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Insane Medicine: How the Mental Health Industry Creates Damaging Treatment Traps and How you can Escape Them
This book digs through the rotten undergrowth which fertilises the mental health industry. The level of failure and deceit is hard to believe. The diagnoses we use are more akin to astrological than medical constructs. We have no medical tests and despite apparent innovations in drugs and therapy, five decades of research has shown no improvement in outcomes from treatment and instead an increase in the numbers categorised as severely mentally ill. Worse, we have convinced the population that they are experiencing pandemics of mental disorders, leading us to fear our ordinary emotions and to scythe away at our natural resilience. There can be no doubt that the mental health industry has caused more harm than good. In this hard hitting book, Dr Timimi, a child psychiatrist with over 30-years-experience as a practicing clinician and researcher, reveals the shocking truth about the unintended harms this industry has caused, both to those in distress and our culture more broadly. He explains how our institutional ideology traps people into becoming long-term patients and proposes a simple theory that explains why more people become long term patients than get better as well as sharing tips on how those caught in this trap can find safe ways back to health and contentment. A revolution in mental health care is inevitable. The current systems have failed and are un-reformable. They will be overthrown. This book will tell you why.
187 pages, Kindle Edition
Published January 27, 2021
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
April 14, 2022
Serialized online here:
https://www.madinamerica.com/insane-m...
https://www.madinamerica.com/insane-m...
December 19, 2024
Excellent layout of the insanity that is psychiatry by an experienced clinician. The title is no exaggeration.
The book is well written. Only complaint: a revised edition with better proofreading is needed.
The book is well written. Only complaint: a revised edition with better proofreading is needed.
October 12, 2023
Book Review
Insane Medicine: How the Mental Health Industry Creates Damaging Treatment Traps and How You Can Escape Them, by Sami Timimi.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08VD3N5MF
When bad things happen, you feel bad.
From the common-sense point of view of a child psychiatrist, we find one of the most insightful, relevant, and passionate calls to action from author, provider, and researcher, Sami Timimi. I recognized his name from several others who write in critical psychiatry and decided to explore what, if any, new ideas existed in Timimi's take (or more aptly, take down) of biological psychiatry. I was not disappointed.
Timimi's approach to two of the most pervasive diagnoses in our children, ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), was razor-sharp and explosive. I had, up until his book, assumed that there might be some validity, perhaps some biological bases, for ASD, and now I know—as I should have known, really—that this, like other "disorders" has little to do with improving the lives of the diagnosed or their caregivers on any long-term basis.
His reasoning re: ASD is unimpeachable: how can a young boy who is non-verbal and developmentally slow be in the same diagnostic category as the brilliant (and posthumously "diagnosed" with ASD) Albert Einstein? The problem of homogeneity is glaringly obvious, and yet onward tramps the mental health system, alienating children from their emotional lives and personalities via created, not discovered, diagnoses and disorders. And while a diagnostic framework might help parents feel better about their child's lack of achievement or behavioral difficulties, can we not see how this can also curtail or diminish that same child's potential and self-concept?
Tamimi contextualizes how the pseudo-theory of 'chemical imbalance' as a causal agent of mental 'disorders' informs and impacts modern life and his observations are both spot-on and prescient. Especially compelling were his insights into the "compare-and-compete" culture in which we reside, and how this was and is fertile ground to plant the seeds for any type of mental distress to be pathologized, commoditized, packaged, re-packaged, sold, and consumed. As the author calls it, the "McDonaldization of mental health." Like fast food, we want our distress alleviated quickly so we can get on with our autopilot lives. It's not difficult to see how this generation will be viewed through the lens of history—if we don't break the world before then.
He writes that there are two main descriptors for people in emotional distress: "ordinary and/or understandable." In a (Western) society where people strive to be outstanding (i.e. outrageous), extraordinary (i.e. shocking), or tragic in some way, I suppose that doesn't seem terribly comforting. However, we must consider the social and personal costs of this mentality that's been stoked by social media, technology, and blind capitalist consumption.
Insane Medicine highlights and underscores the social determinants of mental and physical health and explicates the role income inequality, racism, classism, sexism, et. al., play in an individual's struggle to find his way in the world. Why this isn't the more compassionate approach compared to "you have a brain disorder, a chemical imbalance, ergo, something is wrong with you and not the system," is puzzling, tragic, and beyond me.
