What’s New Firstly, my apologies for taking so long to get this back on track, we moved to our new house at the end of November so I spend my weekends barrowing dirt around the place. I’ve also rather foolishly agreed to work part-time for the local mental health service …
Do you ever feel the need to go back somewhere to see how your past is faring? Normally, I don’t. I don’t like going backwards but I’ve had an interesting few months lately doing a locum for the local mental health services security unit. Going through the doors is like …
I have to apologise, I’ve been busy with other things these two months, like making a living and building a house – in the mud. All good clean fun but this will have to be a bit shorter than usual. A question from sunny California: “My name is Alex and …
What’s New Lots happening this month. The long-delayed DSM-5 train finally pulled into the station but most independent commentators seemed to agree that it should have kept going. Alan Frances said that it is about time the whole concept of a diagnostic manual was taken away from the APA and …
What’s New A series of questions from newsletter reader, Jack Fenwick, has focused on some critical issues facing this model of mind, and also some very important social issues facing humanity. I’ll quote his email (with one or two minor changes): “”Whilst you’ve now convinced me that mental disorder can …
It is one of the fundamental beliefs of modern psychiatry that the mentally-disturbed must have drugs to prevent their disorders deteriorating. Drugs are now given in the very long term, generally meaning for life, even though almost none of the drugs has ever been tested in anything like the longer …
“Sometimes I wonder whether the world is being run by smart people who are putting us on, or by imbeciles who really mean it.” (Mark Twain). The week got off to a good start when a paper on causes of mental disorder I had been hawking around since July last …
Good morning, this is the second of what I hope will be reasonably regular newsletters directed at the evolving biocognitive model of mental disorder, the goal being to provide a valid alternative to the current mess in psychiatry. Is psychiatry a mess? Well, Dr Alan Frances certainly thinks so. His …
I have just returned from an exhausting trip to the US to launch my fifth book, bravely entitled The Biocognitive Model for Psychiatry: The Mind-Body Problem Explained. The title comes from Dennett’s book from 1991, titled Consciousness Explained, in which he emphatically did not explain consciousness. I hope I haven’t fallen into his trap. …