerment Center announced that I would be speaking at the conference, SAMHSA quickly rescinded the invitation. In response, MindFreedom, which is an activist group, organized a protest via the Internet, asking people to contact both SAMSHA and the White House, and within 36 hours, I had been publicly re-invited to speak.
What people following this “controversy” didn’t know was that my re-invitation came with considerable strings attached. I had originally been scheduled to give a workshop in addition to a keynote, but the workshop was still cancelled. (I had planned to speak about a Finnish program for treating psychotic patients that was producing excellent results, and the prescribing of exercise as a treatment for depression, which is now being done in Britain.) The other condition was this: The National Empowerment Center was required to recruit a psychiatrist, from a list of names provided by SAMHSA, to “rebut” my keynote. And I would not be given an opportunity to respond to that rebuttal.
Now, if SAMSHA had wanted to organize a debate following my talk, that would have been terrific. But this was a setup that SAMHSA seemed to have torn from the pages of a 25-year old Soviet Union handbook: invite dissident speaker and then denounce him! Normally, I wouldn’t have accepted such an arrangement, but I had been quite moved and humbled by the protest that had led to my “reinvitation,” and so I figured, what the heck. It wasn’t every day that you got to sit in a ballroom with more than 1,000 people and hear your work denounced.
As the conference approached, a new controversy reared its head. Will Hall, who many years ago was given a diagnosis of “schizoaffective disorder/schizophrenia,” and who today works as a therapist (having been off psychiatric medications for 17 years), had planned to give a workshop that included discussing a “harm-reduction” approach to withdrawing from psychiatric medications. Several years ago, Hall had written a book on the subject, which had been published by two advocacy groups, The Freedom Center and the Icarus Project, and given that there are few books written by professionals on the circuit, his had proven to be quite popular. But a few days before the conference began, Hall was told that the printed description of his workshop in the conference brochure had been changed to remove any mention about “coming off drugs.” Hall announced that he couldn’t accept such censorship, a new protest erupted, and then he was told that the offending words could in fact be mentioned in an updated description that would be added to the conference brochure.
And all this occurred before an alternatives conference.
Διάβασε τη συνέχεια του άρθρου εδώ…
SAMHSA, the Alternatives Conference, and the Story of an Opportunity Lost
In the last chapter of my book Anatomy of an Epidemic, I noted that if our society is going to stem the epidemic of disabling mental illness that has erupted during the past twenty years, then it needs to have an honest discussion about what is truly known about the biological causes of psychiatric disorders, and an honest discussion about how the medications affect the long-term course of those disorders. The illuminating powers of science could work their usual magic. But that is a discussion that many in our society don’t want to have, and my recent experience at the Alternatives conference in Anaheim illustrates that point, and reveals too why this is such a loss.
The Background to the “Controversy”
In Anatomy of an Epidemic, I basically followed a tried-and-true journalistic path. I followed the evidence. I looked at how the chemical imbalance theory of mental disorders arose, how it was investigated, and how it never panned out. As Kenneth Kendler, coeditor in chief of Psychological Medicine wrote in 2005, “We have hunted for big simple neurochemical explanations for psychiatric disorders and have not found them.” Then I investigated how psychiatric medications affect the long-term course of four major mental disorders (schizophrenia, anxiety, depression, and bipolar illness), and that involves doing an exhaustive survey of studies conducted (or funded) by the National Institute of Mental Health, the World Health Organization, and foreign governments for the past 50 years.
Now, when you do that, you discover a story of science quite at odds with our societal belief that psychiatric medications fix chemical imbalances in the brain and that they have dramatically improved long-term outcomes. And when you write up this history of science, as I did in Anatomy of an Epidemic, you do become unpopular in certain circles.
In July, the National Empowerment Center, which is a peer-run advocacy organization, invited me to be a keynote speaker at the Alternatives Conference. The National Empowerment Center is funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and SAMHSA, I was told, had signed off on having me speak. However, once the National Empowerment Center announced that I would be speaking at the conference, SAMHSA quickly rescinded the invitation. In response, MindFreedom, which is an activist group, organized a protest via the Internet, asking people to contact both SAMSHA and the White House, and within 36 hours, I had been publicly re-invited to speak.
What people following this “controversy” didn’t know was that my re-invitation came with considerable strings attached. I had originally been scheduled to give a workshop in addition to a keynote, but the workshop was still cancelled. (I had planned to speak about a Finnish program for treating psychotic patients that was producing excellent results, and the prescribing of exercise as a treatment for depression, which is now being done in Britain.) The other condition was this: The National Empowerment Center was required to recruit a psychiatrist, from a list of names provided by SAMHSA, to “rebut” my keynote. And I would not be given an opportunity to respond to that rebuttal.
Now, if SAMSHA had wanted to organize a debate following my talk, that would have been terrific. But this was a setup that SAMHSA seemed to have torn from the pages of a 25-year old Soviet Union handbook: invite dissident speaker and then denounce him! Normally, I wouldn’t have accepted such an arrangement, but I had been quite moved and humbled by the protest that had led to my “reinvitation,” and so I figured, what the heck. It wasn’t every day that you got to sit in a ballroom with more than 1,000 people and hear your work denounced.
As the conference approached, a new controversy reared its head. Will Hall, who many years ago was given a diagnosis of “schizoaffective disorder/schizophrenia,” and who today works as a therapist (having been off psychiatric medications for 17 years), had planned to give a workshop that included discussing a “harm-reduction” approach to withdrawing from psychiatric medications. Several years ago, Hall had written a book on the subject, which had been published by two advocacy groups, The Freedom Center and the Icarus Project, and given that there are few books written by professionals on the circuit, his had proven to be quite popular. But a few days before the conference began, Hall was told that the printed description of his workshop in the conference brochure had been changed to remove any mention about “coming off drugs.” Hall announced that he couldn’t accept such censorship, a new protest erupted, and then he was told that the offending words could in fact be mentioned in an updated description that would be added to the conference brochure.
And all this occurred before an alternatives conference.