Is supporting populist political parties a mental disorder?

John McGowan makes the case

Commitment? Or sign of illness?

It’s just over a month until the UK general election and many Brits seem to have lost trust in their traditional politicos. Whether it’s the UK Independence Party (UKIP) scapegoating the European Union and immigrants, a rise in nationalism (the Scottish National party), or  Russell Brand’s teenage anarchism, faith in facile, and sometimes ugly, solutions is on the march.  It’s a huge relief, therefore, to hear that the editors of the DSM (the main reference book for psychiatric classification), are considering a new category of disorder to cover this condition. Clearly many critical things have been said about the burgeoning amount of psychiatric diagnosis, here and elsewhere. However, I’ve just looked at the DSM draft entry (reproduced below), and think that this time, the American Psychiatric Association might really be onto something. In fact, all I can say is bring it on. 

20 years on: Finally our myopic brain obsession is on the wane

Professor John Read, back in the UK after a long period away, is struck by some important changes in the way we view mental health problems

Has how we talk about mental health changed?
Illustration: Mend the Mind

It’s good to be back in the UK after twenty years in New Zealand – well, apart from the weather, the political, economic and spiritual state of England, and the endless phone calls to India to get someone from up the road to install a phone. Amid it all I’m writing my first ever blog! What an antiquated old prof.

As regards mental health research, the difference I notice most is how far people’s thinking has moved on from the old, simplistic, ‘blame-the-brain-for- everything-and-medicate’ idea. 

Seduced by biology: The BBC, black dog and biological bias

Sue Holttum suggests that biological explanations for distress may easily be over-emphasised

Do brains turn our heads?
Photo: Helmut Januschka

A couple of mornings ago (Tuesday 18th Feb) there was an item on Radio 4’s Today programme about depression. Specifically, it related to the discovery that teenage boys with mild (non-clinical) depression, and higher-than-usual levels of the stress hormone cortisol, were 14 times more likely to develop clinical depression than other boys of similar age. Presenter, Evan Davis, interviewed respected neuroscientist, Prof Barbara Sahakian, from Cambridge University. Instead of asking the obvious question about why these youngsters are suffering enough stress to raise cortisol levels and be mildly depressed, Mr Davis asked about possibly correcting cortisol levels and whether cortisol was the cause of the depression.

Time to change for Time to Change?

Flo Bellamy

Does a diagnosis simply confirm
another's weirdness?
Photo: Juan Eduardo Donoso

The Time to Change campaign is the biggest mental health stigma busting campaign in the UK, receiving an estimated £21 million between 2007 and 2011.  Given this level of investment I would hope it made significant differences to stigma surrounding mental health problems.  The truth is that it hasn’t, and in some areas of stigma, prejudice has increased.

In the 2011 ‘Attitudes to Mental Illness’ survey report, many results were worrying.  It appears that the percentage of people who would not want to live next-door to someone who has been mentally ill has risen compared to recent years. Also, more of the general public believe that someone should be hospitalised as soon as they show signs of mental disturbance. It’s also more probable that a woman would be considered ‘foolish’ to marry a man who has suffered from mental illness, even though he seemed fully recovered.

And these are at the tip of the iceberg.  When it comes to measures of tolerance of the general public towards ‘mental illness’, a decrease was found.  The percentage of people who agreed we need to adopt a far more tolerant attitude toward people with mental illness in our society dropped from 91% to 86%. Given the level of investment described in the first paragraph, it’s worth asking why this is happening.

What we’ve been reading: Zombies, medication, social construction and lots of feminism

The Editors

Heavyweight Recommendations! 

