Why mental health researchers are studying psychedelics all wrong
Supposedly, we are living through a “psychedelic renaissance.” Psychedelic science portrays itself as a vanguard revolutionizing mental health care, while remaining firmly focused on developing treatments defined within these same antiquated models.
As psychedelic advocates and practitioners with decades of experience, having worked with thousands of people, we believe we need a serious examination of whether the current mental health industry is the place for psychedelic drugs… In recent years the DSM has been denounced as “scientifically meaningless” by mainstream psychiatrists, and its relevance has been questioned by its own authors. The chair of the DSM-IV task force, Allen Frances, was so appalled by the current version, the DSM-5, that in 2013, he published a critical book, “Saving Normal: An Insider’s Revolt Against Out-of-Control Psychiatric Diagnosis, DSM-5, Big Pharma, and the Medicalization of Ordinary Life.” That same year, under the direction of Dr. Thomas Insel, the National Institutes on Mental Health (NIMH) abandoned the DSM as a research instrument. In a statement on the NIMH website, Insel wrote, “Symptom-based diagnosis, once common in other areas of medicine, has been largely replaced in the past half century as we have understood that symptoms alone rarely indicate the best choice of treatment.”
Original Article (Salon):
Why mental health researchers are studying psychedelics all wrong
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