Ivan Illich’s book Limits to Medicine: Medical Nemesis- the Expropriation of Health  blew me away when I first read it as a medical student many years ago. Re-reading it recently, I was struck by its originality and audacity, as well as the continuing relevance of Illich’s thought. Illich was a visionary in a proper sense,…

I would like to announce the exciting news that the UK government’s National Institute of Health Research (NIHR) has recently agreed to fund a new study to compare a gradual and supported programme of antipsychotic reduction with maintenance treatment. The RADAR research programme (Research into Antipsychotic Discontinuation And Reduction) has just started.   I have…

When the idea that selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) might make people feel suicidal first started to be discussed by people like David Healy, I admit I was sceptical. It didn’t seem to me the drugs had much effect at all, and I couldn’t understand how a chemical substance could produce a specific thought. Since…

Sickness and disability benefits are a hot topic in the United Kingdom at the moment. The government’s new system means that everyone’s benefit entitlement is being reviewed, and this is causing huge stress and anxiety for many people, including my patients. Some people have suggested that for this reason, I should not have published the…

  This blog is a review of Gary Greenberg’s book, Manufacturing Depression: The secret history of a modern disease, Bloomsbury: London, 2010; 432 pp: (hbk). I wrote it originally in 2010, but it was never published. By publishing the review now, I hope it will provide a useful reflection for those who have already read…

I read some Hegel in a reading group a few years ago and was bowled over by it. So I was excited to find a book that analyses Hegel’s ideas about the nature of madness, and wanted to review it even though it was written 20 years ago. Hegel may not have been the first…