Psychiatry & Big Pharma: Exposed - Dr James Davies, PhD

Published 2019-11-24
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Why, without solid scientific justification, has the number of mental disorders risen from 106 in the 1960s, to around 370 today?

Why has the definition of mental disorder expanded to include ever more domains of human experience?

In the first part of this lecture, Dr James Davies will take us behind the scenes of how the psychiatrist’s bible, the DSM, was actually written – did science drive the construction of new mental disorder categories like ADHD and major depression or were less scientific and more unexpected processes at play? His exclusive interviews with the creators of the DSM reveal the answer.

The second part will address why psychiatry is such big business, and why, on the whole, it may be doing more harm than good. You’ll get insider knowledge on how psychiatry has put riches and medical status above patients’ well-being. The charge sheet is damning; negative drug trials routinely buried; antidepressants that work no better than placebos; research regularly manipulated to produce positive results; doctors, seduced by huge pharmaceutical rewards, creating more disorders and prescribing more pills; and ethical, scientific and treatment flaws unscrupulously concealed by mass-marketing.

You’ll learn the true human cost of an industry that, in the name of helping others, has actually been helping itself.

Dr James Davies graduated from the University of Oxford in 2006 with a DPhil in Social and Medical Anthropology.

He is a Reader in Social Anthropology and Mental Health at the University of Roehampton and a practicing psychotherapist. James has delivered lectures at universities such as Harvard, Yale, Oxford, Oslo, Brown, UCL and Columbia.

He has written for The Times, The New Scientist, The Guardian and Salon, and is author of the bestselling book: Cracked: why psychiatry is doing more harm than good.

James is the co-founder of the Council for Evidence-based Psychiatry, now secretariat to the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Prescribed Drug Dependence. His latest book: ‘Mental Health in Crisis’ will be published later this year.

