Bruce E. Levine | The Rise and Fall of Psychiatry | Psychology Is Podcast 45

Clinical psychologist Dr. Bruce Levine joins Nick for a conversation about historical and modern practices in the field of psychiatry. The conversation is based on Dr. Levine's new book, A Profession Without Reason: The Crisis of Contemporary Psychiatry Untangled and Solved by Spinoza, Freethinking, and Radical Enlightenment.

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00:00 Thanks for tuning in
01:30 Dr. Levine's new book
03:04 The credibility of psychiatry
13:29 How did psychiatry regain credibility?
23:07 On the nature of diagnosis
44:40 Freethinking
57:30 If it's not a chemical imbalance, what is it...
01:02:45 Fear
01:06:55 An ugly lie in A Beautiful Mind

Produced by
Nick Fortino & Robert Daluz

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[psychologyis]

If you or someone you know is considering coming off of psychiatric drugs, here are some educational resources:

[kimlec]

Dr Levine is spot on the money. Great thinker. Realistic.

[clinttaylor]

It’s important to know that Dr. Levine is an expert on the impact of trauma on the psychology of an individual. As he holds for the way of using temperament as understanding people in a no pathologizing manner , he writes about how trauma can have a profound impact on someone’s life, even through generations.

[stephenmann]

Dr. Peter Breggin, has covered these topics for years with all his excellent books, including the first in 1991, "Toxic Psychiatry", which changed my life. Other books he has written, "Talking Back to Ritalin" "The War Against Children" address the problems psychiatric "diagnosing" can cause.

[seanmoon]

Get Up, Stand Up had a massive impact on me. The only thing more impactful than Bruce Levine's book, Get Up, Stand Up, was the way in which such an important book was almost completely ignored by mainstream media. Talk about gaslighting.
I'm pretty sure Levine discussed Liberation Psychology, and Ignacio Martin Barro in that book. Treatment must start embracing such ideas soon, or run the risk of total irrelevance.
I think it was Johann Hari who said, when it comes to mental illness, we must stop talking so much about chemical imbalances in the mind, and start talking about power imbalances in society. BINGO!

[brrradley]

I just discovered this channel, excellent work. The mind body dichotomy really applies to modern psychiatry; they throw out the conscious mind and treat the human as just a body.

[upendasana]

Thank thank thank you for this wonderful conversation, cannot tell you how grateful I am for the work and enquiry you are both doing around the area of mental illness and how and what is being labelled and considered to be legitimate disorders".

It really is a travesty that people are diagnosed so often in the most casual ways and given a label and diagnosis and told to take drugs for the rest of their lives which often have horrific side effects themselves and cause iatrogenic damage and lead often to very poor quality lifestyles.

I am really hoping that people in the general public will see through more and more this total sham of psychiatry as recently also Joanna Moncrieff was interviewed about the myth of the biochmiecal imabalnce in depression on Sky news, Hopefully this is going into the mainstream mroe and more and still people seem to unquestioningly think or be under the belief that serious disorders particualrly like schizophrenia are a brain and biochemical imbalance and the only treatment is a chemical one namely drugs.

My life and families life has been severely effected thorugh such a damning diagnosis of a family member and the effect not only on that individual but the whole family really is devastating.I think families are being let down and torn apart by the overall lack of support and other therapeutic alternatives as well as the stigma and shame of these diagnosis very often.

I cannot thank you both enough for such a wonderful discussion and can't wait to see a part 2.

Again thank you for speaking out and being willing to question such a powerful institution that psychiatry is.It has got away for too long with this unscientific methods reuslting too often in abusive practices all in the name of medicine and so called help "
I'm sure there are well meaning psychiatrists out there who really believe in the good they do and mean well but in truth psychiatry has probably killed more than its helped.

[DEEPMOODYPURPLEBLUES]

Thank you for another vitally important conversation, Bruce and Nick!
"It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society", however, that sick society will throw everyone and everything under the bus to avoid owning it's responsibility - just like it tells the individual who's biology has adapted for their survival.
...rinse, wash, repeat. I wonder how long humanity can continue on like this? I've lived with suicidal ideation since I was 8 or 9. I've worked tirelessly to figure my issues out and directly address them, but society doesn't care about reality, and insists upon collective delusions like you're addressing in this conversation. This mass delusion being forced upon us as reality fly in the face of the hard earned truths we freethinkers uncover in our work, and is too often why people kill themselves ffs. smdh

[christaparro]

Psychology Is Do you have a community for like minded mental health professionals?! I need a group of these people around me as I'm in the field and feel like fish swimming upstream because I don't buy into all the DSM diagnoses and medical models. I loved this interview. Please do part 2!!

[deberebor]

"A Beautiful Mind" inspired me to get off all the meds a psychiatrist had me on for migraine (antidepressant, antianxiety, narcotic painkiller, and amphetamine). I totally understood Nash's decision because I too was losing a grasp on my own identity. So, I disagree that the movie was so misleading. It was clear to me that he made the choice to stop them and to accept his condition and work with it in an honest way.

[karenmackie]

Having been under phycareretist care for 30 years I came to conclusion that all they care about is dishing put drugs. I Don't deny that I was manic on occasions and needed sectioned. But if I take time out from society I'm really well. Society is the problem for me as you are forced to live in lies and some people just don't want to live a lie.

[ccc]

your recovery begins with non-compliance to psychiatric drugs and shock treatment.

[katwmn]

Wow, wow, wow! Thank you for even more brilliant content Nick. Thank you to Dr Levine as well. I have assisted others in the coming off process for over 5 years now as my full time profession after my own coming off experience. One of my "specialties" is looking at the metaphysical aspects of mental health labels. There is always a reason we start taking these meds and it's never a chemical imbalance! I do believe there is validity in the studies of trauma victims experiencing chemical changes and rewiring of the neural pathways in the brain. But this is completely different than the chemical imbalance narrative we've been fed by Eli Lilly's marketing department to promote Prozac which then continued to be perpetuated long after.
Please continue to be of service to humanity in this way. You are a bright and shining beacon of light!

[danag]

Thank you for this important interview and for both of your work in pushing back against the established "pseudoscience" that is modern day psychiatry. I have really been enjoying these discussions!

[adrianskog]

great stuff this has been bothering all of my adult life finally we see some change is coming or at least more insights how to do better things to help people and not harm them. Its seems many in the field wants to change things to no harming of patients and helping.

[Anna-wruy]

Excellent interview ❤️very thoughtful questions, thank you both so much and can’t wait for part 2.

[kimlec]

Thank you for bringing rational discussion in a way we can all understand...very grateful for your content.

[faitht]

Grateful for your insightful videos and the experts you invite to share their research and wisdom. I appreciate your posting the time marks for the various topics you discuss and hope you could do that for all your full interviews. Thanks again!

[sointeresting]

And Bruce, you are awesome! And fun too. :o)

[grahaminglis]

The fact that this discussion over one and a quarter hours has still other issues to discuss in a second interview attests to the enormous lengths that psychiatry as a branch of medicine has violated the principles of ‘doctor’s orders’ is unsurpassed as a blatant misuse of authority by applying psychopharmacology remedies to patients who are powerless to resist the pathological burden that is inflicted upon them by professionals falsely claiming to know the truth about what’s wrong and how to fix it. The extent of the duplicity in misleading the general public is mind boggling. Sadly, the psychiatric system has been given unfettered power which the scientific side of medicine is a willing participant in propagating invalid diagnostic and treatment regimens and it is virtually untouchable as it hides itself within the positive reputation of the legitimate establishment of genuine medical institutes .