S. Nassir Ghaemi, MD, MPH

Articles by S. Nassir Ghaemi, MD, MPH

Early on, psychiatry accepted the idea that unconscious psychology affected the body to cause disease. By the 1970s, the rise of psychiatric drugs pushed the field in a biological direction, and by the 1980s, psychoanalysis was in full retreat, at least in the halls of psychiatric power. S. Nassir Ghaemi, MD, adds to the debate.

If science is defined as some kind of systematic study of observed experience applied to hypotheses or theories, and then confirmation or refutation of those hypotheses or theories, followed by new hypotheses or theories that are further tested and refined by new observations – if this is the core of any scientific inquiry, I think that no objective observer can attribute the history of DSM-III, IV, and 5 to anything that approximates this process.

Psychiatry is a profession that deeply needs honest workers who are willing to seek a knowing ignorance, to be dissatisfied, and to refuse to conform-doing so in the interest of the truth and of the profession, seeing both as inseparable.

We will have many medications in the future, he prophesied; that will not be a problem. Our challenge will be in teaching doctors how to use them, “otherwise it would be like giving a driver’s license to someone who can’t drive.”

In the debates around DSM-5, a central figure has been Allen Frances, whose views seem to elicit sympathy from many unhappy with the DSM system (the 4th edition of which Dr. Frances led).

The term “evidence” has become about as controversial as the word “unconscious” had been in its Freudian heyday, or as the term “proletariat” was in another arena.

There are dogmatists (and many of them) of this variety who think that they can be good mental health professionals by simply applying the truths of, say, Freud (or Prozac) to all. This article, and the 2 that will follow in future issues, are addressed to those who know that they do not know or at least want to know more.

Psychiatry has gone wrong by being too symptom-focused, too brain-oriented, and riddled with misdiagnoses. It should go back to seeking the "meaning" of things in patients' subjective experiences. This is the main theme of this short polemic based on case studies. The author selectively cites studies or opinions to make his point rather than trying to get at the truth by offering other perspectives. As George Orwell pointed out, books are of 2 types: those that seek to justify an opinion and those that seek the truth.

In the second century ad, a brilliant physician had a powerful idea: 4 humours, in varied combinations, produced all illness. From that date until the late 19th century, Galen's theory ruled medicine. Its corollary was that the treatment of disease involved getting the humours back in order; releasing them through bloodletting was the most common procedure and was often augmented with other means of freeing bodily fluids (eg, purgatives and laxatives).

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