Behaviorism and Mental Health

Alternative perspective on psychiatry's so-called mental disorders | PHILIP HICKEY, PH.D.

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You are here: Home / Archives for over-medicalization of everyday life

Allen Frances and the Increasing Use of Antidepressants

October 30, 2018 By Phil Hickey | Leave a Comment

On May 16, 2018, the prestigious and venerable psychiatrist Allen Frances, MD, gave an interview to Christiane Amanpour on CNN.  You can see the video here.  It’s titled How Antidepressant Withdrawal “Can Trap People”. Here’s how the interview opened: CA:  “So you know, I just wanted to start by saying that who knew that antidepressants… Continue Reading

Are ‘Psychiatric Disorders’ Brain Diseases?

January 19, 2016 By Phil Hickey | 16 Comments

Steven Reidbord MD is a board-certified psychiatrist who practices in San Francisco.  He writes a blog called Reidbord’s Reflections.  On December 12, 2015, he posted an article titled Are psychiatric disorders brain diseases?  It’s an interesting and thought-provoking piece, with many twists and turns. Here are some quotes, interspersed with my comments and reflections. “Of… Continue Reading

Antidepressants:  Drugs, Not Medication

April 13, 2015 By Phil Hickey | 23 Comments

On April 7, John Read, PhD, a psychologist at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne, published a short article on Mad in America.  The title is:  Largest Survey of Antidepressants Finds High Rates of Adverse Emotional and Interpersonal Effects.  The article presents the results of a survey conducted in New Zealand and published online in… Continue Reading

Polarization or Compromise

March 11, 2015 By Phil Hickey | 45 Comments

On February 2, Robert Whitaker published an article on Mad in America.  The title is Disability and Mood Disorders in the Age of Prozac.  The article echoes and updates one of the themes of his 2010 book “Anatomy of an Epidemic”:  that the steady increase in the numbers of people receiving disability benefits for depression… Continue Reading

The Use of Neuroleptic Drugs As Chemical Restraints in Nursing Homes

July 17, 2014 By Phil Hickey | 29 Comments

There’s an interesting article in the July-August 2014 issue of the AARP Bulletin.  It’s called Drug Abuse: Antipsychotics in Nursing Homes, and was written by Jan Goodwin.  AARP is the American Association of Retired Persons.   Jan Goodwin is an investigative journalist whose career, according to Wikipedia, “…has been committed to focusing attention on social justice… Continue Reading

Blame the Clients?

June 17, 2014 By Phil Hickey | 56 Comments

On June 6, I wrote a post titled Psychiatry DID Promote the Chemical Imbalance Theory.  The article was published on Mad in America, and generated a number of comments on that site, five of which were from TherapyFirst, who in his first comment identified himself as Joel Hassman, MD, a practicing psychiatrist.  Dr. Hassman did… Continue Reading

Driving Under the Influence of Stimulants

May 3, 2014 By Phil Hickey | 7 Comments

On April 22, I published a post on this general topic.  In that article I pointed out that the notion of stimulant prescription drugs improving the driving of people who “have ADHD” was gaining traction. Since than I have come across two articles on this subject from Australia.  (Thanks to Nanu Grewal for the links.) … Continue Reading

Sluggish Cognitive Tempo – A New Diagnosis?

April 29, 2014 By Phil Hickey | 14 Comments

On April 11, 2014, journalist Alan Schwarz (brief bio here) published an article in the New York Times on this topic, titled Idea of New attention Disorder Spurs Research, and Debate.  Alan has written extensively on the rising rates of the condition known as ADHD, and on the abuse of the drugs that are used… Continue Reading

Antidepressants Make Things Worse in the Long Term

April 8, 2014 By Phil Hickey | 16 Comments

In June 2011, Rif El-Mallakh, MD, et al. published an article, Tardive dysphoria: The role of long term antidepressant use in inducing chronic depression, in Medical Hypotheses.  The article is a thorough and wide-ranging study review. Here are some quotes from the abstract: “Treatment-resistant and chronic depression appear to be increasing.” “Depressed patients who ultimately become… Continue Reading

Benzodiazepines: Disempowering and Dangerous

March 27, 2014 By Phil Hickey | 10 Comments

I recently read an article by Fredric Neuman, MD, Director of the Anxiety and Phobia Center at White Plains Hospital, NY.  The article is titled The Use of the Minor Tranquilizers: Xanax, Ativan, Klonopin, and Valium, and was published in June 2012 by Psychology Today.  Thanks to Medicalskeptic for the link. Dr. Neuman opens by… Continue Reading

Benzodiazepines: Dangerous Drugs

March 12, 2014 By Phil Hickey | 14 Comments

On February 25, Kristina Fiore published an article on MedPage today.  It’s titled Killing Pain: Xanax Tops Charts.  The article is based on a study conducted by Jann M et al, and published in the February 2014 issue of the Journal of Pharmacy Practice.  The study is titled Benzodiazepines: a major component in unintentional prescription… Continue Reading

Is Psychology Going the Way of Psychiatry?

