Psychiatry has its head in the sand: Royal College of Psychiatrists rejects discussion of crucial research on antipsychotics

Joanna Moncrieff

Two pieces of research have been published over the last two years that should prompt a major reorientation of the treatment of schizophrenia and psychosis, and a fundamental reappraisal of the use of antipsychotic drugs in general.  Put together, these studies suggest that the standard approach to treating serious mental health problems may cause more harm than good. Long-term treatment with antipsychotic drugs has adverse effects on the brain, and may impair rather than improve chances of recovery for some. Many people ask me how the psychiatric profession has responded to this data. Surely, they think, it must have stimulated a major debate within the profession, and some critical reflection about why it took so long to recognise these worrying effects? Sadly, this does not appear to be happening.

I have described both of these studies in detail in previous blogs. Briefly, in 2012 the research group led by Nancy Andreasen…

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New Year’s Eve – When You’re Alcohol-Free

New Year’s Eve – When You’re Alcohol-Free.

2013 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2013 annual report for this blog.

 

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 6,500 times in 2013. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

Tory supporter ‘jokes’ about Apollo Theatre accident

Pride's Purge

(not satire – it’s Orwellian Britain today!)

The Tory supporter and ex-DWP worker who got sacked after encouraging people to post the names and details on Facebook of people who they think might be fraudulently claiming benefits has ‘joked’ about the Apollo Theatre accident on Facebook:

This is the same ‘nice’ person who uses a picture of Margaret Thatcher for a banner and praises Iain Duncan Smith as a “really nice person” on the same Facebook page.

It obviously takes one to know one.

.

Related articles by Tom Pride:

Jobcentre worker fired for goading people to post names of benefit claimants on Facebook

Boris Johnson to close 3 fire stations that sent engines to the Apollo Theatre

Iain Duncan Smith and Universal Credit – a case of a tool blaming his workmen?

How Tory are you? Take the Tory-o-Meter test and find out!

‘Anal knitter’ Iain Duncan Smith knits policies with…

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Psychosis And The Arts

Psychosis and
the Arts
Thursday 27th March, 2014
@ Amnesty International Human Rights Action Centre,
17-25 New Inn Yard, London, EC2A 3EA
Speakers include: Bobby Baker, Martin Gayford, David Bell,
Wiebke Trunk, Nanna Luth & Meg Harris-Williams
FIND OUT MORE: WWW.ISPSUK.ORG | ADMIN@ISPSUK.ORG
The use of the arts in personalised recovery journeys, as well as in psychological treatment
approaches to working with psychosis, is well known in contemporary mental health practice.
In this one-day conference supported by Tate Modern, clinical and non-clinical speakers will
come together in encouraging dialogue and dispelling some of the myths that persist in
the field of psychosis and the arts, including Van Gogh’s ear.
Confirmed speakers include the acclaimed visual and performance artist Bobby
Baker, the award-winning writer Martin Gayford, the psychoanalyst David Bell and the
psychoanalytically-informed arts scholar Meg Harris-Williams, together with arts therapists,
service users, their family and friends and other specialists working with psychosis.
International gallery curators Wiebke Trunk and Nanna Luth and educators in the medical
humanities will provide a new lens through which ways of approaching the urgent UK
agenda of compassionate care can be looked at in the context of the wider contribution of the
arts for enhancing empathic mental health care.
ISPS UK Charity No: 1098909

The 296 MPs who voted AGAINST investigating food banks use and UK hunger: THE LIST

COOKING ON A BOOTSTRAP

Taken from Hansard, 18th December 2013.

Adams, Nigel

Afriyie, Adam

Aldous, Peter

Amess, Mr David

Andrew, Stuart

Bacon, Mr Richard

Baker, Steve

Baldry, rh Sir Tony

Baldwin, Harriett

Barker, rh Gregory

Baron, Mr John

Barwell, Gavin

Bebb, Guto

Beith, rh Sir Alan

Benyon, Richard

Beresford, Sir Paul

Bingham, Andrew

Blackman, Bob

Blackwood, Nicola

Blunt, Mr Crispin

Bone, Mr Peter

Bradley, Karen

Brady, Mr Graham

Brake, rh Tom

Bray, Angie

Brazier, Mr Julian

Bridgen, Andrew

Brine, Steve

Brooke, Annette

Browne, Mr Jeremy

Bruce, Fiona

Bruce, rh Sir Malcolm

Buckland, Mr Robert

Burley, Mr Aidan

Burns, Conor

Burns, rh Mr Simon

Burstow, rh Paul

Burt, Lorely

Byles, Dan

Cable, rh Vince

Cairns, Alun

Carmichael, rh Mr Alistair

Carmichael, Neil

Carswell, Mr Douglas

Cash, Mr William

Chishti, Rehman

Chope, Mr Christopher

Clappison, Mr James

Clark, rh Greg

Clarke, rh Mr Kenneth

Clifton-Brown, Geoffrey

Coffey, Dr Thérèse

Collins, Damian

Colvile, Oliver

Cox, Mr Geoffrey

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Charity Slams Osborne’s Workfare – These Placements Are Not Voluntary

Beyond evidence: theorising arts and health (ESRC Seminar, Glasgow University, 24 April 2014)

Centre for Medical Humanities Blog

Beyond evidence:  theorising arts and health
ESRC Seminar 24 April 2014
Glasgow University

In a deliberately provocative intervention to the emerging health-and-arts field, this day seminar engages social theoretical resources in order to help elaborate how researchers and practitioners might experiment epistemologically in ways that encourage a movement ‘beyond scientism’ and recycled debates about evidence. 4  speakers will use their work to speculate around the following thematics which traverse the day:

• ‘Rights to experiment’: understanding arts impacts through ideas of justice rather than collection of evidence
• ‘Working at boundaries of evidence’: the role of phenomenologies of artistic practice and sensings of the arts
• ‘Epistemologies and artistic cultures’: questioning what happens as ways of thinking merge with artistic practice

We intend the presentations to prompt discussions about how different kinds of art, artists, researchers, bodies and capacities are enlivened through new relationships which the arts-in-health field might hold…

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‘On benefits and proud’? Not for these long-term sickness benefits recipients

‘On benefits and proud’? Not for these long-term sickness benefits recipients.

Pain, Illness, Trauma and Death in Childhood (CfP, Conference, London, 1 February 2014)

Centre for Medical Humanities Blog

The University of Greenwich, Centre for the Study of Play and Recreation, with the Society for the Study of Childhood in the Past and the London Network for the History of Children present:

Pain, Illness, Trauma and Death in Childhood
1 February 2014
Maritime Greenwich Campus, London SE10 9LS
Call for papers deadline 31 Dec 2013

Pain, illness, trauma and death are intrinsic to the shaping of childhood and to the experience of being a child. In the past, pain could be perceived as beneficial, either in forming character or bringing the subject closer to God. In the present, the enormous popularity of “misery memoirs” raises questions as to why the theme of abuse has such resonance in the twentieth and twenty-first century western world.

Topics include, but are not restricted to:

• Contributions from history, sociology, anthropology, archaeology, literary studies, psychology, philosophy, geography or health studies
• Pain, whether physical, emotional…

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