Time for mental health professionals to speak truth to power
Dr. Terry Lynch
Continuing professional development (CPD) courses for psychologists, psychotherapists, counsellors, MH professionals
The current global mental health position is that the medical view - embodied in the medical model - is the one that prevails in the majority of so-called 'developed' countries.
With some notable exceptions, the professions of psychology, psychotherapy, counselling, social work, occupational tend to submit to the widespread belief that the body of knowledge espoused by mainstream psychiatry merits its place at the top of the mental health 'knowledge' pyramid.
This needs to change. In May 2015, coinciding with the publication of the DSM-5, the Division of Clinical Psychology of the British Psychological Society correctly called for a paradigm change in global mental health. They have followed through on this position statement with the publication of the Power Threat Meaning Framework in 2018. These actions are to be commended.
In the public interest and in the interest of truth and justice, such correct and courageous actions must be replicated by individual mental health professionals and their collective organisations across the range of mental health professions.
It is no longer good enough for psychologists, psychotherapists, counsellors, social workers, and other allied mental health to sit quietly back and allow psychiatry's 'wisdom' to drive and direct the mental health care of millions of people world wide.
It is no longer acceptable for such mental health professionals to do nothing in the face of a mental health paradigm that is built upon misinformation; untruths; false claims re science; serious bias towards biology - which remains unverified - and against a psychologically- and trauma-informed understanding of the experiences and behaviours that come to be described as various so-called 'mental disorders'.
Some truths about psychiatry
* The DSM has no scientific basis whatsoever
* There is not and the never has been any verified brain chemical imbalances in relation to 'depression' or any other so-called 'mental disorder'.
* There is no verified scientific evidence that so-called 'mental disorders' are brain disorders, despite widespread claims to the contrary.
* The place of trauma within psychiatric diagnoses has for decades been minimised and largely airbrushed into irrelevance, apart from the seriously distorted 'post-traumatic stress disorder', the only diagnosis I know of where what happened to you pretty much dictates what is wrong with you.
Trauma expert and psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk's correct assertion that psychiatry is ignoring trauma. This is no coincidence, since a full and proper awareness of the role of trauma and its effects within the psychiatric diagnoses would seriously threaten the fragile medical biological paradigm of mental health.
* Few if any of the psychiatric diagnoses listed in the DSM are established medical conditions. Depression is not; nor is bipolar disorder; schizophrenia; OCD; etc etc.
To paraphrase Edmund Burke, all it takes for corrupt systems to maintain dominance is for those who could - and should - speak out and take action to do nothing.
To my fellow mental health professionals:
Please educate yourselves about the facts, many of which contradict what you might have been told in your training.
Please speak out against injustices within mental health - including injustices of misinformation espoused by others, including medical and non-medical mental health professionals.
To mental health professional training bodies and associations
You have a responsibility to ensure that mental health professionals are trained to the highest standard. If you are unquestionably subscribing to the medical model, for example, by failing to adequately critique the DSM, you risk failing in your solemn duties to your mental health trainees and ultimately, to the people who will attend these trainees as clients.
If you would like to access over 17 hours of accurate information for mental health professionals about 'depression', you might like to take a look at my online course for mental health professionals, Depression: Its True Nature.
In June 2019 I was interviewed by MK Mendoza of KSFR Santa Fe Public radio. Here is a link to part one of this interview.
Agree; disagree; please do not stay silent
Please feel free to agree or disagree with me. But I do ask you - please do not remain silent.
Throughout history, the silence of the masses has regularly contributed to the dominance of corruption and corrupt systems.
The situation in relation to global mental health is no different. The failure of the both non-medical and medical mental health professions to seriously question the many gaping holes, inaccuracies, logical fallacies, misinformation and sometimes plain lies facilitates the ongoing dominance of global mental health by system that is way off track and simply not fit for purpose.
Education, Training and Development Specialist
5 年Two years ago, we had the pleasure of Terry sharing many of these insights and bursting the bubble of falsehoods and misconceptions by most in psychiatry- with reference too, in many cases, some of the most eminent psychiatrists in the world who are trying to debunk the tide of misinformation propagated by the dominant psychiatric professional medical project. Staff and students in CIT were blown away by Terry's truth, evidence, insights from practice and clarity of explanation. There was a queue of people coming to speak further to him af the end of the lecture. It takes great courage to challenge the power of psychiatry , be unswerving in knowing that you and other enlightened mental health professionals are correct and that the dominant medical- psychiatric model is wrong. Terry Lynch has that courage. Here's hoping that Terry's courage and the courage of others like him can become more and more contagious.
HR Change Leader - culture, performance and innovation
5 年Over recent months, I have had a number of conversations with social enterprises/charities.? What scares me is the degree to which the NHS/medical model are all over these organisations.? There is a greater need to protect the most vulnerable in our society who do not have access to this knowledge. Thanks for sharing #mentalhealth?
Senior Psychologist (HSE), Chartered Clinical Psychologist (PsSI), Accredited / Registered Psychotherapist (IAHIP/ICP) in private practice, Clinical Supervisor & Supervision Trainer (HSCP office, HSE)
5 年In response to my musings about the internal processes and wider issues of a man presenting with psychosis to an acute unit: "psychology has no role here, no one knows what you're talking about, this is a biological problem". That was from a psychiatrist. I tried to discuss it with her later in private and she screamed at me and stormed off. They are words I'll never forget. It made me feel sick. It makes me feel sick. Stress vulnerability model anyone? Biopsychosocial model anyone? Power, threat, meaning anyone? No. Biological problem. It has scarred me. I can't imagine being the patient.
Senior Psychologist (HSE), Chartered Clinical Psychologist (PsSI), Accredited / Registered Psychotherapist (IAHIP/ICP) in private practice, Clinical Supervisor & Supervision Trainer (HSCP office, HSE)
5 年I will join the FB page. I already described my experience to you on FB and, like Craig below, got "punished". It won't stop me though!
Real Estate - residential and commercial.
5 年It seems to me that the basic function of the brain is to model the world(s) in which we live with the purpose of finding predictable ‘happiness’, where happiness is however we each define thriving in a social context – we thrive as a group because we can achieve more as a group. Anxiety, depression, paranoia, mania are all the result of unusual models of self to world – they are information and actionability issues that can be remedied via a combination of education and mind/life strategies. A life coach may be your best guide. I studied Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) in the business world forty years ago. NLP offers a workable model of the functional mind that helps one create better experiences and achieve desirable outcomes in a systematic and practical way that anyone can learn. I began to hear voices out of the blue at age fifty five and soon found myself instinctively applying my practice of NLP to own my reaction and response to voices, eventually managing to routinely prevent the recurrence of psychosis without medication, in spite of particularly aggressive and cruel voices. I have remade this practice into a suite of six simple mind strategies in tool format that anyone can apply. NLP works from the concept of the well mind. Instead of focusing on some ‘illness’ (poorly defined in DSM language) it simply asks ‘What can I do to achieve this particular desirable outcome?’ and makes that a habit. Mental issues are primarily information issues in the brain – our experiences are encoded in ways that they predict our ability to thrive in the world as we see it. We can deliberately improve our confidence in self and reshape the ‘as we see it’ element to create ‘happiness’ as we each define it. Habitually. Prescription drugs are more likely to get in the way than help because they alter our emotional responses. Emotions regulate the flow of information in brain processing. When I took anti-psychotics I got fat and became emotionally “dulled” – and that dullness projected onto everything in life. Pointless really, since the drug made no difference to voices and my quality of life was made worse, not better. If we aren’t looking at whole life quality as a desirable outcome, how can we even take drug efficacy seriously?