Rethinking Psychiatry with Robert Whitaker of Mad in America

Ойын-сауық

This is a recording of the livestream from November 10, 2022 of a lecture with Robert Whitaker titled Rethinking Psychiatry: How the Failure to Identify the Biological Causes of Major Mental Disorders Opens Up New Possibilities for Long-term Recovery.
Despite decades of research, the biology of major psychiatric disorders remains unknown. There are no findings that people so diagnosed necessarily suffer from a persistent biological abnormality. The understanding today is that the causes of psychiatric symptoms-psychosis, mania, depression and so forth-are varied, with life events, such as trauma, being common risk factors.
In the absence of regular drug treatment, many people so diagnosed suffer an “episode” of the “illness,” which remits over time. This understanding opens up new avenues for promoting robust recovery: what therapies can help maximize the possibility that a person will suffer an “episode” of illness, rather than suffer from a “chronic” condition?
Robert Whitaker is the publisher of Mad in America, and author of five books, three of which tell of the history of psychiatry. In 2010, his Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness won the U.S. Investigative Reporters and Editors book award for best investigative journalism.
AMI-Quebec is a grassroots organization that helps families manage the effects of mental illness through support, education, guidance, and advocacy.
Established in Montreal, Canada in 1977, we offer a wide range of services including workshops, support groups, counselling, outreach, resources, and more. All our services are free!
If you would like more information about AMI, give us a call at 514-486-1448 or reach us anytime at amiquebec.org.
Follow us @AMIQuebec on social media
Instagram / amiquebec
Facebook / amiquebec
Twitter / amiquebec
TikTok / amiquebec

Пікірлер: 20

  • @sharonshea3261
    @sharonshea32612 ай бұрын

    More people need to watch this. It's so hard to counter all the pharma propaganda that would have everyone on at least five drugs.

  • @gretaholmes783
    @gretaholmes7839 ай бұрын

    The only sad thing is that most of the people who need to hear this won’t comprehend it I don’t think people know what a hypothesis is, so I have to start from scratch with them. Thank you for doing this!

  • @MelBlossom
    @MelBlossom Жыл бұрын

    Absolutely fantastic talk everyone effected by mental illness needs to hear. Thank you for hosting this lecture! Really exciting to have a nonstop "I've been thinking it for years...he said it!" Mr. Whitaker is an excellent advocate and very smart.

  • @stevekaylor5606
    @stevekaylor560611 ай бұрын

    Disease-like labeling has been the 1st key to what psychiatry is effectively doing to people - much like rationale of Tiergarten 4. / The hypothesis that down-and-out people have Chemical Imbalances was a positivist assertion of Gregory Bateson, husband to Margaret Mead. There is no evidence for Bateson's assertion - Jeffrey A. Schaler cut to the quick with, "show me the Chemical Balance Tests!"

  • @user-py2nz4qx8f
    @user-py2nz4qx8f7 ай бұрын

    I saw three friends have severe adverse reactions to psych meds.

  • @happygucci5094

    @happygucci5094

    3 ай бұрын

    Saw and am watching someone I love very much have their life ruined by these drugs- the contempt I have for the mental health profession that is NOT treating people and children!!!!according to science and are actively doing people harm -this is shameful

  • @kristinmeyer489
    @kristinmeyer4895 ай бұрын

    My anger is justified: The DSM was presented as FACT, NOT THEORY, and referred to specifically by these priests as their "Bible," on their authority FOR DECADES. THEY SOLD IT PUBLICLY.

  • @cherylmburton5577
    @cherylmburton557710 ай бұрын

    There is a need for employment or volunteering where they will not be so harassed that they give up. Some are not even allowed to volunteer. A better environment needs to be created. The Psyche wards in Norway being compelled to provide a ward for those who do not want to take medication is needed in the United States. But Psychiatry has to be forced/compelled to do it through law. Otherwise they will never do it. They need to start being treated with coercion/forced to take some of their own medicine, and experience how it feels.

  • @AndrewB996
    @AndrewB9963 ай бұрын

    common sense, after how many decades of abuse and a trail misery and destruction

  • @mddell24
    @mddell245 ай бұрын

    Moving the chairs and tables rarely helps.

  • @kristinmeyer489
    @kristinmeyer4895 ай бұрын

    How many Scientologists does it take to screw a lightbulb at the APA?

  • @cherylmburton5577
    @cherylmburton557710 ай бұрын

    When asked about considering other causes for so-called mental illness, because as he does produce much proof that the medical model or biological diagnosis has failed, Whitaker, who states first that he is not religious, and without mentioning demon possession, says: just look through the Bible (Sacred Scriptures) and there are numerous stories of people whose emotions are wreaking havoc on them.

  • @rickp.6251
    @rickp.62515 ай бұрын

    Where's the story about giving mental patients drugs for typhoid and they showed improvement. So they gave them a chemical and the patient improved so they must have a chemical imbalance. After that like everything else opportunists exploited that idea, while others sincerely had a lightbulb 💡 go off, and it got out of control.

  • @lynndohm58
    @lynndohm58 Жыл бұрын

    Cannot hear this much?

  • @replaceablehead
    @replaceableheadАй бұрын

    The only problem I have with Whitaker's argument is he relies heavily on statistics, the same thing that go is in this mess in the first place. The pharmaceutical companies have been using rating scales and big data for years to pull the wool over people's eyes and I think Whitaker's arguments are dangerously similar. I am more in agreement with the work of people like Nassir Ghaemi and David Healy, we need to look at history and longitudinal outcomes but we must also reckon with the anecdotal evidence. Pharmaceutical companies have been waging a war on heuristics for decades, they've convinced people that their perception cannot be trusted at all. The reality is if you take the time to listen, really listen to the lived experience of people with serious psychiatric diseases you will be convinced of two things, one they have capacity to recover including spontaneous recovery and two it is probably a disease. Just because dopamine blockers suck and half our other treatments suck does not mean it's not a disease, it just means we suck at treating it. And notice again here that Whitaker's argument regarding drugs is similar to the drug companies, that is drugs are a valid way of determining etiology. The drug companies argue the drug responses prove the diseases are real and Whitaker essentially makes the same argument but with a different interpretation, that is that the lack of response proves absence of disease. The better explanation is that the treatments simply suck, just like many drugs throughout history.

Келесі