‘I’m so glad’, says our head of Salomons Centre Prof Margie Callanan, ‘that I am reading something a little edifying when you ask this’. Clearly, it’s a relief to seem professorial when someone looks your way.  She goes on to recommend ‘The First Sex’ by Elizabeth Gould Davis and specifically the chapter entitled, ‘Not Quite People – The Nineteenth Century’.  The sub-heading to the chapter is ‘A Special Kind of Property’. This book is about the female in society through the ages, from early civilisation to the Aquarian Age, through mythology and religion.  It is of course, more political than psychological, but if we agree with Robert Graves that ‘The present intolerable world situation...cannot even begin to ease until the basic argument of Elizabeth Gould Davis’s 'The First Sex' is accepted by all schools and universities’, then perhaps the psychological can draw on this understanding of the past to inform both our present and our future. For men and women.

Helen Caird suggests ‘The Ethics of Care’ by Virginia Held, a feminist perspective on what it means to be ethical: in particular, ethics when sitting in a room with someone in therapy, rather than the more meta level on which these discussions often start. Helen’s wonkish side is on display with her recommendation of ‘A Reader in Promoting Public Health’, suggesting she’s also wanting to go beyond the consulting room. She did confess to reading the Hunger Games (we suspect when the above gets too much).

Thinking about public health, Anne Cooke recommends The Midlands Psychology Group’s ‘Draft Manifesto for a Social Materialist Psychology of Distress’. No intellectual credibility worries if you’re caught reading that. At its heart is a plea to look beyond individual and illness-based understandings of distress and to think about the social world, inequality and poverty.

In a week in which we’ve had many interesting exchanges on this site and on Twitter about the medicalisation of distress, we also note that psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff has a new website and  blog. The first blog entry, ‘Models of Drug Action’, considers whether drugs prescribed for mental illnesses actually do correct an ‘abnormal state’.

Blog co-editor, and champion Tweeter Angela Gilchrist, suggests ‘Conversations with my Sons and Daughters’ by Mamphela Ramphela, leader of SA’s new political party (AgangSA), and the former partner of murdered Black Consciousness activist, Steve Biko. Angela suggests that there are similarities between the ways in which situations of oppression unravel, no matter where they are situated in the world.

Drawing all these threads together, or perhaps sinking into the weekend, John McGowan our Academic Director, recommends ‘World War Z: An Oral History of the Zombie War’ by Max Brooks. A fictitious oral history in the Studs Terkel ‘Hard Times’ mould, John describes it as ‘A Swiftian tour of humanity in all its rivalries, pettiness, sexism, nationalism, racism and ultimately dignity and worth; with some pretty scary Zombies on the side.’ As there is a (fairly) respectable academic tradition looking at apocalyptic fiction as a lens on social issues, we’ll let it go. Maybe.

Is shaming the 'pill-shamers' shutting down debate?

Leigh Emery

‘Whatever is begun in anger ends in shame.’- Benjamin Franklin

Keep taking the tablets. But
maybe keep quiet about it?

Over the past year I've immersed myself in Twitter. Like many I started tentatively, following the usual parade of news sites and comedians. It didn't take long though to realise the value of Twitter for discussing mental health. It’s packed to the rafters with campaigners, professionals and service-users. It’s also, famously, a place where people feel free to say more or less whatever they want. Put all these elements together and the result is a powerful (if dissonant) mix of voices in social media and in mental health.

Recently, some Twitter followers have turned their attention to several articles in the national press which critique the use of psychiatric medication. These articles, one by novelist Will Self, another by commentator Giles Fraser and a third by psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff, broadly say the same thing: life’s ups and downs are being pathologised and psychiatric drugs are being wildly overused.

Is Life a Disease?

Anne Cooke and John McGowan

The DSM makes a handy lectern
Photo: Maciej Janowicz

As regular readers of this blog know, we are very interested in the pros and cons of psychiatric diagnosis. We try to discuss this issue in an accessible way and reach as broad an audience as possible. It was a great pleasure, therefore, to be invited by Lewes Skeptics (a Sussex branch of the Skeptics in the Pub network) to give a talk about mental illness, diagnosis, and some of the controversies raised by the new version of the psychiatric classification manual DSM-5. We've since been asked to make the talk available more widely, so we've posted it below. It's a video of the slides, accompanied by a soundtrack recorded on the night.

