Bruce Levine
Marx, Spinoza, and the Political Implications of Contemporary Psychiatry
Simple logic tells us that those atop a societal hierarchy will provide rewards for professionals—be they clergy or psychiatrists—who promote an ideology that maintains the status quo, and that the ruling class will do everything possible to manipulate the public to believe that the social-economic-political status quo is natural. If a population believes that its […]
Coffee With Comrades: Episode 167: “Care without Fear” ft. Bruce E. Levine
Psychiatry’s Medical Model: How It Traumatizes, Retraumatizes & Perverts Healing
Before describing how psychiatry’s medical model traumatizes and retraumatizes—both overtly and insidiously—and before distinguishing genuine healing from psychiatry’s perversion of this term, I will begin by tackling the following question: What Exactly is Psychiatry’s “Medical Model?” Psychiatry’s medical model is essentially a disease model. While there are controversies about its definition—which I will return to—in […]
Psychiatry’s Medical Model: How It Traumatizes, Retraumatizes & Perverts Healing
Before describing how psychiatry’s medical model traumatizes and retraumatizes—both overtly and insidiously—and before distinguishing genuine healing from psychiatry’s perversion of this term, I will begin by tackling the following question: What Exactly is Psychiatry’s “Medical Model?” Psychiatry’s medical model is essentially a disease model. While there are controversies about its definition—which I will return to—in […]
Talk World Radio: Bruce Levine on Psychiatry and Spinoza
Do You Still Believe in the “Chemical Imbalance Theory of Mental Illness”?
It continues to come as a great surprise for many people to learn that psychiatry’s leading authorities, including the former longtime director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), have discarded the “chemical imbalance theory of mental illness”—an idea which has had a profound impact on millions of emotionally suffering people and on our […]
Do You Still Believe in the “Chemical Imbalance Theory of Mental Illness”?
It continues to come as a great surprise for many people to learn that psychiatry’s leading authorities, including the former longtime director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), have discarded the “chemical imbalance theory of mental illness”—an idea which has had a profound impact on millions of emotionally suffering people and on our […]
A Profession Without Reason
The Crisis of Contemporary Psychiatry―Untangled and Solved by Spinoza, Freethinking, and Radical Enlightenment
There is today a crisis in psychiatry. Even the former director of the National Institute of Mental Health has said: “Whatever we’ve been doing for five decades, it ain’t working.” The field of psychiatry requires a completely fresh look, and Bruce E. Levine finds that needed perspective in the seventeenth-century works of Baruch Spinoza. Readers unfamiliar with Spinoza will be intrigued by his life and the modern relevance of his radical philosophical, psychological, and political ideas. With the help of Spinoza, freethinking, and radical enlightenment, A Profession Without Reason untangles and solves the crisis of contemporary psychiatry.
Why, With More Treatment, Suicides and Mental Distress Have Increased? Former NIMH Director’s New Book
Insel begins by comforting his fellow psychiatrists with his claim that current psychiatric treatments “are as effective as some of the most widely used medications in medicine,” but he then asks this unsettling question: “If treatments are so effective, why are outcomes so dire?”
Why, With More Treatment, Suicides and Mental Distress Have Increased? Former NIMH Director’s New Book
Insel begins by comforting his fellow psychiatrists with his claim that current psychiatric treatments “are as effective as some of the most widely used medications in medicine,” but he then asks this unsettling question: “If treatments are so effective, why are outcomes so dire?”
