Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Frances MD Audiobook

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• 
  mayasecret
  January 7th, 2023
  

  Thank you!

  Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Frances MD
• 
  Pademic
  January 7th, 2023
  

  This looks great, thank you.

  Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Frances MD
• 
  apnea
  January 8th, 2023
  

  

  2 years ago on the wall of one of my doctor’s (ex dr)examination rooms was a big pharma information poster letting patients know that if they are depressed it’s most likely due to a so called ‘chemical imbalance’ AND they have the magic pills to treat said ‘chemical imbalance’ that has zero evidence to prove it even exists let alone is out of balance & causing depression. How could a 21st century western physician not know it’s pure criminal bunk?

  *Scientists Find No Evidence That Depression Is Caused by “Chemical Imbalance” or Low Serotonin Levels*

  “After decades of research, there remains no clear evidence that serotonin levels or serotonin activity are responsible for depression, according to a comprehensive review of prior research led by University College London (UCL) scientists.

  The major new umbrella review – an overview of existing meta-analyses and systematic reviews – was published on July 20 in the journal Molecular Psychiatry. It suggests that depression is not likely caused by a chemical imbalance, and calls into question what antidepressant medications do. This is because most antidepressants are selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs), which were originally said to function by correcting abnormally low serotonin levels. In fact, there is no other accepted pharmacological mechanism by which antidepressants affect the symptoms of depression.”

  https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-find-no-evidence-that-depression-is-caused-by-chemical-imbalance-or-low-serotonin-levels/

  When shared these facts to some depressed guys on Reddit who were taking antidepressants to treat their depression, guess how they reacted?

  I was crucified & vilified & so were the explainer articles (mostly written by science journalists) & the studies they were writing. I took it as more proof of the inherent irrationality of humans & the primacy of emotions. But other studies have confirmed when people change their minds it almost never happens instantly even if there is a mountain of evidence disproving their current belief(s). It’s happened to me a number of times including being presented with proof that a woman I was having mad sex with & was falling for had a closet full of skeletons, including a few nasty deal breakers. Most of the time I needed to go through a process within my cranium before admitting, to myself & my people, that I was WRONG WRONG WRONG - there I said it. Happy now??

  Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Frances MD
• 
  caesar963
  January 8th, 2023
  

  But, don’t people benefit from such medical therapy? Isn’t there a marked difference between people on their meds, and those off there meds?
  I’ve seen people with bipolar & schizoid disorders who were persuaded by such sources & people to discontinue their medical therapy, and the self-destructive consequences were truly devastating. These therapies were allowing them to function. Such advice can be enormously hazardous for real human beings, and journalists ought to be more responsible.

  Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Frances MD
• 
  argonaut
  January 8th, 2023
  

  Please read the book before commenting. Frances is not against meds; he is a vocal proponent of both lithium and clozapine therapies, and is also a supporter of ECT.

  Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Frances MD
• 
  caesar963
  January 8th, 2023
  

  Of course, argonaut, you’re correct. I was responding to apnea’s comment there, his ref to “magic pills” (I should’ve addressed it accordingly).

  Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Frances MD
• 
  caesar963
  January 8th, 2023
  

  (And I ought to have said “their” meds the 2nd time.)

  Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Frances MD
• 
  argonaut
  January 8th, 2023
  

  Sorry, Caesar, so was I. I should have included an ‘@’.

  Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Frances MD
• 
  Thamus
  January 9th, 2023
  

  

  Thank you.

  Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Frances MD
• 
  Thamus
  January 9th, 2023
  

  Please seed.

  Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Frances MD
• 
  bengle_moody
  January 10th, 2023
  

  @caesar963

  For schizophrenia, bipolar, and other serious conditions pharmacological intervention does have some good evidence to support it.

  For widely diagnosed depression and anxiety, however, nobody has much idea what works. One of the best performing interventions seems to be ‘watchful waiting’ (ie doing nothing) for six months. Pharma companies exploit lack of knowledge with really shonky studies that ‘prove’ whatever pill they’re shilling helps. Clamping down on the biased studies full of selective results is one thing regulators in neither the US nor EU have found a way to do.

  Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Frances MD
• 
  caesar963
  January 11th, 2023
  

  That’s true too. It’s not known precisely how SSRIs work, but work they do, in an enormous number of cases. They can help people with crippling, inhibiting psychiatric disorders meet the day, & live their optimum lives.

  Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Frances MD
• 
  apnea
  January 11th, 2023
  

  caesar sounds just like a pharmaceutical corporation’s poster hanging on the wall of the Dr office. A dupe & shill in one. Spare me or at least bring me a bucket. “their optimum lives” with a 40lb fat gain & a dead libido. Optimum. They barely beat placebos & Big pharma does not release results of negative or neutral studies of their products.

  If you can’t see a problem with prescribing pills for a chemical imbalance there is ZERO Fing scientific evidence for then my condolences to your children. Buy them PEZ dispensers full of those behaviour control pills.

  Btw, since the magic pills for the non existent chemical imbalance has failed to fix what was once the ups & downs of being human, they upped the anti and now regularly prescribe powerful anti psychotics for depression. It’s great for teachers & parents who can’t seem to manage without doping up the kids. Prior to 40 years ago, however did all the parents & teachers manage the children without doping them silly?

  Don’t read the book if you are a proponent of ever more doping of society because you’ll only be exposed to more evidence of how y’all been duped by psychiatry & big pharma. Perhaps a debilitating miasma began emanating from the center of the earth 40 years ago?

  Thank you Big psychiatry & big pharma for saving us all. Who knew a miasma could cause so many mental disorders.

  I say you would be better off doing heroin because at least we know what it does to your brain and body, thanks to over a century of studying junkies.

  I also find it funny how depression has become the leading cause of disability in the last 20 years, but only in the west - are there any other culture-specific diseases & disorders or is it just depression. If you are disabled that means you can’t work regardless of getting a diagnosis. Like if your leg is broken. It’s broken and you can’t walk on it whether a doctor tells you it’s broken or not.

  “Other experts suggest that this complete lack of scientific data is a fatal flaw. Edward Shorter, a professor of the history of medicine and psychiatry at the University of Toronto, calls it “totally unscientific”:
  “One of the strangely unscientific aspects of the DSM is that it’s largely the product of horse-trading […] People sit down around a big table and say, ‘I’ll give you your diagnosis if you give me mine.’
   “This is a totally unscientific way of doing business,” he continued. “We didn’t come up with the speed of light by having a consensus conference, and it’s not how psychiatric science should be conducted, either. To think that this is responsible for the official psychiatry diagnostic manual is just gobsmacking.”

  Nassir Ghaemi, a psychiatrist and author at Harvard and Tufts, makes a similar criticism:
  “It was so popular that it became a bible,” he told Medscape Medical News. “We’ve created a bunch of terms―most of which were created out of the blue with no scientific rationale―but just because we would all agree on the definitions. And now we act as if they were handed down by God himself and can never be changed. And that’s essentially what’s happened in the last 40 years.”

  Other criticisms came from two of the biggest names in psychiatry, Thomas Insel and Allen Frances.”

  https://www.madinamerica.com/2020/12/medscape-article-reviews-fatal-flaws-dsm/

  Since there is zero evidence for a chemical imbalance, it seems to me that looking elsewhere for causes of serious depression would be a good place to restart.

  The last straw for me was when they began to prescribe antidepressants to people who had lost a loved one. Bereavement medicalized. Pop our pill so the death of your wife or child causes you no more distress than a pet fish dying. No pesky grieving anymore. You can go straight from the funeral back to work & put half a day in. Don’t worry about missing out on the 5 stages of grief because there is no such thing - that’s another unscientific, but beloved myth. Another one that they will attack you for pointing out. Same for ayything, no matter how bunk, they have emotionally attached to.

  Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Frances MD
• 
  caesar963
  January 12th, 2023
  

  That sounds more than a little demented. Chronic bipolar & schizoid disorders, multiple suicide attempts, seriously harming others as well as themselves - up to the point of death - this is all “non-existent” - just perfectly normal & healthy “ups & downs,” the regular rough & tumble of debilitating psychosis? Nothing to see here, no necessity whatsoever for treatment?

  There are grave, real-world repercussions for people persuaded (often by alternative “clinicians” on the internet, there are countless such charlatan bloggers/operators - “Just take a little ginger & you’ll be fine!”) to end their medical therapy. It just leads to deeper psychosis. These therapies allow sufferers to function.

  Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Frances MD
• 
  dave5050j
  January 12th, 2023
  

  Mental health is a huge grey zone but pushing drugs is not the solution, especially when you start to target kids as young as 7-8 years. I know parents who thankfully disagreed with their pediatricians and the kids turned out to be alright. @apnea I agree with you.

  Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Frances MD
• 
  caesar963
  January 13th, 2023
  

  Losing despairing people to suicide is far from a grey area. It’s black or white, life or death.

  Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Frances MD
• 
  apnea
  January 14th, 2023
  

  Seriously Misleading Network Meta-analysis in Lancet of Acceptability of Depression Pills
  By
  Peter C. Gøtzsche, MD -
  January 5, 2023

  https://www.madinamerica.com/2023/01/misleading-lancet-depression-pills/

  Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Frances MD
• 
  caesar963
  January 15th, 2023
  

  Any advice on the best course for sufferers of actual chronic bipolar & schizoid disorders, psychosis, and those with persistent suicidal ideation? Aside from them being “non-existent!” and get off those “magic pills!” lest you gain weight? Anything actually useful & realistic? Or just “take some ginger, love, because that’s what the alternative therapist off the internet says. You know her, Miss Information, she’s called. Very reliable.”
  “Bring me a bucket” indeed…

  Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Frances MD
• 
  torrent101
  January 29th, 2023
  

  

  Your comments @apnea are well founded.

  What you seem to not be considering in your judgments @caesar963 is the overarching, cast-iron reality that the pharmaceutical industry is one that has been proven, again and again, in courts of law around the world, to be guilty of crimes that should see those involved spending the rest of their lives in jail, and have all their assets conviscated under RICO laws. Big Pharma should have had all it’s profits conviscated decades ago.

  It is only due to such international organised crime that no such justice has ever been laid down against Big Pharma. If you’re not aware of the long list of crimes, to which I am referring, then a little research goes a long way. However, the paying out of hundreds of billions of dollars over the years in compensation ordered by the courts, and the judicially proven deaths of so many tens of thousands of ‘patients’ and ‘customers’ should be enough for anyone to get a grip on the real issue here. Pharma pills are “a racket”. The only job of Big Pharma executives is to find ways of increasing profits. There is absolutely no moral requirement involved in “Rockefeller medicine”. Anyone commenting from a moral perspective as to what Big Pharma would do is simply naive to corporate realities. More people diagnosed as being “sick in the head” > bigger profits. Less people diagnosed > reducing profits, and the executives lose their jobs. Simple maths. These people are not employed for their conscience, rather for their sociopathy and ability to completely ignore morals in the equation.

  You should also be aware that the Hypocratic Oath is no longer required in oder to become a doctor. A doctor can now quite ‘honestly’ (no pun intended) serve a corporation above serving his or her patient, with no legal or ethical comeback. Take note, all those who blindly trust their doctor or psycho-analyst without researching books like this one!

  Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Frances MD
• 
  bayesian
  March 15th, 2023
  

  

  Thanks!

  Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Frances MD
• 
  hthecntma
  June 9th, 2023
  

  @caesar963

  Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Frances MD
• 
  hthecntma
  June 9th, 2023
  

  @caesar963 how do you get notified of new comments and reply to them?

  Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life - Allen Frances MD

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