It was interesting to see that the event sold out in a few days. Since we’re hardly big names, we hope this says something about the level of public interest in mental health. The same happened the last time that the Skeptics put on a mental health-related talk (by psychiatrist Joanna Moncrieff), so something clearly strikes a chord. On the night of our talk the room was jammed, the temperature was hot and the controversy even hotter! Actually that last bit isn’t true. The debate was conducted in the most civil and decorous manner - not always easy when passions on this topic can run high.

We’d like to thank Lewes Skeptics (and in particular Eugene Gill) for hosting the event, and for their commitment to promoting public engagement with important topics. If you want to know more follow them @LewesSkeptics on Twitter. We are also grateful to John Warburton man of many parts, two of which were his very strong forearms. The fortitude with which he acted as a human boom for the recording equipment was admirable. Thanks also to the audience. The pub patrons of Lewes are clearly a thoughtful lot.

You can view the video either in the embedded version below or via the direct link on YouTube. 

There is also a recording of the discussion following the talk. The quality is slightly more variable as questioners were sitting in different parts of the room. The Q&A audio is embedded below or you can listen to it directly on Sound Cloud.

Guest blog: I believe in diagnosis but the DSM is just a door-stop

Over the last few months we’ve regularly featured pieces taking a critical line on the new Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) and on psychiatric diagnosis more generally. We are nonetheless committed to offering a range of views on mental health. Today we feature an article taking a more pro-diagnosis position and offering a (possibly surprising) view on why the DSM is not always relevant to the consideration of distress. The author, Alex Langford, is a psychiatrist with clear views on both the value of diagnosis and the limits of classification schemes. What do you make of what he has to say? Alex has agreed to respond to comments over the next few days.

Is the nature of most mental health
problems obvious?
Illustration: catcher0frye

The heat from the release of the “psychiatric Bible” (DSM-5) is thankfully simmering down. In recent months, you couldn't throw a metaphorical brick on Twitter without hitting someone who had a strong opinion and wasn't shy of sharing it. I found this debate stimulating, frustrating and eventually repetitive. Rarely however, did I find it clinically relevant.

There may be a number of reasons for this. For one thing, DSM-5 is an American book; we use a different classification (ICD-10) here in Britain. Also, I currently work in an area of psychiatry that deals heavily with an illness that DSM doesn’t have a definitive role in, namely dementia. But mostly, I wasn’t too bothered because, to the probable surprise of non-medics and the public, most psychiatrists don’t really care about the finer points of classification.

Am I Still Bipolar? Emerging from the Shadow of the DSM

Fay Thomas

What if it's not our brains
that are the problem?
Photo: Bohlega et al 

I am excited. Almost as excited as I was the day the Berlin wall fell or Nelson Mandela was released from jail. For me, the current debate around the utility of the DSM5 and psychiatric diagnosis feels that big. It feels that big because I have been personally touched by a madness from which I was told I would never recover. My only sibling has likewise lived in the shadows of diagnosis, similarly labelled and without any real hope for much of his life. I was labelled bipolar 1 and he as schizophrenic. Of the two labels, I must confess to preferring mine. Bipolar is somehow a bit sexier than is schizophrenia - in these days of celebrity confession, anyway.

But a quarter of a century ago when I was first given my diagnosis, I was a manic depressive and there didn't seem much that was glamorous about that. Celebrities did not then come out of the closet and admit to their diagnoses or discuss their trials in Hello. It was only historical geniuses like Virginia Woolf and Hemingway who were found on lists of the similarly afflicted. And that was only because they were dead. 

When the Ads Don’t Work

Anne Cooke and Dave Harper 

Is your mind made up about mental illness?
This picture may dispel any doubts.
Photo: Giovanni Cassanese 

It’s a sobering thought that, for many people who use mental health services, other people’s reactions cause more distress than their original problems.   And attitudes may even be getting worse.  A recent report from the Department of Health found that whereas in 1997, 92% of people questioned agreed that ‘we need to adopt a more tolerant attitude towards people with mental illness’, in 2011 only 86% thought that we need to be more tolerant.   Worryingly, young people appeared to be the most prejudiced.

