Biopsychiatry controversy

The biopsychiatry controversy is a dispute over which viewpoint should predominate and form the scientific basis of psychiatric theory and practice. The debate is a criticism of a claimed strict biological view of psychiatric thinking. Its critics include disparate groups such as the antipsychiatry movement and some academics.

Overview of opposition to biopsychiatry

Over centuries of progress medical science has developed a variety of therapeutic practices that have made many illnesses more treatable or even fully eradicable. Biological psychiatry or biopsychiatry aims to investigate determinants of mental disorders devising remedial measures of a primarily somatic nature.

This has been criticized by Alvin Pam for being a "stilted, unidimensional, and mechanistic world-view", so that subsequent "research in psychiatry has been geared toward discovering which aberrant genetic or neurophysiological factors underlie and cause social deviance". 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.

Research issues

Current status 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 (although the latter has never been shown to be causative, merely correlative). 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

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 and reports show significant associations between specific genomic regions and psychiatric disorders. Though, to date only a few genetic lesions have been demonstrated to be mechanistically responsible for psychiatric conditions. 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.

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. 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." Theodore Lidz and The Gene Illusion. 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.

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 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, although no other demonstrably superior hypothesis has emerged. While the hypothesis has been shown to be simplistic and lacking (especially regarding psychotropic drugs with novel mechanisms such as tianeptine), there is sufficient evidence to consider it as a useful heuristic in the aiding of our understanding of brain chemistry and explaining pharmacotherapy. 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.

Reductionism

Niall McLaren emphasizes in his books Humanizing Madness and Humanizing Psychiatry that the major problem with psychiatry is that it lacks a unified model of the mind and has become entrapped in a biological reductionist paradigm. The reasons for this biological shift are intuitive as reductionism has been very effective in other fields of science and medicine. However, despite reductionism's efficacy in explaining the smallest parts of the brain this does not explain the mind, which is where he contends the majority of psychopathology stems from. An example would be that every aspect of a computer can be understood scientifically down to the very last atom, however this does not reveal the program that drives this hardware. He also argues that the widespread acceptance of the reductionist paradigm leads to a lack of openness to self-criticism and therefore halts the very engine of scientific progress. He has proposed his own natural dualist model of the mind, the biocognitive model, which is rooted in the theories of David Chalmers and Alan Turing and does not fall into the dualist's trap of spiritualism.

Economic influences on psychiatric practice

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 and that "Pharmaceutical companies have developed and brought to market medications that have transformed the lives of millions of psychiatric patients. The proven effectiveness of antidepressant, mood-stabilizing, and antipsychotic medications has helped sensitize the public to the reality of mental illness and taught them that treatment works. In this way, Big Pharma has helped reduce stigma associated with psychiatric treatment and with psychiatrists." However, too often "[t]he practice of psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry have different goals and abide by different ethics." He states a number of concerns exacerbating this situation which he suggests require remedying, including:

• 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 constraints; 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."

Nevertheless, Sharfstein concluded that "[a]s psychiatrists, we should all be grateful for the modern pharmacopia and the promise of even more improvements in the future."

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.

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. 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.

See also

General

• 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
• A Brief History of Anxiety (Yours & Mine), a book by journalist Patricia Pearson
• Trauma model of mental disorders

Groups critical of the biomedical paradigm

• Mindfreedom - A group which advocates for "choice" regarding psychopharmaceuticals.
• ICSPP (International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology)
• ISPS (International Society for the Psychological Treatment of the Schizophrenias and other Psychoses)

External links

Criticisms from psychologists & the medical profession

1. APA Fights Attempt to Limit Access to Psychoactive Drugs, American Psychiatric Association president Michelle Riba, M.D., M.S.
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).