Hi folks, I'm very proud to say that my book, Sedated, is released today! I've done everything within my power to write a book worthy of your time - one that illuminates via interviews, stories & research why our mental health sector is broken & how we may put it right again. 1/5

We are rapidly reducing our language's beautiful plethora of emotional terms (the expressive words of poets, musicians & storytellers) to the soulless phraseology of 'mental health' (good, bad or whatever). Is anyone else disturbed by such spreading symbolic and linguistic rot?

I'll be talking at this event online next Friday, alongside some wonderful speakers. Check it out👇 https://t.co/95T27KX3An

In recent decades psychiatry has focused primarily on using drugs to change how we feel, not on exploring how those feelings may signify unmet needs, the harms of adverse past or present circumstances & so the necessity for meaningful social, relational &/or psychological change.

Psych-diagnosis is what we call in anthropology an 'initiation ritual' into a very different social status: one where new authorities & practices can now exert power where they had no jurisdiction before, & where a new story of you is written to legitimise this arrangement.

My letter with @ReadReadj and @PloederlM has now been published in JAMA Psychiatry. We comment on the meta-analysis by Kalfas et al, which concluded that withdrawal reactions from antidepressants are rare and transient and thus of no clinical relevance. https://t.co/Fd0ra2E6A9

Psych-diagnosis is what we call in anthropology an 'initiation ritual' into a very different social status: one where new authorities & practices can now exert power where they had no jurisdiction before, & where a new story of you is written to legitimise this arrangement.

“A proliferation of compelling articulations, the willingness to try anything, the expression of explicit discontent, the recourse to philosophy and to debate over fundamentals is an indication that the discipline is experiencing a significant crisis." Psychiatry? - Thomas Kuhn

As Jung said, lonliness doesn't come from having no people around us, but from being unable to communicate the things most important to us.... And we can help... as key to the art of building companionship is enabling others to feel safe enough to share those important things....

This article on the DSM does it's very best to fashion a silk purse out of a sow's ear (I can literally feel the strain), and, by repurposing history, to shunt a fair degree of responsibilty for the damage the DSM has done onto all but psychaitry itself. https://t.co/npFqup4Qod

As Robert Spitzer (chair of DSM-III) once told me about DSM-5: they created it to make money. As everyone would need to buy the new edition, the publisher, American Psychiatric Association, would make millions a year selling it. The same for DSM-6... New edition, familiar hustle.

As Jung said, lonliness doesn't come from having no people around us, but from being unable to communicate the things most important to us.... And we can help... as key to the art of building companionship is enabling others to feel safe enough to share those important things....

'To this day, after twenty years and four revisions, the DSM and the entire system based on it fails victims of child abuse and neglect - just as they ignored the plight of veterans before PTSD was introduced back in 1980.' - Bessel van der Kolk (The Body Keeps Score)

I've always felt uneasy with the metaphor of psychological 'growth'... as if we were like shrubs or turnips. If all goes well, I think we less 'grow' with age than 'deepen' or 'mature', or become kind or maybe 'wise' (from the latin, 'sapere' - meaning "to have good taste").

'Personal' change (via therapy etc) doesn't occur in some sealed, hermetic realm, untouched & unhampered by the wider social world that may or may not accommodate it. To deny this is to deny reality: whether 'change' is sustained heavily relies upon how it's socially recieved.

To believe only psychological theory & interventions can bring psychological change is an admission of ideological idleness.

“Vaulting antidepressant prescribing isn't improving the nation’s mental health. In fact, there's now compelling evidence that in many ways it may be worsening it at population level due to rising harms & increasing unnecessary use." My quote👇 https://t.co/kuQqBbt7zs

Similarly, this is exactly what the enterprise of psychiatric diagnosis is about

1/ People often say that those harmed by prescribed psychiatric treatments “let their harm become their identity” or “need to change their mindset.” This is misleading and shows a profound misunderstanding 🧵

Major problems with this study: -It should've been conducted 30 years ago. - It focuses on 8-12 weeks use (side-effects often worsen over time). - It omits studying many effects including sexual dysfunction, emotional blunting etc - PR spun by @SMC https://t.co/EPLIjUKWNl

“TikTok influencers, some paid by Big Pharma, try to destigmatise antidepressants by reframing them as accessories for enlightened and empowered young women — just another form of self-care.”