Relatively static attitudes to mental health stand in contrast to the changes there have been in attitudes about ethnicity and sexuality (we currently have a conservative Prime Minister advocating same-sex marriage).  It’s even more surprising given the effort that has gone into anti-stigma campaigns.  For example you may have seen the recent tube posters or TV ads from the government sponsored Time to Change campaign.   So what’s the problem?  Perhaps part of the answer is what campaign ads actually say. Or what they don’t. 

The DSM dust-up: Whingeing cranks, turf wars and epistemological disputes

Leigh Emery

Debates over psychiatric diagnosis:
an ideological smack-down?
Pic:  Battle Cry of Freedom
by James McPherson

On Sunday  the12th of May, The UK Observer ran a front-page article stating that the Division of Clinical Psychology (DCP), a subdivision of the British Psychological Society (BPS), was releasing a position statement calling for a ‘paradigm shift’ in mental health. The proposed shift was away from a view of mental health problems as illnesses with biological roots, and towards greater consideration of  psychological and social factors.

The DCP did its best to get the media interested and was rewarded with extensive coverage. The Observer and Guardian website included an online poll and other articles and commentaries that explored the debate in some depth.  The Daily Mail ran a piece the following day.  Lucy Johnstone and Richard Bentall, both Clinical Psychologists and critics of the ‘disease model’ of psychological distress, appeared on Radio 4 and Peter Kinderman, a former DCP Chair, was on telly in Canada. 

Guest Blog: Bipolar or Not?

Psychiatric labels can be both helpful and confusing. In the light of the current DSM debate, guest blogger Fay Thomas writes about her struggle to hold onto a normal response to personal grief having been diagnosed with bipolar disorder some years ago.

Being labelled bipolar
casts a long shadow
Photo: SigmaOne

'Are you suicidal?' asked the doctor, peering at me kindly as she offered tissues for my tears. I wanted to answer truthfully, but it felt difficult. I hoped the answer was no, because I would not have done anything to harm myself, but my mind was full of dark thoughts. So I answered no, which seemed dishonest, especially since I had failed to tell her my history.

As a much younger, highly-distressed woman, I was given a label of 'bipolar mood disorder type 1' to describe my see-sawing moods. They cycled between delusional elation and the depths of despair. Aged 28, I had made a serious attempt to kill myself which led to a traumatic series of hospitalisations. My memories of those years are grim, painful and still difficult to articulate. I believe some of the treatment decisions made on my behalf were not in my best interests. Incarcerated and robbed of my own voice and power, it would be hard to trust medics again, especially with my mental health.

Prior to my GP visit, it had been 23 years since I'd experienced serious mood deterioration. For thirteen of those, I had been medication-free - unusual for someone with the bipolar label. Recovery had been a long, hard slog which presented serious risks. It had meant doing my own reading and acting on my own hunches despite the warnings of doctors.

Silver Linings: Is Sickness a Shield Against Stigma?

John McGowan

Silver lining or more rain?
Photo: By Im Unicke

I’d been avoiding Silver Linings Playbook. Nothing against it particularly, it’s just that Very Serious films about mental health always feel like a busman’s holiday. I got corralled into seeing it by the missus though, more observant than me, who had clocked that a) it was warmly sentimental, and b) it featured a dance contest. These days plucky young hoofers channelling Patrick Swayze are all I ask of a film. And if someone is also (spoiler alert) saved by the love of a good woman, then my cup runneth over.

