Morality-Driven IllnessesChuck Ruby, Ph.D., PsychologistHere we go again!In response to political pressure, The World Health Organization's legislative body just ratified a June 2018 proposal to redesignate "gender incongruence" (called "gender dysphoria" in the DSM) so that it is no longer a mental illness.1 This change will be reflected in the 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases ...
Reaching OutJoe Tarantolo, M.D., PsychiatristReaching out to the other fringe groups in conflict with conventional medicine. (Yes, ISEPP is at the margins, not with the conventional.)
Wise Traditions is the quarterly journal of the Weston A. Price Foundation, an organization that is dedicated to restoring “nutrient dense” food to our 20th-21st century high fructose corn syrup processed food addicted diets. High fat, unpasteurized milk, grass fed beef, wild salmon, fermented vegetables, anti fluoridation, anti vaccination---you get the picture.
Sally Fallon, an old friend whose cook book is my frequent guide in the kitchen , called me recently to ask me to present a talk this fall at their conference in Dallas. Their yearly conference attracts over a thousand folk (has ISEPP ever had a thousand attendees?). I hadn’t spoken to Sally in several years but she remembered a comment I had made about the dangers of antidepressants, viz., they induce “not caring.” She asked me to present a talk. I accepted. The title of my talk: NOT BY BREAD ALONE DOTH MAN LIVE, EVEN IF IT’S SOURDOUGH: A CRITIQUE OF ANTIDEPRESSANTS AND THE MEDICAL MODEL IN PSYCHIATRY.”
How The Ethics Of Psychology And Psychiatry Have Become Unethical
The dictum “primum non nocere” (first, do no harm) has guided the practice of mental health care within the fields of clinical psychology and psychiatry, as well as the other allied mental health professions. While a noble striving, it is ironic that the application of this conventional medical model maxim to human emotional struggles and problematic behaviors has caused the very harm of which it warns. We will address this dilemma at the 22nd Annual Conference of the International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry in Baltimore, Maryland, October 11th through the 13th.
More than two centuries ago, the father of American psychiatry, Benjamin Rush, proposed the idea that various forms of distress were the result of diseased minds. Since then, considerable harm has come to the consumers of the mental health industry because those forms of distress are not problems of literal disease, illness, or medicine. Nonetheless, medical forms of diagnosis and treatment have been used to identify and control people who are not ill. Conference speakers will address these issues and suggest more humane forms of helping that retain the elements of beneficence, self-determination, and dignity.
Morality-Driven Illnesses
