Read and Moncrieff in Psychological Medicine: Anti Medical Model Screed

 Out on PubMed, in Psychological Medicine, is this article:

Depression: why drugs and electricity are not the answer.

Read J, Moncrieff J.Psychol Med. 2022 Feb 1:1-10. doi: 10.1017/S0033291721005031. Online ahead of print.PMID: 35100527

The abstract is copied below:

The dominant view within mental health services and research suggests that feeling depressed is a kind of medical illness, partially caused by various biological deficits which are somehow corrected by physical interventions. This article critically appraises evidence for the effectiveness and value of antidepressant drugs and electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), the two principle physical treatments recommended for depression. It also describes the negative effects of these interventions and raises concerns about how they impact the brain. We propose an alternative understanding that recognises depression as an emotional and meaningful response to unwanted life events and circumstances. This perspective demands that we address the social conditions that make depression likely and suggests that a combination of politics and common sense needs to guide us in providing help for one another when we are suffering in this way. This alternative view is increasingly endorsed around the world, including by the United Nations, the World Health Organization and service users who have suffered negative consequences of physical treatments that modify brain functions in ways that are not well-understood.

Keywords: Depression; adverse effects; antidepressants; electroconvulsive therapy; placebo.

The article is here.

This is about as bad as it gets: denying psychiatric illness exists, vilifying the medical model and biological treatments, and promoting only touchy-feely social remedies.

John Read is having quite a run; he is convincing seemingly reputable journals to print his misleading and harmful "reviews". He has taken a page from the playbook of you-know-who: repeat a lie often enough, and loud enough, and people will take it as truth.

The old dilemma about whether or not to engage terrorists applies here. But I guess the best thing to do is to keep publishing good quality evidence for the efficacy and safety of ECT.