Anxiety - The Inside Story: How Biological Psychiatry Got it Wrong

by Niall McLaren

Overview

In Anxiety: The Inside Story, the author takes a critical look at modern psychiatry's twin notions that all mental disorders are biological in nature, but anxiety is hardly worth worrying about. By the simple process of taking a careful, detailed history, Niall McLaren shows that anxiety is far more common and far more destructive than mainstream psychiatry realizes. Detailed case histories chart how anxiety arises as a psychological disorder and how it reinforces itself to the point where it destroys lives. McLaren concludes that anxiety is a major factor in most mental disorders, especially depression and bipolar disorder. This book will change your understanding of mental disorders.

Niall (Jock) McLaren writes as he speaks and he pulls no punches. I love this. People should listen to what he has to say about the academic corruption of his specialty, psychiatry. Read this book. The man is unique. And funny, as well.
-- Prof. Peter Gotzsche, Director, Nordic Cochrane Centre, Copenhagen

Debilitating anxieties are frequently misdiagnosed as "depression" by GPs and specialists alike. In this wonderfully accessible account of anxiety, Dr. McLaren demonstrates with great clarity - and very movingly - how a case history approach can help patients confront and overcome their psychological demons. He provides compelling evidence that instead of drugging people, listening to them attentively and analytically has to be the beginning of the healing process.
-- Dr. Allan Patience, University of Melbourne

Anxiety, The Inside Story offers readers a devastating, blistering critique of psychiatry, together with a provocative exploration of how anxiety, so often dismissed as a "minor" difficulty, should be understood as the root cause of so much suffering--which manifests in a diverse range of behaviors that get wrongly categorized as distinct psychiatric "illnesses." Niall McLaren presents a compelling case that psychiatric care in Australia and beyond needs to be completely rethought.
-- Robert Whitaker, author of Mad in America and Psychiatry Under the Influence

From Future Psychiatry Press
Learn more at www.FuturePsychiartry.com

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781615994106
Publisher:	Future Psychiatry Press
Publication date:	10/11/2018
Pages:	338
Product dimensions:	6.14(w) x 9.21(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

Niall McLaren is an Australian psychiatrist, author and critic. He was born and educated in rural Western Australia, graduating in medicine at the University of WA in Perth in 1970. He completed his postgraduate training in psychiatry in 1977 and subsequently worked in prisons and then in the Veterans' Hospital, with a year's break working in the far southern region of Thailand. From 1983-87, he studied philosophy in order to undertake a PhD jointly in psychiatry and philosophy of science. In 1987, he left Perth city to travel to the remote Kimberley Region of Western Australia as the region's first psychiatrist. As a psychiatrist with no staff, no hospital beds, no clinic and not even an office, nearly 2000km from the nearest psychiatrist, he was the world's most isolated psychiatrist. While there, he continued studying and writing and began publishing work highly critical of mainstream psychiatry. After six years in the bush, he moved to Darwin, the capital of Australia's Northern Territory, first as chief psychiatrist for the Top End, then in private practice, where he concentrated on the large military population. He has since moved to Brisbane, in Queensland, and is emphatic that there will be no more moves. His work is highly original and he does not admit to any intellectual debt to psychiatrists, living or dead. When he graduated in psychiatry, he was aware that the field was not what it claimed to be. It was clear that psychiatrists routinely made major claims on the nature of mind and of mental disorder that were not justified in the literature and, he intuited, could never be justified. This led him to the philosophy of science which established that psychiatry lacked a formal model of mental disorder. In turn, this problem arose just because it had no model of mind. As a result, modern psychiatry lacks a basis in any known concept of science. It is, in fact, at best a proto-science and, at worst, crude and highly misleading pseudoscience. Almost invariably, his work provokes bitter antagonism from mainstream psychiatrists. Over the past forty years, orthodox psychiatry has committed itself totally to the reductionist biological approach to mental disorder, with no possible alternatives. Despite massive increases in expenditure on mental health, there is absolutely no evidence to support the oft-repeated claims that psychiatry is making great advances and people are better off than they have ever been. Every figure indicates that as psychiatry extends its reach, the mental health of the population declines. McLaren argues that this is just because psychiatry is not a science. Because it lacks a formal model of its field of study, mental disorder, psychiatry is perpetually at the mercy of social and political fads and fashions. He maintains that biological psychiatry is nothing more than a passing fad and must eventually go the way of psychoanalysis, behaviourism and possession theory. In the meantime, it is doing an immeasurable amount of damage.

