Niall McLaren on Critical Psychiatry

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Publications list: books.

www.niallmclaren.com

Publications list: books.

Niall McLaren
Feb 28
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Publications list: books.

www.niallmclaren.com

I've been publishing material for many years now, practically all of it critical of mainstream psychiatry. In the first twenty years or so, my stuff was ignored by the mainstream but now they ignore it in public while reacting savagely in private, which probably says something. The renowned astrophysicist, Carl Sagan, one of the original authors of the concept of nuclear winter, said:

“...at the heart of science is an essential balance between two seemingly contradictory attitudes – an openness to new ideas, no matter how bizarre or counterintuitive, and the most ruthlessly sceptical scrutiny of all ideas, old and new. This is how deep truths are winnowed from deep nonsense.”

Modern psychiatry does not have any institutional process for getting rid of the deep nonsense.

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The first book, "Humanising Madness," was in 2007, quickly followed by three others on the same theme. Nowadays, some of the material is out of date and they seem old fashioned so I'm revising them and will withdraw them from the list when the new one is available. They should all still be available as ebooks or on Amazon Kindle. The citations are as follow:

(2007). Humanizing Madness: Psychiatry and the Cognitive Neurosciences.; Ann Arbor, Mi.: Future Psychiatry Press. ISBN 978 1 932690 39 2.

(2009);. Humanizing Psychiatry: The Biocognitive Model. Ann Arbor, Mi.: Future Psychiatry Press. ISBN 978 1 615990 11 5.

(2010). Humanizing Psychiatrists: Toward a Humane Psychiatry. Ann Arbor, Mi.: Future Psychiatry Press. ISBN 978 1 615990 60 3

(2012). The Mind-Body Problem Explained: The Biocognitive Model for Psychiatry. Ann Arbor, MI: Future Psychiatry Press. ISBN 978-1-61599-171-6

The next was never meant to be printed in hard copy, only as an ebook but it slipped through and is also available as a soft-cover book:

(2012). An Introduction to Philosophy for Medical Students Ann Arbor, MI: Future Psychiatry Press. ISBN 978-1-61599-156-3; ebook 978-1-61599-155-6

The theoretical work in the first four books is being revised and will go into one book on theories in psychiatry, but that isn't as bad as it sounds. The first section looks at all the theories available to psychiatry today, comparing them against standards developed in philosophy of science. That's not such a difficult job because modern psychiatry doesn't actually have any theories to talk about. I have recently written about the "biopsychosocial model" in these pages; that nothing-burger is typical of psychiatry, which relies on bamboozling* the general public, the funding agencies, governments and regulatory authorities and, above all, mentally-troubled people into thinking they do have a model, that they've got the science. Nothing could be further from the truth. Modern psychiatry fails the first test of any field that wants to be called scientific, a model of their subject matter. There isn't one. It's all hot air, powered by the endless floods of money that flows into drug companies each year, and out into academia.

* Carl Sagan again:

"One of the saddest lessons of history is this: if we've been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We're no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It's simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we've been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back. So the old bamboozles tend to persist as the new ones rise."

The next titles are the culmination of forty-five years of trying to probe the tangled depths of whatever psychiatry uses for its theoretical basis. This started out as a little project a few days after I graduated in psychiatry, in Perth, WA, in late 1977. I went across to the medical library and came across the original paper on the "biopsychosocial model" in the journal Science. This is one of the world's most prestigious scientific journals and I thought the paper was a load of rubbish. It has never been clear to me why they published it but the people who made the decision are probably all long dead now so we'll probably never know. With the exams over, I didn't have to study to deadlines so I decided I would sort out what should be the proper theory for psychiatry. I expected it would take about a year and everybody would be thrilled with it. Wrong, totally wrong on both counts. But it's taking shape.

In early 2017, I started work on what I hoped would be the definitive statement of a theory of mind for psychiatry, leading to a model of mental disorder. After 18 months, I took a break to write an essay on anxiety, mainly to hand to my patients. That grew and grew and the people I asked to review it, all of them sufferers, liked it and wanted it published. It arrived in late 2018 and there's been quite a lot of interest:

(2018). Anxiety: The Inside Story. Ann Arbor, MI: Future Psychiatry Press.

