Anatomy of Moncrieff's Anti-Medication Playbook
@joannamoncrieff has a carefully honed 3-step strategy of attacking psychiatry, which she has used with remarkable power against the medical establishment.
Step 1: Identify a narrow, technical assertion pertaining to the neurobiology or medical treatment of mental health problems, and show that the evidence supporting that assertion is not as strong or high quality as commonly believed.
Step 2: Use the uncertainty of evidence to make the claim, or imply, or pretend that the assertion has been shown to be false. [This step is a logically invalid inference since weak evidence in favor of thesis A does not equal strong evidence in favor of inverse A.]
Step 3: Use the claim as a stepping stone to bash medical psychiatry by making claims that extend far beyond the scope of the narrow, technical assertion in step 1. Rely on rhetoric, ignorance of the audience, and prevalent prejudices to pull this off, and make strategic motte-and-bailey retreats when needed.
This 3-step attack is bolstered by 2 ancillary moves:
a) Make isolated demands for rigor, and set the required bar of evidence to a level that favors one’s own position, while simultaneously lowering the bar or shifting the burden of proof when it suits your favored positions.
b) Pretend your personal opinion carries the same epistemic weight as the clinical consensus of the medical community.
See details of how this play out in my post: https://t.co/PAfmFj7YqJ
@NiallCrumlish Always loved Magnetic Fields Papa was a Rodeo
And now it's 55 years later
We've had the romance of the century
After all these years wrestling gators
I still feel like crying when I think of what you said to me
I worry that folks who pit sociopolitical solutions against psychiatric care hope for a Faustian bargain: there is little political appetite for meaningful investments into public & preventative health, but there is ready supply of hatred & stigma directed at psychiatric care. /1
Small number places vacant for online Balint group, starting Wed eve 17th Nov. Anyone whose job involves caring for other people, very welcome. Great way to reduce stress, share burden, gain more understanding of difficult interactions. DM for details ✨
A graphic illustration of the inexorable decline in inpatient mental health beds in Ireland since the 1960s. In fact current number of beds is even lower than shown here as Mental Health Commission report (2020) states that there are 1050 acute inpatient beds in Ireland in 2018
Prof Eadbhard O'Callaghan, who died ten years ago today, was a brilliant and kindly mentor and a heroic figure to me and many in my generation of Irish psychiatry. This is his obituary from 2011 by Robin Murray and @MarycannonMary
https://t.co/ooVXzKwtv6
1/ So how is Canada getting on with its great cannabis legalization experiment?
Daily cannabis use in 2020 very high by global standards, but no worse than the levels under "medical cannabis" regime pre-legalization in 2018.
Daily use by 16-19yo = 9%
Daily use by 20-24yo = 12%
tobacco is a ~trillion $ turnover business annually
alcohol is > trillion $ turnover business
The drugs business, when legalised, will grow to surpass a trillion $ annually.
It will exist alongside a vibrant criminal market too, but it will make people very rich
1/4