By JOANNA MONCRIEFF (UCL) and MARK HOROWITZ (UCL) For three decades, people have been deluged with information suggesting that depression is caused by a “chemical imbalance” in the brain – namely an imbalance of a brain chemical called serotonin. However, our latest research review shows that the evidence does not support it. Although first proposed
By JOANNA MONCRIEFF (UCL) Our umbrella review that revealed no links between serotonin and depression has caused shock waves among the general public, but has been dismissed as old news by psychiatric opinion leaders. This disjunction begs the questions of why the public has been fed this narrative for so long, and what antidepressants are actually doing if they
Following its cancellation in 2020, the CPN conference returned online in 2021. 75 members met over a May afternoon to hear from three speakers, the talks sharing reflections on socio-political aspects of psychiatry.
By Joanna Moncrieff. Long-term antipsychotic treatment remains the standard recommended treatment for people who have psychotic episodes or a diagnosis of schizophrenia. People who have had just one episode may be supported to try and discontinue treatment, but most people with recurrent episodes are recommended to stay on antipsychotic medication for the rest of their
By Pino Pini. A summary from the SE&LMHS project presentation at the HPFT Recovery Conference, Watford 8/10/2019. The SE&LMHS project is based on the assumption that mental health is not only a matter for special services, but should include the whole local community. Several activities beneficial for mental health can be created by working together
By Joanna Moncrieff. This blog was inspired by a talk I gave at the conference of the American Association for Philosophy and Psychiatry in May 2017. The title of this talk was: Many ways of being human: challenging the medical view of mental disorders and the implications for psychiatry. The title is taken from a book by British
The Toronto Critical Psychiatry Reading and Discussion Group has been meeting since 2018. It has been open to all interested people. The aims of the group have included: 1) a better understanding and evaluation of some of the assumptions of psychiatry; 2) fostering an engagement between psychiatry and the humanities; 3) considering psychiatric care beyond the current dominant
By Hugh Middleton. During the pre-Covid years, the Critical Psychiatry Network ran a series of successful one-day conferences at the University of Nottingham each April. A move to London was planned for 2020 but the coronavirus pandemic intervened, and it was rearranged as an online conference, which was held in April 2021. The Nottingham conferences
By Joanna Moncrieff. The Critical Psychiatry Network’s 2017 conference “Recovery in a Time of Austerity” raised some tricky issues for the audience and like-minded people, but also pointed to the potential for radical transformation of our approach to mental health problems. Three top quality speakers, big names in the Recovery field, gave inspiring and provocative talks.
CPN co-chairs, Hugh Middleton and Joanna Moncrieff, went to meet Luciana Berger MP (the shadow minister for Mental Health) to convey the importance of a Critical Psychiatry perspective in developing the Labour Party’s mental health policy. After his victory in the Labour Party leadership last year, one of Jeremy Corbyn’s early moves was to appoint