On May 9, 2023, Robert Whitaker, the renowned author of “Mad In America” and “Anatomy of an Epidemic,” gave a presentation in Iceland to the Landssamtökin Geðhjálp, which sponsored a symposium entitled Social Change: A New Way of Thinking About Mental Health. In the presentation, Whitaker (as he often does) takes the viewer on a journey from “what we were led to believe about the prescription medications used in the treatment of mental health patients,” through “what the evidence now shows us,” to a vision for a new way of looking at mental health and what is possible if we truly follow “evidence-based” methodology.
Whitaker’s vision is a serious one; it is both “evidence-based” and historically rooted in treatments and approaches that create positive outcomes for the patient — outcomes that return patients to functioning lives as students and workers. It is an approach that any organization should consider implementing if that organization desires to reverse the decades-long rise in suicide and disability that has gone on in the United States and in every nation around the world that has adopted the American model.
FROM THE VIDEO: In 1980, when the American Psychiatric Association published the third edition of its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, it adopted a “disease” model for categorizing and treating mental disorders. That model was then promoted around the world. Today, the results from that model are in. The model has proven to be scientifically bankrupt and it has produced a public health disaster. We need a new narrative to govern psychiatric care, and a review of the past provides a key for creating that future: Think of those who suffer as “brethren,” and humanistic care that has been shown to help people get well will follow.
SHORTCUT: If you want to jump to the part of the video where Whitaker talks about his vision of the future, begin watching at the 29:00 mark of the video. The first words he will say are: “That’s a story of failure.”
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