Why Psychiatry Survives Despite Lost Scientific Credibilityand Battling Against Oppression

Why Psychiatry Survives Despite Lost Scientific Credibilityand Battling Against Oppression

Bruce Levine, Ph.D.

U.S. Senate hearings in 2008 revealed drug company corruption of psychiatry at its highest levels, and in the last few years, even major figures within the psychiatry establishment have challenged the validity of the DSM (psychiatry's diagnostic manual), debunked the "chemical imbalance theory" of mental illness, and been critical of standard treatments. But as the institution of psychiatry has received crushing blows to its credibility, the mainstream media and much of the public continues to take it seriously. Why? Are there other reasons for psychiatry's persistence besides Big Pharma financial backing? And is liberation from pseudoscience, oppression, and dehumanization possible?

Learning Goals and Objectives:

1. To describe psychiatry's lost scientific credibility.
2. Explain societal, cultural, and political reasons why psychiatry as an institution persists despite lost scientific credibility.
3. Offer strategies for liberation from oppression.

Link to brief presenter bio: Bruce Levine, Ph.D.