Celebrating Steps Toward Humane Approaches to Distress
From John Read, PhD/Psychology Today: “My posts here frequently document the dominance of, and damage sometimes caused by, a simplistic illness or ‘medical model’ approach to the causes of, and responses to, emotional distress. This includes the continuing use of electro-shock therapy and the international epidemic of the overprescribing of psychiatric drugs which are rarely better than placebo and have severe adverse effects, including withdrawal symptoms when people try to stop.
As 2022 draws to a close, I thought that this post should instead celebrate some of this year’s successes in the ongoing struggle for more humane, evidence-based approaches to mental health problems. My short list is, inevitably, drawn from events I know about, or have been somehow involved with, and therefore represents just a tiny fraction of this multi-faceted international struggle that has been going on for decades now.
. . . I apologise to all the campaigners, authors, conference organisers and researchers that my little list has omitted. It is good to know, however, that there are so many of you out there. I encourage you to publish your own list of favourite 2022 events. We need to keep one another informed and, thereby, inspired to carry on the struggle.”
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