Not ’antipsychiatry’; Defending Dr. Szasz; Perpetrators of abuse
Finally, Dr. Szasz practiced long before research demonstrated that the longer psychosis went untreated, the worse the deterioration and functional outcome. Thus, his stance to let patients with psychosis refuse medications significantly harmed those patients, worsened their symptoms, and reduced their chance for remission.
Dr. Cann’s allegations of the “real abuses” of modern day psychiatry are to the best of my knowledge just that–allegations. I have never seen valid documentation of the large-scale abuses he cites, although an occasional deviation occurs in any profession. The practice guidelines for various psychiatric disorders never recommend what Dr. Cann claims is happening with diagnostic distortions and ulterior motives.
Psychiatry still is evolving as a medical discipline and there are comorbidities that confound the primary diagnosis—such as anxiety or heavy drinking in bipolar disorder—but research is actively seeking a biopsychosocial explanation. The Epidemiological Catchment Area study,1 published 20 years ago before any of the current medications were introduced, is upheld as the best estimate of the prevalence of psychiatric disorders in the United States—approximately 25% lifetime risk, which means approximately 75 million children, adolescents, and adults have a diagnosable psychiatric disorder. Some of them receive good evidence-based treatments and some do not, but many more never receive any treatment and suffer in quiet desperation.
Henry A. Nasrallah, MD
Editor-in-Chief
