Theories in Psychiatry: Building a Post-Positivist Psychiatry

by Niall McLaren

Overview

Psychiatry has to be taken seriously. An ever-increasing proportion of the population are prescribed long-term, powerful psychiatric drugs on opinions only, with no evidence of brain pathology. People who have broken no laws can be taken from their homes, locked in cells, stripped and drugged indefinitely, leaving them no practical means of regaining their civil rights. Niall McLaren shows that modern psychiatry is in a state of theoretical disarray. By analysing and comparing all current theories of mental disorders, he shows that either they don't exist in a scientific form or they are incapable of being developed to that point. Further, he shows that theories of mind in philosophy cannot fill psychiatry's theoretical void. Anybody with an interest in mental disorders will be greatly assisted by seeing just how the various attempts at theories fit together, and why they all fail.

"Contemporary psychiatry is in theoretical crisis. This book brilliantly critiques the misguided theories presently leading the profession into a philosophical and practical quagmire. It shows how the profession's obsession with biological determinism is a serious danger to patients, as well as to the profession's future. By exposing the philosophical errors that undermine contemporary psychiatry's fundamental duty to heal anguished minds, it makes a profound case for transforming psychiatry from a reductive medical science into an effective human science. This book deserves a very wide readership." -- Dr Allan Patience, University of Melbourne

"I consider Niall McLaren's work a very valuable contribution. It fills a major gap in the theory of mental disorders and will appeal to anybody with an interest in the field." -- Assoc. Prof. Carolyn Quadrio, University of New South Wales

From Future Psychiatry Press

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781615998234
Publisher:	Future Psychiatry Press
Publication date:	08/27/2024
Pages:	356
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.81(d)

About the Author

Niall McLaren is an Australian psychiatrist, author and critic. He was born and educated in rural Western Australia, graduating in medicine at the University of WA in Perth in 1970. He completed his postgraduate training in psychiatry in 1977 and subsequently worked in prisons and then in the Veterans' Hospital, with a year's break working in the far southern region of Thailand. From 1983-87, he studied philosophy in order to undertake a PhD jointly in psychiatry and philosophy of science. In 1987, he left Perth city to travel to the remote Kimberley Region of Western Australia as the region's first psychiatrist. Covering an area larger than California, with no staff, no hospital beds, no clinic and not even an office, nearly 2000km from the nearest psychiatrist, he was the world's most isolated psychiatrist. While there, he continued studying and writing and began publishing work highly critical of mainstream psychiatry. After six years in the bush, he moved to Darwin, the capital of Australia's Northern Territory, first as chief psychiatrist for the Top End, then in private practice, where he was closely involved with the large military population. He has since moved to Brisbane, in Queensland, and is emphatic that there will be no more moves. He retired from clinical work during the pandemic and now has an honorary position with the Dept of Philosophy at University of Queensland. When he graduated in psychiatry, he was aware that the field was not what it claimed to be. It was clear that psychia¬trists routinely made major claims on the nature of the mind-brain relationship and mental disorder that were not justified in the literature and, he realised, could never be justified. This led him to the philosophy of science which established that psychiatry lacked a formal model of mental disorder. In turn, this problem arose just because it had no theory of mind. As a result, modern psychiatry lacks a basis in any known concept of science. It is, in fact, at best a proto¬science and, at worst, crude and highly misleading pseudoscience. This author's work is highly original and owes nothing to any psychiatrists, living or dead. Almost invariably, his work provokes bitter antagonism from mainstream psychiatrists. For nearly half a century, orthodox psychiatry has committed itself totally to the reductionist biological approach to mental disorder, with no possible alternatives. Despite massive increases in expenditure on mental health, there is absolutely no evidence to support the oft-repeated claims that psychiatry is making great advances and people are better off than they have ever been. Every figure indicates that as psychiatry extends its reach, the mental health of the population declines. McLaren argues that this is just because psychiatry is not a science. Because it lacks a formal model of its field of study, mental disorder, psychiatry is perpetually at the mercy of social and political fads and fashions. He maintains that biological psychiatry is nothing more than a passing fad and must eventually go the way of psychoanalysis, behaviourism and possession theory. In the meantime, it is doing an immeasurable amount of damage. He recently published the results of a lifetime of work on a model of mind for psychiatry, the biocognitive model, which leads directly to a model of mental disorder. This is the first time in the history of psychiatry that such a model has been available. The present work, a survey of all theories available to psychiatry, provides a solid critical foundation to complete the project. Since theories in psychiatry are so weak and poorly developed, this volume also surveys a group of well-known philosophers, concluding that none of their work can be extended to provide a model of mental disorder. The clear implication is that their work is insufficient to the task of providing a general account of mental life, but this needs further analysis on a much broader scale.