Neutralising suffering: how the medicalisation of distress obliterates meaning and creates profit – Joanna Moncrieff

http://joannamoncrieff.com/2014/03/11/neutralising-suffering-how-the-medicalisation-of-distress-obliterates-meaning-and-creates-profit/

Important article by Joanna Moncrieff, an M.D. who writes and speaks extensively on this theme.

‘Drugs have now been starkly divided into the good and the bad: the prescribed medication which people must take however awful it makes them feel, and the ‘recreational’ substances that are increasingly and often hysterically vilified (3). At the same time that people are told they should not stop taking their antidepressant, they are constantly reminded of the dangers of alcohol and cannabis. People are encouraged to seek licit and prescribed emotional suppressants, but disparaged (and prosecuted if it’s the wrong substance) for seeking pleasure through chemical means. The modern citizen is caught in a constant flux of contradictory messages.’

Thanks to Brent Dean Robbins and the Society for Humanistic Psychology, Division 32 on Facebook for drawing our attention to this.

Here are a couple of earlier posts featuring Joanna’s work:-

https://palacegatecounsellingservice.wordpress.com/2014/09/02/joanna-moncrieff-a-critique-of-genetic-research-on-schizophrenia/

https://palacegatecounsellingservice.wordpress.com/2014/05/04/the-chemical-imbalance-theory-of-depression-joanna-moncrieff/

Palace Gate Counselling Service, Exeter