I was surprised and glad he also addresses mental health professionals outside of psychiatry as well. Frankly, I've felt for some time that within the hierarchies of these systems, therapists can serve as "class middlemen" who perpetrate the learned helplessness of biological mental disorders so that the class elite (psychiatrists) will continue to scratch their backs in kind. While I have no doubt that there are those who go into this service industry out of the goodness of their hearts, wanting to make a difference and change lives, I can't help but be cynical about the implicit motivations that underlie everything mental-health-related. The DSM is a poisonous tree; the fruit is rotten. It isn't a matter of adjusting here or tweaking there, the whole tree needs uprooting.
And yes, if someone is critical of how our society and systems deal with emotional pain, they are relegated to the category of backwater, anti-scientific conspiracy theorists, because it's so much easier to dismiss them that way than to rethink the current paradigm. We have enough to worry about without questioning how succumbing to the idea of magic pills to relieve our emotional distress might be impacting us, don't we?
Look, it isn't "brave" to admit you have a diagnosis of some kind; join the throng. It takes courage, however, to say that the current medicalized paradigm is not only not working, it's creating harm, disability, and death. It takes courage to speak out against this paradigm in the face of a trillion-dollar industry's push to turn us all into income streams, not to mention the threat of incurring the wrath of neoliberal outrage (something I've been on the wrong end of).
Tamimi writes that "Reason, truth, and ethics are all on the side of [the] critics [of psychiatry]" and it's a comfort to know I'm on the right side of things.
Psychiatry is an inherently racist institution. It is also a sexist institution. If you are harboring any illusions about whether ADHD (or the other diagnoses he addresses) is in any way valid, this book will pulverize those beliefs using what psychiatry cannot: evidence.
Timimi is an advocate for our children and young people, a refreshing and authentic approach compared to the pseudo-care proffered by the mental health system and the politicians who just want to make it all go away by throwing money at it. Has it escaped notice that the more we throw at it, the bigger the problem gets? Timimi addresses this paradox and others in a way only an insider can.
This would not be the first book I'd recommend to someone considering taking a peek behind the curtain. This is a book for someone who has already seen psychiatry for the giant humbug it is.
Passionate, at times funny, and ultimately hopeful, Insane Medicine offers those of us who have been immersed in this counter-cultural world, a much-needed glimpse of sanity.
(I noted that there are a few typos and formatting issues in the book. However, these don't detract from the power of the author's message).
Insane Medicine: How the Mental Health Industry Creates Damaging Treatment Traps and How You Can Escape Them, by Sami Timimi.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08VD3N5MF
When bad things happen, you feel bad.
From the common-sense point of view of a child psychiatrist, we find one of the most insightful, relevant, and passionate calls to action from author, provider, and researcher, Sami Timimi. I recognized his name from several others who write in critical psychiatry and decided to explore what, if any, new ideas existed in Timimi's take (or more aptly, take down) of biological psychiatry. I was not disappointed.
Timimi's approach to two of the most pervasive diagnoses in our children, ADHD and Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), was razor-sharp and explosive. I had, up until his book, assumed that there might be some validity, perhaps some biological bases, for ASD, and now I know—as I should have known, really—that this, like other "disorders" has little to do with improving the lives of the diagnosed or their caregivers on any long-term basis.
His reasoning re: ASD is unimpeachable: how can a young boy who is non-verbal and developmentally slow be in the same diagnostic category as the brilliant (and posthumously "diagnosed" with ASD) Albert Einstein? The problem of homogeneity is glaringly obvious, and yet onward tramps the mental health system, alienating children from their emotional lives and personalities via created, not discovered, diagnoses and disorders. And while a diagnostic framework might help parents feel better about their child's lack of achievement or behavioral difficulties, can we not see how this can also curtail or diminish that same child's potential and self-concept?
