Behaviorism and Mental Health
An alternative perspective on mental disorders | PHILIP HICKEY, PH.D
Lingering Doubts About Psychiatry’s Scientific Status
26 June 2014
Professor Sir Simon Wessely is a British psychiatrist who works at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, London. He is also the new President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, and in that capacity, he recently wrote his first blog, titled, appropriately enough,
My First Blog (May 24, 2014)
. The article is essentially a perusal of, and commentary on, the program for the RCP’s Annual Congress, about which Sir Simon expresses considerable enthusiasm. He also engages in a little cheerleading.
“…we [the RCP] are the most democratic of colleges. We welcome the views of patients and carers…”
This statement struck me as odd, because it’s not so long ago (December 20, 2013) that I read a post by British psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff,
Psychiatry has its head in the sand: Royal College of Psychiatrists rejects discussion of crucial research on antipsychotics. In this article, Dr. Moncrieff describes how she approached the RCP 2014 Conference planning committee, and asked that a symposium on “Re-evaluating antipsychotics – time to change practice” be included in the program. To her surprise, this proposal was rejected on the grounds that there were too many competing suggestions.
Dr. Moncrieff’s proposal was based on two ground-breaking studies (
Ho, BC, Andreasen, NC, et al; and
Wunderink L, et al.), both of which, at the very least, raise serious concerns about psychiatry’s current use of neuroleptic drugs. This certainly seems important, but in fairness to the RCP, perhaps there were topics of
even greater moment, and Dr. Moncrieff’s suggestion simply couldn’t be accommodated.
Curious as to what these topics might be, I took a look at the
conference schedule, and found a few entries that might conceivably have been nudged aside for Dr. Moncrieff’s proposed symposium. These include:
- Developing your teaching portfolio
- Succeeding as a new consultant
- Leadership development for the jobbing psychiatrist – what we all need to know
- Private practice
- Advanced communication skills for public engagement
- Making parity a reality
- How to get into Academic Psychiatry
And just possibly:
- Debate – Hamlet’s Ophelia: was it suicide?
Read more: http://www.behaviorismandmentalheal...g-doubts-about-psychiatrys-scientific-status/