Table of Contents

Contents

Table of Figures ........... v

Preface ............. 7

PART I – Anxiety: How Did We Get Here? ...... 9

Chapter 1 – Why Would any Sensible Psychiatrist Bother with Anxiety? 11

Chapter 2 – Treatment in Psychiatry ....... 19

Chapter 3 - Anxiety – The Very Idea ....... 33

Case 3.1 – Melissa, 19yo female ........ 34

Case 3.2 – Gerry T, 30yo male ........ 40

PART II – The Nature of Anxiety ....... 45

Chapter 4 – The Role of Anxiety ........ 47

Case 4.1: Cameron S, 48yo male ........ 56

Case 5.2. Mark C, aged 27yrs. ........ 61

Chapter 5 - Anxiety as a Recursive Emotion ...... 71

Case 5.1: farmer, 54 yo ......... 76

Case 5.2: Adam B., 25yo ......... 87

Case 5.3: Samantha, student ........ 95

Case 5.4: Karen, student ......... 96

Case 5.5: Evan, unemployed ........ 97

Case 5.6: Tim, 29yo IT worker ........ 99

Case 5.7: Walter K, retired ........ 100

Case 5.8: Allan F., Army sergeant ....... 106

Chapter 6 – Anxiety and Human Nature ...... 113

Case 6.1: Nathan L, soldier ........ 122

Case 6.2: Gavin T, 29yo interstate truck driver. .... 127

Chapter 7 – Anxiety – Short and Long Term ..... 133

Case 7.1: Justin T. 31yo mechanic. ....... 136

Case 7.2: Mrs Jenny M, 34yo teacher’s aide. ..... 138

Case 7.3. Liam C. A life of anxiety. ....... 146

PART III – How Not to be Anxious ....... 151

Chapter 8 – Avoidance and Denial ....... 153

Avoidance ............ 154

Case 8.1: Classic avoidance. ........ 155

Case 8.2: Harry L, 60yrs. ......... 162

iv Anxiety – The Inside Story

Case 8.3: Avoidance at the extreme. ....... 164

Denial ............ 168

Case 8.4: Mrs Elizabeth C. 64yo single woman. ..... 168

Case 8.5: Mrs Yvonne K. ......... 170

Case 8.6: Trevor W. .......... 171

Case 8.7: Norman J, 44yo mechanic. ....... 174

Chapter 9 – Distraction .......... 177

Case 9.1: Gambling as distraction from anxiety. .... 177

Case 9.2: Eating as distraction. ........ 183

Case 9.3: Drugs as a distraction from anxiety. ..... 188

Case 9.4: Crime as a distraction from anxiety. ..... 189

Case 9.5: Jenny M. Cutting as distraction from anxiety. ... 191

Compulsive comics. .......... 193

Pseudo-addictions. .......... 194

Chapter 10 – Obsessions and Compulsions ...... 197

Case 10.1: Carmel B .......... 197

Case 10.2: Michael B, 43yo anankastic Army sergeant. ... 202

Chapter 11 - Drugs .......... 211

Chapter 12 – Aggression ......... 221

Case 12.1: Brendan McC, failed criminal. ...... 221

Case 12.2: David L, aged 38yrs. ........ 225

Case 12.3: Brett L, aged 28yrs. ........ 226

Case 12.4: Kerryn B. .......... 228

Case 12.5: Dr Cory V, aged 34yrs. ....... 229

PART IV – Severe Mental Disorders and Treatment ... 241

Chapter 13 – Severe Mental Disorder ....... 243

Case 13.1: Charles W. ......... 247

Case 13.2: Jeremy V aged 28. ........ 256

Chapter 14 – The Dynamic Model ....... 267

Case 14.1: Kevin G, 31yo single, unemployed man. .... 270

Case 14.2: Valerie S, 56yo unemployed teacher. .... 277

Chapter 15 – Treatment and Review of Case Studies .... 285

Specific Treatment. .......... 292

Chapter 16 – Conclusion ......... 313

Footnotes: ............ 322

About the Author ........... 325

Bibliography ............ 327

Index ............. 331

Editorial Reviews

Niall (Jock) McLaren writes as he speaks and he pulls no punches. I love this. People should listen to what he has to say about the academic corruption of his specialty, psychiatry. Read this book. The man is unique. And funny, as well.

-- Prof. Peter Gotzsche, Director, Nordic Cochrane Centre, Copenhagen

Debilitating anxieties are frequently misdiagnosed as “depression” by GPs and specialists alike. In this wonderfully accessible account of anxiety, Dr. McLaren demonstrates with great clarity – and very movingly – how a case history approach can help patients confront and overcome their psychological demons. He provides compelling evidence that instead of drugging people, listening to them attentively and analytically has to be the beginning of the healing process.

-- Dr. Allan Patience, University of Melbourne

Anxiety--The Inside Story offers readers a devastating, blistering critique of psychiatry, together with a provocative exploration of how anxiety, so often dismissed as a “minor” difficulty, should be understood as the root cause of so much suffering—which manifests in a diverse range of behaviors that get wrongly categorized as distinct psychiatric “illnesses.” Niall McLaren presents a compelling case that psychiatric care in Australia and beyond needs to be completely rethought.

-- Robert Whitaker, author of Mad in America and Psychiatry Under the Influence

From the Publisher