ISBN 978-1-61599-410-6

P.S. My daughter did the art work for the cover. She said all my previous covers were boring and she bet me she could do better with her eyes closed. She won her bet.

Next cab off the rank was the theory for psychiatry, named the biocognitive model, because that's what it is, a mix of a cognitive model from psychology and biology. It starts with first principles, namely neurophysiology and the theory of binary algebra, or Boolean algrebra, after one of the world's great intellects. It builds a model of mind and thence of personality, of mental disorder and of personality disorder. While it sounds a bit forbidding, it was written so anybody with a good Year 12 education should be able to read it (medical students can, and even Arts students studying literature felt it was readable). The price of the hard cover book is outrageous; I had nothing to do with that (my royalty is 3%) but the ebook is a lot cheaper.

Natural Dualism and Mental Disorder: The biocognitive model for psychiatry. London, Routledge. ISBN 978-1-032-02530-8 (hbk); 978-1-032-02532-2 (ebk).

It's called dualism because I argue that the so-called biological model of mind (correctly called physicalism) is wrong. We are not just lumps of meat, we have a mind that does not reduce to meat and we have to account for it. Some of the physicalist philosophers, such as Daniel Dennett, Richard Dawkins and Richard Carrier, who are all pretty strong on self-publicity, are running an anti-religious crusade. I believe that their hostility to religion is the main reason they ended up in the physicalist camp: they are adjusting their philosophy to suit their prejudices. My work doesn't touch on religion except at the point of morality and that's how I think it should be. I offer a science of mental disorder; the reader's private beliefs are private.

After finishing the biocognitive model in mid 2021, and recently retired and stuck at home because of the virus, I thought it would be a good idea to try to apply the biocognitive model to some field other than psychiatry, to see if it had general applicability. What would be an interesting field? Politics, of course. That was actually surprisingly easy to write and was ready in a few months, but it's had some adventures since so it's still in the pipeline:

Narcisso-Fascism. The psychopathology of extremism. Due for publication, February 2023.

This is a book on extremism generally. It starts with three apparently unrelated fields, and shows how they unite in the political movements known as fascism. The first field is the narcissistic personality and how it relates to the drive to take control. Second is the social movement called fascism, which shows that it isn't just right wing in nature: Stalin was a textbook fascist. Third is the biological phenomenon known as the Challenge Hypothesis. This is a male breeding strategy, extremely widespread in nature (it was first studied in birds), which blends with the other two to produce dangerous political movements. These can affect any group of people, any race, any religion, any culture, anywhere, in response to specific social circumstances. In view of the madness that seems to have overtaken the world, and despite everything politicians say, I think it's important that citizens understand that our leaders are almost always acting in self-interest but they are utterly and permanently insightless. The book has been delayed several times (how very unusual in the publishing industry) but I'm told it will happen "soon."

Finally, a book with no name yet, on theories in psychiatry as mentioned above. It also includes sections on various philosophical theories to see if they can be developed to give a model of mental disorder. They can't. In fact, philosophers in general have very little to say about mental disorder, which gives an idea of where it stands in the academic pecking order.

I'll provide a list of journal articles before long, they are actually more important because that's where the arguing takes place. Well, as much as there is in psychiatry, editors like to present the view that we're one big happy family who all agree that psychiatry is heading in the right direction.

Costs of running this little show are mounting up, I will activate the subscriber button before long so if anybody wishes to change a pledge, now is the time. Free subs will continue unchanged. With thanks for the comments and messages of support.

Thanks for reading Niall McLaren on Critical Psychiatry! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.

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Publications list: books.

www.niallmclaren.com
2 Comments
Col
Feb 28

Great consolidation and update on your work, my eyes are peeled for your political book.

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Tom
Feb 28·edited Mar 1

"In the first twenty years or so, my stuff was ignored by the mainstream but now they ignore it in public while reacting savagely in private, which probably says something."

Oh yes, straight off the bat you told a very nasty truth that is been covered up by pharma, govts and main media under mental 'illness' - that of psych drug induced akathisia causing suicide and violence.

Hats off to you for exposing the truth .

To the people who react savagely to you in private. I suggest you get yourself locked up in a psych ward pumped full of akathisia inducing neuroleptics - see how you get on when the psychiatrist doubles the dose and you're held down and forcefully drugged.

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