January 14, 2014 By Phil Hickey | 7 Comments

On January 7, Maria Bradshaw, co-founder of CASPER, published an interesting article on Mad in America.  It’s called Prescribing Rights for Psychologists, and it suggests that psychology as a profession may be falling into some of the same errors that enmire psychiatry. Maria makes some very compelling points, and focuses particularly on the fact that… Continue Reading

Understanding Human Behavior

January 13, 2014 By Phil Hickey | 5 Comments

A couple of months ago I wrote an article concerning ECT which generated some controversy.  One of the issues that came up was the relationship between biological explanations of human activity and more global explanations, which, for want of a better term, I’ll call person-centered explanations. Any human activity can be viewed from different levels… Continue Reading

The Sandcastle Continues to Crumble: ADHD Does Not Exist

January 7, 2014 By Phil Hickey | 190 Comments

BOOK PREVIEW Richard C. Saul, MD ADHD Does Not Exist:  The Truth About Attention Deficit and Hyperactivity Disorder Publication date:  February 18, 2014 ************************ Those of us on this side of the psychiatry debate have been saying for decades that the condition known as ADHD is not an illness, but is rather an arbitrarily delineated… Continue Reading

Training the Psychiatrists of the Future (According to Dr. Lieberman): More Cheerleading

December 11, 2013 By Phil Hickey | 5 Comments

Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, President of the APA and Chair of Psychiatry at Columbia University, published a post on November 26 on Psychiatric News.  The article is called Training the Psychiatrists of the Future, and is co-authored by Richard Summers, MD.  Dr. Summers is a Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania. Drs. Lieberman and… Continue Reading

Neuroleptics for Children: Harvard’s Shame

December 4, 2013 By Phil Hickey | 31 Comments

In December 2012, Mark Olfson, MD, et al, published an article in the Archives of General Psychiatry.  The title is National Trends in the Office-Based Treatment of Children, Adolescents, and Adults with Antipsychotics.  The authors collected data from the National Ambulatory Medical Care Surveys for the period 1993-2009, and looked for trends in antipsychotic prescribing… Continue Reading

Causes of High Mortality in People Labeled ‘Mentally Ill’

November 12, 2013 By Phil Hickey | 5 Comments

ANOTHER VIDEO FROM DR. LIEBERMAN On October 28, Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, President of the APA, made another video.  This one is titled An Important Look at Mortality in Mental Illness: A Decade of Data on Psychotropic Drugs, and was made for Medscape.  You can see the transcript at the same site.  Medscape is a web… Continue Reading

Care For Your Mind (CFYM): A New Advocacy Group

November 9, 2013 By Phil Hickey | 2 Comments

On September 27, Psychiatric Services, a journal of the APA, published an article called Blog Brings Doctors, Patients Together to Address MH Issues.  It was written by Vabren Watts, a Psychiatric News Journalist. The article is a booster piece for the recently-formed CFYM (Care For Your Mind): “…an online forum for people with mood disorders—along… Continue Reading

The Allen Frances – Lucy Johnstone Debate

November 1, 2013 By Phil Hickey | 43 Comments

On October 28, Allen Frances, MD, Chairperson of the DSM-IV task force, published an article on Psychology Today.  It is titled Does It Make Sense To Scrap Psychiatric Diagnosis? and is essentially a response to the British Psychological Society’s Division of Clinical Psychology’s (DCP) call to abandon the medical model in situations where it is… Continue Reading

A Psychiatric Case Study. A Sad Story

October 24, 2013 By Phil Hickey | 9 Comments

One of the criticisms that I routinely make of psychiatry is that its primary agenda during initial evaluations is the assignment of a “diagnosis,” and that ongoing “treatment” consists of 15-minute “med checks,” during which drug regimens are changed and adjusted.  The essence of my criticism is that this kind of approach inevitably oversimplifies human… Continue Reading

The Stigma Attached to ‘Mental Illness’

October 15, 2013 By Phil Hickey | 6 Comments

On Monday, October 7, 2013, The Sun, a British tabloid newspaper ran the following headline:  1,200 Killed By Mental Patients.  Shock 10-year toll exposes care crisis.  It took up almost all of the front page. The headline precipitated a great deal of protest from politicians, advocacy groups, mental health professionals, and others.  The general points… Continue Reading

Overall Efficacy of Mental Health Treatment

September 21, 2013 By Phil Hickey | 2 Comments

There’s an interesting article by J. Sareen et al on Cambridge Journals Online, September 2013.  It’s call Common mental disorder diagnosis and need for treatment are not the same: findings from a population-based survey.  Five of the six authors are working at universities in Canada, the sixth at a university in California.  [Thanks to Mad… Continue Reading

The Burden of Mental ‘Illness’

September 10, 2013 By Phil Hickey | Leave a Comment

Thanks to Graham Davey and Richard Pemberton on Twitter for the link to an interesting article in the August 29, 2013 issue of the Lancet.  It’s titled Global burden of disease attributable to mental and substance use disorders: findings from the Global Burden of Disease Study 2010, and was written by Harvey A. Whiteford, et… Continue Reading

Madness Contested: An Outstanding Book

August 28, 2013 By Phil Hickey | 6 Comments

The book Madness Contested has recently been published by PCCS Books.  It’s a collection of articles, edited by Steven Coles, Sarah Keenan, and Bob Diamond. The book is a remarkable piece of work.  It covers just about every contentious concept in the present “mental illness” debate, and brings to bear an abundance of new insights and… Continue Reading

Parental Influences

August 27, 2013 By Phil Hickey | 6 Comments

If we’re happy to take some of the credit for our children’s successes, we should also accept a share of the responsibility when they don’t do so well. In the late 70’s, I met an elderly gentleman in a social context.  I’ll call him James.  He was in his early 80’s. We got to talking,… Continue Reading

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The phrase "mental health" as used in the name of this website is simply a term of convenience. It specifically does not imply that the human problems embraced by this term are illnesses, or that their absence constitutes health. Indeed, the fundamental tenet of this site is that there are no mental illnesses, and that conceptualizing human problems in this way is spurious, destructive, disempowering, and stigmatizing.

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