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Mental Illness And The Anti-Psychiatry Movement

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Mental illness is a disorder which affects the mental or behavioural patterns of an individual (Dain, 1989). It causes suffering or an impaired ability to function in daily life (Dain, 1989). Although mental illness and psychiatry have been widely discussed and accepted by the public, there are still organizations questioning its validity (Dain, 1989). The anti-psychiatry movement has hindered modern health care and continues to pose as a problem to the psychiatric community. This movement confirms psychiatry’s richness and complexity since no other area of medicine has such vast disagreement (Dain, 1989). An anti-pediatrician or anti-chiropractic movement is unimaginable while an anti-psychiatry movement has been accepted and has a substantial …show more content…

It not only questioned the medication used but also the purpose of psychiatry, foundational concept of mental illness, and the distinctions between sane and mentally ill individuals (Crossley, 1998). It was established by people within the discipline of psychiatry (Crossley, 1998). People in the psychiatric field strongly disliked what control the psychiatrists had on the diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses (Berlim, 2003). This caught the attention of the Church of Scientology and the mental patient’s union (Crossley, 1998). These two groups added to the rise of anti-psychiatry (Crossley, 1998). The ex-patient movement included people who campaigned for their rights, since they had lost the right to choose for themselves when they became labelled as mentally ill (Dain, 1989). The anti-psychiatry movement is considered to be a social movement because it examines the legal privileges of psychiatrists to hold and treat individuals with mental illness, and the increasing ‘medicalization’ of mental illnesses (Berlim, 2003). The movement discusses how mental illness is just a label used to control individuals with deviant behaviour (Berlim, 2003). It calls out the low reliability and validity when diagnosing mentally ill patients (Berlim, 2003). The anti-psychiatry movement disagrees with psychiatry as a medical specialty, focusing on the hospital treatment (Berlim, 2003). It questions the …show more content…

Many studies of these side effects were conducted on patients where the effects of anti psychotic drugs and placebo pills were compared. Nizatidine, a second generation drug, did not result in any difference in weight between it and the placebo drugs given (Mizuno, 2014). Zonisamide showed a decrease in body weight when compared to the placebo drugs (Mizuno, 2014). Metaformin and topirmate, two secondary drugs, showed a decrease in fasting glucose levels when compared to the placebo drugs (Mizuno, 2014). Metaformin also seemed to effectively reverse hypertriglyceridemia, high blood levels of triglycerides (Mizuno, 2014). Clozapine is a common second generation drug which has improved treatments and translates into more effective resource utilization (Knapp, 1997). Risperidone is also a second generation drug which speeds up the recovery time, decreasing the amount of hospitalization (Knapp,

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