Tamimi contextualizes how the pseudo-theory of 'chemical imbalance' as a causal agent of mental 'disorders' informs and impacts modern life and his observations are both spot-on and prescient. Especially compelling were his insights into the "compare-and-compete" culture in which we reside, and how this was and is fertile ground to plant the seeds for any type of mental distress to be pathologized, commoditized, packaged, re-packaged, sold, and consumed. As the author calls it, the "McDonaldization of mental health." Like fast food, we want our distress alleviated quickly so we can get on with our autopilot lives. It's not difficult to see how this generation will be viewed through the lens of history—if we don't break the world before then.
He writes that there are two main descriptors for people in emotional distress: "ordinary and/or understandable." In a (Western) society where people strive to be outstanding (i.e. outrageous), extraordinary (i.e. shocking), or tragic in some way, I suppose that doesn't seem terribly comforting. However, we must consider the social and personal costs of this mentality that's been stoked by social media, technology, and blind capitalist consumption.
Insane Medicine highlights and underscores the social determinants of mental and physical health and explicates the role income inequality, racism, classism, sexism, et. al., play in an individual's struggle to find his way in the world. Why this isn't the more compassionate approach compared to "you have a brain disorder, a chemical imbalance, ergo, something is wrong with you and not the system," is puzzling, tragic, and beyond me.
I was surprised and glad he also addresses mental health professionals outside of psychiatry as well. Frankly, I've felt for some time that within the hierarchies of these systems, therapists can serve as "class middlemen" who perpetrate the learned helplessness of biological mental disorders so that the class elite (psychiatrists) will continue to scratch their backs in kind. While I have no doubt that there are those who go into this service industry out of the goodness of their hearts, wanting to make a difference and change lives, I can't help but be cynical about the implicit motivations that underlie everything mental-health-related. The DSM is a poisonous tree; the fruit is rotten. It isn't a matter of adjusting here or tweaking there, the whole tree needs uprooting.
And yes, if someone is critical of how our society and systems deal with emotional pain, they are relegated to the category of backwater, anti-scientific conspiracy theorists, because it's so much easier to dismiss them that way than to rethink the current paradigm. We have enough to worry about without questioning how succumbing to the idea of magic pills to relieve our emotional distress might be impacting us, don't we?
Look, it isn't "brave" to admit you have a diagnosis of some kind; join the throng. It takes courage, however, to say that the current medicalized paradigm is not only not working, it's creating harm, disability, and death. It takes courage to speak out against this paradigm in the face of a trillion-dollar industry's push to turn us all into income streams, not to mention the threat of incurring the wrath of neoliberal outrage (something I've been on the wrong end of).
Tamimi writes that "Reason, truth, and ethics are all on the side of [the] critics [of psychiatry]" and it's a comfort to know I'm on the right side of things.
Psychiatry is an inherently racist institution. It is also a sexist institution. If you are harboring any illusions about whether ADHD (or the other diagnoses he addresses) is in any way valid, this book will pulverize those beliefs using what psychiatry cannot: evidence.
Timimi is an advocate for our children and young people, a refreshing and authentic approach compared to the pseudo-care proffered by the mental health system and the politicians who just want to make it all go away by throwing money at it. Has it escaped notice that the more we throw at it, the bigger the problem gets? Timimi addresses this paradox and others in a way only an insider can.
This would not be the first book I'd recommend to someone considering taking a peek behind the curtain. This is a book for someone who has already seen psychiatry for the giant humbug it is.
Passionate, at times funny, and ultimately hopeful, Insane Medicine offers those of us who have been immersed in this counter-cultural world, a much-needed glimpse of sanity.
(I noted that there are a few typos and formatting issues in the book. However, these don't detract from the power of the author's message).
July 16, 2024
Paradigm shift in demystifying and demedicalising emotional issues
The few editorial lapses forgiven for clear, well argued and supported indictment of various bodies, including psychiatric governance, committed for vested interests to medical use and 'treat' natural emotional challenges. I took a lot from this book far away from the specific focus. Masterpiece that will be buried by the powers that be,
The few editorial lapses forgiven for clear, well argued and supported indictment of various bodies, including psychiatric governance, committed for vested interests to medical use and 'treat' natural emotional challenges. I took a lot from this book far away from the specific focus. Masterpiece that will be buried by the powers that be,
November 25, 2022
A wonderful treatise on mental health treatment. While I dont agree with everything the author says, I start to look at mental health model with critical thinking and more careful eye.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews