Biopsychiatry controversy

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The biopsychiatry controversy is the dispute over the scientific basis of biological psychiatry theory and practice^[who?]. The debate is focused on criticism of hard biological psychiatric thinking from social critics mainly from the Antipsychiatry movement and certain religions, especially Scientology. The psychiatric patients also partakes in the debate. A recovery model has in many countries become a substantial portion of the mental health treatment. There are currently worries about an over-use of psychiatric medicines.

Contents 1 Overview of opposition to biopsychiatry 2 Research issues 2.1 Uneven progress in biopsychiatric research 2.2 Focus on genetic factors 2.3 Focus on biochemical factors 3 Economic influences on psychiatric practice 3.1 Pharmaceutical industry influence on the psychiatric profession 4 See also 5 External links 6 References

[edit] Overview of opposition to biopsychiatry

After a century of medical progress different specialties of medicine have developed therapeutic practices that have made illnesses more treatable and eradicable. Biological psychiatry or biopsychiatry aims to investigate determinants of mental disorders devising remedial somatic measures.

Clinical professor of psychiatry, Alvin Pam, describes this as a "stilted, unidimensional, and mechanistic world-view" and subsequently "research in psychiatry has been geared toward discovering which aberrant genetic or neurophysiological factors underlie and cause social deviance".^[1] According to Pam the "blame the body" approach, which typically offers medication for mental distress, shifts the focus from disturbed behavior in the family to putative biochemical imbalances.

[edit] Research issues

[edit] Uneven progress in biopsychiatric research

Biopsychiatric research has produced reproducible abnormalities of brain structure and function, and a strong genetic component for a number of psychiatric disorders. It has also elucidated some of the mechanisms of action of medications that are effective in treating some of these disorders. Still, by their own admission, this research has not progressed to the stage that they can identify clear biomarkers of these disorders.

Research has shown that serious neurobiological disorders such as schizophrenia reveal reproducible abnormalities of brain structure (such as ventricular enlargement) and function. Compelling evidence exists that disorders including schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and autism to name a few have a strong genetic component. Still, brain science has not advanced to the point where scientists or clinicians can point to readily discernible pathologic lesions or genetic abnormalities that in and of themselves serve as reliable or predictive biomarkers of a given mental disorder or mental disorders as a group. Ultimately, no gross anatomical lesion such as a tumor may ever be found; rather, mental disorders will likely be proven to represent disorders of intercellular communication; or of disrupted neural circuitry. Research already has elucidated some of the mechanisms of action of medications that are effective for depression, schizophrenia, anxiety, attention deficit, and cognitive disorders such as Alzheimer's disease. These medications clearly exert influence on specific neurotransmitters, naturally occurring brain chemicals that effect, or regulate, communication between neurons in regions of the brain that control mood, complex reasoning, anxiety, and cognition. In 1970, The Nobel Prize was awarded to Julius Axelrod, Ph.D., of the National Institute of Mental Health, for his discovery of how anti-depressant medications regulate the availability of neurotransmitters such as norepinephrine in the synapses, or gaps, between nerve cells.

– American Psychiatric Association, Statement on Diagnosis and Treatment of Mental Disorders^[2]

[edit] Focus on genetic factors

Researchers have proposed that most common psychiatric and drug abuse disorders can be traced to a small number of dimensions of genetic risk ^[3] and reports show significant associations between specific genomic regions and psychiatric disorders.^[4][5] Though, to date only a few genetic lesions have been demonstrated to be mechanistically responsible for psychiatric conditions.^[6][7] For example, one reported finding suggests that in persons diagnosed as schizophrenic as well as in their relatives with chronic psychiatric illnesses, the gene that encodes phosphodiesterase 4B (PDE4B) is disrupted by a balanced translocation.^[8]

The reasons for the relative lack of genetic understanding is because the links between genes and mental states defined as abnormal appear highly complex, involve extensive environmental influences and can be mediated in numerous different ways, for example by personality, temperament or life events.^[9] Therefore while twin studies and other research suggests that personality is heritable to some extent, finding the genetic basis for particular personality or temperament traits, and their links to mental health problems, is "at least as hard as the search for genes involved in other complex disorders."^[10].

Theodore Lidz,^[11] Jay Joseph ^[12][13] and others argue that biopsychiatrists use genetic terminology in an unscientific way to reinforce their approach. Joseph maintains that biopsychiatrists disproportionately focus on understanding the genetics of those individuals with mental health problems at the expense of addressing the problems of the living in the environments of some extremely abusive families or societies. ^[14]

[edit] Focus on biochemical factors

See also: Chemical imbalance and Monoamine Hypothesis

The chemical imbalance hypothesis states that a chemical imbalance within the brain is the main cause of a psychiatric conditions and that these conditions can be improved with medication which corrects this imbalance. In this hypothesis, emotions within a "normal" spectrum reflect a proper balance of neurochemicals, but abnormally extreme emotions, such as clinical depression, reflect an imbalance. This conceptual framework has been challenged within the scientific community, though no other demonstrably superior hypothesis has emerged. While the hypothesis has been shown to be simplistic and lacking, there is sufficient evidence to consider it as a useful heuristic in the aiding of our understanding of brain chemistry and explaining pharmacotherapy.^[15][16] On the other hand, Elliot Valenstein, a psychologist, neuroscientist and prominent critic of biopsychiatry, states that the broad biochemical assertions and assumptions of mainstream psychiatry are not supported by evidence.^[17]

[edit] Economic influences on psychiatric practice

“	In a time of economic constraint, a "pill and an appointment" has dominated treatment.	”
—APA president Steven S. Sharfstein, Big Pharma and American Psychiatry: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly[18]

American Psychiatric Association president Steven S. Sharfstein has stated that when the profit motive of pharmaceutical companies and human good are aligned, that the results are mutually beneficial, but that they are too often misaligned, and that "[t]he practice of psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry have different goals and abide by different ethics." He states a number of concerns exascerbating this situation which he suggests require remedying, including:^[18]

• that the psychiatric profession has allowed the biopsychosocial model to become entirely dominated by biological factors;
• a "broken health care system" that allows "many patients [to be] prescribed the wrong drugs or drugs they don't need";
• "medical education opportunities sponsored by pharmaceutical companies [that] are often biased toward one product or another";
• "[d]irect marketing to consumers [that] also leads to increased demand for medications and inflates expectations about the benefits of medications";
• drug company gifts to doctors, that have become sufficiently problematical as to warrant legislative contraints; and
• "drug companies [paying] physicians to allow company reps to sit in on patient sessions allegedly to learn more about care for patients and then advise the doctor on appropriate prescribing."

[edit] Pharmaceutical industry influence on the psychiatric profession

Studies have shown that medical students and residents are susceptible to undue influence from pharmaceutical companies due to the companies involvement in medical school programs. ^[19]

Antidepressants have been shown to have only a minimal effect, over that of a placebo, on patients.^[20]In an essay on advertisements for anti-depressants published in PLoS Medicine, social work academic Jeffrey Lacasse and neuroanatomist Jonathan Leo state that, despite this, the chemical imbalance theory is promoted by the medical industry as an explanation to depression and that their medicines correct the chemical imbalance. They also state that there is some evidence that both patients and professionals are influenced by the advertisements and patients may get prescribed medicines when other interventions are more suitable.^[21] In a further article they state that chemical imbalance has also been cited in media as an important cause of depression despite a lack of scientific literature that shows this causality.^[22]

Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.

[edit] See also

• Anti-psychiatry - A movement critiquing psychiatry from the human rights perspective.
• Bipolar disorders research - biopsychiatric analysis into the cause of bipolar disorders.
• Elliott Valenstein - a psychologist and neuroscientist, author of Blaming the Brain.
• The Gene Illusion - a book by clinical psychologist Jay Joseph.
• Causes of schizophrenia
• Controversy about ADHD

[edit] External links

Criticisms from psychologists & the medical profession

1. Big Pharma and American Psychiatry: The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, American Psychiatric Association president Steven S. Sharfstein
2. Against Biologic Psychiatry - an article by David Kaiser, M.D., in Psychiatric Times (1996, Vol. XIII, Issue 12).
3. Challenging the Therapeutic State - special issue of The Journal of Mind and Behavior (1990, Vol.11:3).
4. Letter of Resignation from the American Psychiatric Association - from Loren R. Mosher, M.D., former Chief of Schizophrenia Studies at the National Institute of Mental Health.
5. Memorandum from the Critical Psychiatry Network to the United Kingdom Parliament - Written evidence to the House of Commons Select Committee on Health, April 2005.

Methodological issues

1. On the Limits of Localization of Cognitive Processes in the Brain - an essay by William R. Uttal, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Michigan, based on his book The New Phrenology (MIT Press, 2001).

[edit] References