As well as Jennifer Lawrence’s Oscar, the talk on the internet has been about how realistic SLP is (or isn’t), and what it tells us about social attitudes to mental illness. Opinions are split between those who see it as a ground-breaking and nuanced portrait of people having emotional difficulties, and those who view its happy ending as idealised and simplistic. Lawrence has been lauded for her portrayal of Tiffany, the aforesaid good woman, who is frequently a bad girl as she seeks to drown the pain of widowhood. This makes her, according to your point of view, either an ideal candidate or the worst possible bet to get things together by dancing/falling in love with fellow recoverer Pat (Bradley Cooper).

Gazza, Lance and the difficulties of psychiatric diagnosis

John McGowan

What do you call someone who tells lies persistently? In recent weeks the answer is probably Chris Huhne, the latest in a line of hubristic politicians who have told a stream of big porkies to cover up a small one. You may have already forgotten that before the erstwhile next leader of the Lib Dems bowed out, the deceiver du jour was cycling champ (technically ex-champ) Lance Armstrong. I've written about the ethics of Armstrong’s fall from grace elsewhere, suggesting that, while his doping to win the Tour de France wasn't great, his unpopularity has far more to do with his deceit and with our disappointed expectations of a previously heroic figure.

Pinocchio. Worrying signs of psychopathy
in childhood! Picture:  Ropa-To.

However, what should we call him? Is he a ‘jerk’ (his own suggestion), or one of many more colourful names suggested on various comment threads of the web? As well as the stream of abuse, some of Lance’s ex-fans also seem eager to offer a more nuanced appraisal in the form of psychiatric labels. Is he a psychopath or a sociopath or, as an article in the Atlantic a couple of weeks back suggested, an ‘aggressive narcissist’? What, I wonder, do these labels tell us about him that conventional monikers do not?

I’m sicker than I thought I was

Anne Cooke

DSM: Get your hernia belt
on for the fifth edition.

One thing I like about being a psychologist is that you get the occasional call from journalists asking interesting questions. The one who phoned the other day was making a radio programme about new mental illnesses. She was referring to the soon-to-be released fifth edition of the diagnostic ‘Bible’, the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of the American Psychiatric Association). This newest version is set to classify even more experiences and behaviours as ‘mental disorders’ than its predecessors. For example, binge eating is to become a disease, and in future you may also need expert treatment if you spend too long in front of your computer (‘internet addiction’). Each edition of the DSM introduces us to new diseases. The first edition, published in 1952, was 132 pages long. The 1987 edition (DSM III-R) was 569 pages. By the time the current edition was published in 2000, it had swelled to 943 pages. I wonder how many pages long DSM-V will be, and how many strong men it will take to lift it.

What we often lose sight of is that calling certain emotional states, or ways of thinking and acting ‘mental illnesses’ is just one way of thinking about them, rather than the only way. All we really know is that people sometimes feel or act in certain ways. For example, if I feel sad and hopeless, and stay in bed all day staring at the ceiling, I am likely to be diagnosed with depression. I may be told that I have an illness, and this way of understanding my situation does have its advantages. I can go to my GP and hopefully find a sympathetic ear, maybe some tablets to take the edge off things and perhaps be referred on to someone I can talk to. If I’m feeling so bad that I can’t work, I can take time off sick and even claim benefits. So the idea of mental illness definitely has its plus sides: it gives us a way of talking about difficult things and a framework for offering help. However, I often wonder whether overall, the whole enterprise of finding medical labels and drug ‘treatments’ for what are often arguably problems of living, or in some cases lifestyle choices, actually causes more problems than it solves. To continue the example, thinking of myself as mentally ill might well be a huge blow to my self-confidence. I might conclude that there is little I can do to help myself except to keep taking the tablets. Depending on my diagnosis, I might begin to fear turning into people’s image of a mental patient - strange, unable to function and perhaps even potentially violent. Other people who know that I am ‘mentally ill’, might be prejudiced and treat me as inferior or even frightening. I would find it harder to get a job and, as someone once said to me, “I’m mentally ill” is hardly the best chat up line is it?’ I would also lose some of the human rights I had always taken for granted: people with ‘mental disorders’ are the only group that can be locked up without trial and injected with drugs against their will.