Biological Explanations of Behaviour

November 3rd - Session 6
Lecture: Issues in the Biological Approach to Mental Health.

This session obviously relates back to the critical outlines I gave you of the biological approach to schizophrenia, drug addiction and obsessive-compulsive disorder in semesters 1 and 4.

This will be around issues such as compulsory detention, use of ECT, etc.

This is one of the most pressing problems in this area. Think how our views about human nature influence how we treat people with mental health problems.
How has your reading, etc changed your views?
Does this relate to any personal experience?

http://www.stigma.org/ Site about stigma faced by mentally ill. Includes free book using about 6 conditions as examples for various issues.

http://community-2.webtv.net/stigmanet/STIGMAHOMEPAGE/index.html Collects examples of mentally ill being stigmatised in media.

http://www.nostigma.org/ Anti-stigma site.

http://www.mind.org.uk/Information/Seroxat.htm Source for materials on the SSRI scandal (ie the antidepressants like Seroxat, Prozac, etc).

http://www.namiscc.org/Editorial/2002/TopTenMyths.htm Service user attacks the claims of the biomedical camp.

http://www.wildestcolts.com/john/axioms.html Professional makes clear attack on biomedicine. Rest of site good too.

http://www.antipsychiatry.org/ Coalition of people who feel that they or their family, etc have been harmed by biomedical perspective.

http://www.fightforkids.com/ Site that criticises widespread medication of children.

http://psychwatch.blogspot.com/ Site reporting psychiatric malpractice, etc.

http://www.breggin.com/ Fierce critic of biomedicine. He is not fair in his arguments so take care.

READ NEXT WEEK’S SECTION AS YOU NEED TO BRING IN SOMETHING

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