Does Long-Term Use of Psychiatric Drugs Do More Harm Than Good? with Robert Whitaker

Dhru Purohit Show

Dhru Purohit

Alternative Health, Medicine, Health & Fitness

4.7 • 3.6K Ratings

🗓️ 14 April 2022

⏱️ 98 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This episode is brought to you by ButcherBox and Pendulum. The world of pharmaceuticals is a deceiving one. While it might be easy to trust that any drug on the market today has been rigorously tested for efficacy and safety, that’s not always the case, especially when it comes to psychiatric drugs. We’ve all heard the term “chemical imbalance,” and many people struggling with depression or other mood disorders have had this narrative hammered into them. They’re told that elevated or inadequate levels of neurotransmitters are to blame, but this theory is being increasingly questioned. Today on The Dhru Purohit Podcast, Dhru digs into the questions surrounding psychiatric drugs with Robert Whitaker. Robert Whitaker is the author of four books and coauthor of a fifth, three of which tell of the history of psychiatry. In 2010, his Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness won the US Investigative Reporters and Editors book award for best investigative journalism. Prior to writing books, he worked as a science reporter at the Albany Times Union newspaper in New York, for a number of years. He is the founder of madinamerica.com, a website that features research news and blogs by an international group of writers interested in “rethinking psychiatry.” In this episode, we dive into: -Does long-term use of psychiatric drugs do more harm than good? (4:29) -How short-term clinical trials are built to market drugs by pharmaceutical companies (23:59) -The chemical imbalance theory (31:04) -The long-term effects of psychiatric drugs (39:36) -Psychiatry’s disease model (49:18) -Rethinking the use of antipsychotics (50:14) -The importance of creating a new environment when it comes to treating mental illness (1:03:33) For more on Robert Whitaker, follow him on Instagram @madinamerica, Facebook @madinamerica, Twitter @mad_in_america, and through his website, madinamerica.com. Get his book, Anatomy of an Epidemic, here. This episode is brought to you by ButcherBox and Pendulum. For a limited time, new subscribers to ButcherBox will receive free ground beef FOR LIFE. When you sign up today, ButcherBox will send you 2 lbs of 100% grass-fed, grass-finished beef free in every box for the life of your subscription + $10 off. To receive this offer, go to ButcherBox.com/dhru. Pendulum is the first company to figure out how to harness the amazing benefits of Akkermansia in a probiotic capsule. To receive 20% off your first purchase of Pendulum’s Akkermansia probiotic supplement, go to Pendulumlife.com and use code DHRU20. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	You know, more and more people are getting treated and yet our outcomes keep getting worse.
0:04.0	More people on disability, more and more people committing suicide,
0:07.2	more and more problems with early death. What's going on?
0:10.1	Welcome to the Druper Out podcast. Each week we explore the inner workings of the brain and the
0:15.2	body with one of the brightest minds and wellness medicine mindset. And I'll add to that for today's
0:21.0	episode journalism. This week's guest is author and previously journalist Robert Whitaker.
0:28.0	Now, today we're talking about a very complicated and somewhat controversial topic.
0:36.4	And that topic is really answering this core question that Robert Whitaker set off to ask and
0:44.8	answer many years ago. And that question is, do psychiatric drugs do more long-term harm?
0:52.4	Long-term harm than good. Now, as you can imagine, investigating this topic is opening a whole can of
1:00.3	worms. And we wanted to invite the gentleman that wrote the definitive book on this topic for
1:07.6	making the argument that long-term usage of many psychiatric drugs is not only understudied,
1:14.9	but not studied at all. And there needs to be a more honest conversation about the pros and cons
1:22.2	informed patient consent when patients are put on long-term usage of psychiatric drugs. Now,
1:30.8	today's argument is being presented by Robert Whitaker because he outlined this argument inside
1:37.1	of his book Anatomy of an Epidemic. Magic bullets, psychiatric drugs, and the astonishing
1:44.0	rise of mental illness. By the way, this book, which came out in 2010, won the US investigative
1:51.4	reporters and editors book award for best investigative journalism. Now, in addition to this book,
1:58.5	Robert is also the author and co-author of five books, which all tell the history of psychiatry.
2:07.4	And again, on today's podcast, Robert is making the argument for a very specific viewpoint.
2:13.2	Maybe in a future podcast, we'll have someone else on who has a different viewpoint. Or even better,
2:17.9	I'd love to host a debate between people who have varying viewpoints on this very complicated and
	...

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