Psychiatry and Biology - Is it Science? Dr. Niall McLaren

Dr. Niall (Jock) McLaren is an Australian psychiatrist, author and theoretician. His work opposes the mainstream view in psychiatry to the extent that he argues modern psychiatry has no scientific basis whatsoever. However, he insists that he is not “anti-psychiatry,” but a committed scientist following his duty of criticizing the prevailing models in his field in order to improve it. He is the author of the two books, Humanizing Madness and Humanizing Psychiatry. In Humanizing Psychiatry he examines Restriction the Scope of Biological Psychiatry, Resolving the Mind-Body Problem for Psychiatry, Applying the Biocognitive Model to Psychiatry. In his book, Humanizing Madness: Psychiatry and the Cognitive Neurosciences, he offers a critique of the place of biopsychosocialism in psychiatry as well as examining, among many other important information, the categorical system of diagnosis when it comes to personality disorders. Dr. McLaren speaks of what he terms a theory of mind when refuting the claim led by many in psychiatry and neurology in the United States that mental illness is an organically generated brain disorder. Dr. McLaren provides evidence in this book that the major theory in psychiatry are so flawed as to be beyond salvation. McLaren proposes Interactive dualism as a partial solution to the mind-brain problem for psychiatry in a paper by that title. Too many people are only hearing one loud beat of a drum. The drum beating message of pharmaceutical companies and prescription medication sales. Could this be why many in psychiatry today seek to reduce mental illness to a "brain disorder" or "brain disease"? What's wrong with psychiatry? Is it helpful to view mental illness as having an entirely biological cause? Does that make sense to you? For more information on Dr. McLaren and his books please vist this show's blog at psychewhisperer.com