November 01, 2020

We all learned as freshmen that science is objective. But in fact, the evidence base for psychopharmacology and indeed probably most of modern medicine is manufactured and shaped and spun by experts whose interests may not be coextensive with yours or mine. A recent systematic review and meta-analysis on ADHD medications by Joseph Biederman and his colleagues at Harvard University and Massachusetts General Hospital gives us some insight into how this process works.

August 03, 2020

Once upon a time there was a family with ten sons. Six of the sons went on to be diagnosed with schizophrenia.

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One tried to murder his wife by forcing her to inhale cyanide fumes. One shot his girlfriend dead, then turned the gun on himself and ended his own life. One molested his younger brother and sisters. One set fires and viciously attacked police officers, as well as patients and staff members in a mental hospital.

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Are you curious to know what the Hell was going on behind the scenes while these boys were growing up? I am.

January 10, 2020

The real myth of the schizophrenogenic mother is the idea that psychiatrists ever seriously promoted the idea that mothers are solely responsible for schizophrenia in their children. And this myth has for too long been used as a straw woman to divert attention from serious discussion of the role of abuse and trauma in the genesis of schizophrenia and other types of mental distress, and to promote biological explanations and pharmacological interventions for these conditions instead. 

October 17, 2019

Like the story of the Kallikak Family, the sad tale of the Genain Sisters was intended to illustrate the primacy of heredity, but instead it ended up revealing much more about its chroniclers than its purported subjects. 

August 06, 2019

We no longer teach young people wisdom, temperance, fortitude, and justice. Instead we encourage them to see themselves as fragile creatures whose brains can go haywire for any reason, or no reason at all. Then we tell them they have the “disease” of depression and ply them with drugs with a known link to worsening depression and suicidality going back for decades.