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All Comments (21)
  • @Sismanski
    1: make people believe they are sick 2: sell them a drug, that allegedly cures them 3: make sure the drug only is a temporary cure 4: make sure the drug also causes new symptoms 5: sell them a new drug for the new symptoms 6: repeat indefinitely
  • @sami_am7860
    My wife was a victim of psychiatry. She was last year diagnosed with early onset dementia. She was over a timespan of 9 months hospitalized for 10 weeks, twice for 5 weeks. The second time she was basically imprisoned, during the weeks able to go outside for one hour only, and had one or two hot showers as the women’s section had no hot water. I visited her every day and she sat or lay in my lap crying for one hour. Every day. I could not discharge her as she was declared non compos mentis. Her diagnosis was made after a group of psychiatrists and psychologists reached consensus regarding a diagnosis. They changed their diagnosis on a monthly basis as well as her medication. My wife was in dire straits and became suicidal. The doctors insisted that was not caused by the medication and her treatment. Her treatment stripped her of her humanity - even being locked up in a dark room without any furniture, ablution, water, etc. Stripped of all her clothing, even underwear, under the claim that she would commit suicide with it. End March she was discharged after 5 weeks in hell. Every month that I would take her for a checkup and receive medicine, she would become extremely depressed and fearful that they would institutionalize her again. Two months before her death, the psychiatrists declared that she did not suffer from dementia, as her memory was too good. We asked them to taper her medication and take her off it. They denied our request. We repeated this request a month later. My wife went through hell on the medication they prescribed. Once again they refused and bluntly informed us that she suffers from Alzheimers. Three weeks later, a week before her next visit to the clinic, she committed suicide. I reject psychiatry and psychology today.
  • I used to work in the field and came to the conclusion we created more mental illness than not. I left.
  • Psychiatry is the most dangerous movement on earth today, especially with this practise disguised as "medicine" and "health" today.
  • @doc2590
    I worked as a psych nurse for years and eventually resigned, it was appalling the treatment that most people got. The movies present counsellors and psychiatrists really helping people with their wisdom and advice. In reality, this doesn't happen. In fact, in most cases, they are trained not to give advice. It's all such BS.
  • @oa5341
    Psychiatry is the biggest crime in the history of the entire humanity.
  • @doree8340
    I am a medical physician who has worked in multiple psychiatric settings. One psychiatrist who rarely saw or spoke with his patients and would be able to pick out his patients from a lineup, confessed that he was paid for his daily attendance more if he prescribed or changed the dose of a med prescribed. So he always did such… whether pt needed or not. Unless potentially lethal side effects did not matter. If a side effect could be treated by yet a second drug, it was a good day for billing. 1:mm33This is a very important reason why so many drugs are prescribed - and not just in psychiatry. Please expose this sinister mistreatment of ordinary people. It is a biggie.
  • @wesleyooms
    And people find it strange that I, A healthy med free athlete, don't want to take their C19 vaccine.
  • I remember sitting in my doctor’s office in 2008 thinking, “I can tell this guy anything and get a response that will lead to me getting the drug that I want.” I stopped going. I eat well, exercise and get plenty of sunlight and rest. I do not take pharmaceuticals. These people are literally pulling diagnoses out of their asses.
  • I ended up in hospital after I left my abusive husband and lost my son to leukaemia. I also had childhood abuse and trauma. The answer was antidepressant, even though I almost had a stroke from serotonin syndrome previously.
  • @pepper419
    Thank you Dr. Davies, it's high time people like you exposed this sort of behaviour to the rest of the world. This was a brilliant job.
  • @Karen-yn2uf
    Medication is only to maintain control over you. I took 150 mgs of Zoloft everyday for 25 years. A tragic mistake as it did not at all relieve my depression. I cut it cold turkey and for a few months, experienced moments when my mind was like a radio receiver changing channels. I would just realize that my brain was being 'adjusted' like a radio receiver. While taking Zoloft, I was unable to feel anything to heal. It was just a completely unemotional human trying to survive and amazingly, I did.
  • @code-52
    I was on an antidepressant for thirty years. I lost my three closest family members in one year, and never shed a tear. I knew something was very wrong when I couldn't even cry. I slowly tapered off and am free of them for the first time since I was 30. I am old now, a life wasted on anti depressants.
  • @hopefully2224
    I had post partum depression. The midwife prescribed Zoloft. I felt like I had a chemical lobotomy. I couldn't even cry. No one followed up to check on me. I can't imagine how this effected my ability to effectively bond with my child. That drug is a soul stealer.
  • my generation called psychiatrists brain butchers little did i realise how true that is.
  • Whenever I hear that somebody committed Suicide I always think what drug was that poor person on So angry at the medical profession for hurting all these people who go to them for help
  • @chinookvalley
    My best friend recently committed suicide. 74 yo, VietNam vet (decorated), and the most kind and compassionate soul I might have known. He was "labeled" paranoid schizophrenic, and had endured time in a psych hospital where he and the other inmates were abused and given drugs that they couldn't function on. They finally let him out when he "agreed" that he was sick and needed to be on these horrible drugs forever. I think he was caring and loving and knew right from wrong and didn't accept the lies he had been told in life and he was being "corrected" for not following the rules of THEIR opinions. How many good, intelligent, self-aware people are in institutions because they had the guts to stand up and speak out about things they believe in? Way more than we can possibly imagine. My stint in seeing a psychiatrist was to be given Klonopin which made things much worse, and it took NINE long years to wean myself off of this grotesque, mind altering drug, while being told by the psychiatric "care-givers" to "take more, you aren't taking enough". It's not for the meek or conscientious person to get into therapy, because you might end up dead.
  • @capresti3537
    Psychiatrists and their pharma cohorts should be arrested prosecuted and jailed for the harm they have caused to millions.
  • @ReverendJon
    The medical education system is subsidized by the pharmaceutical industry, so why wouldn't the practice continue being the solution of the prognosis outlined by the very benefactors? A patient cured is a customer lost.
  • Thank you. This topic is of great interest to me, as a 64 year old mother, I have observed how ineffective most of big pharma's methods have been for all chronic conditions, mental and physical.