Jay Joseph - Why Schizophrenia Genetic Research is Running on Empty
Mad in America: Rethinking Mental Health
Mad in America
4.7 • 212 Ratings
🗓️ 11 November 2017
⏱️ 35 minutes
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Summary
This week on MIA Radio we interview Dr Jay Joseph. Dr Joseph is a clinical psychologist and author who brings a critical perspective to claims in the media and the academic literature that disordered genes underlie psychiatric disorders.
His most recent books are The Trouble with Twin Studies: A Reassessment of Twin Research in the Social and Behavioral Sciences and the 2017 e-book Schizophrenia and Genetics: The End of an Illusion.
In this interview, we discuss the evidence that psychiatry puts forward in support of the claim that mental disorders have an important genetic basis and the reasons why psychiatry is still searching after many decades of failed attempts.
In the episode we discuss:
- How Dr Joseph, as a clinical psychologist, came to be interested in the validity of the diagnosis of schizophrenia.
- How he then became interested in the assertions by psychiatry that diagnoses such as schizophrenia had a genetic basis.
- That he discovered that the evidence for genetic factors underlying major psychiatric disorders is very weak and based mainly on twin and adoption studies.
- That, despite decades of work, there have been few if any discoveries of disordered genes that cause the major psychiatric disorders.
- How twin and adoption studies are used to try and demonstrate the relationship between genetics and mental disorders.
- That people are being told that their mental illness is genetically based which is not supported by evidence and it is rather like the chemical imbalance myth in this regard.
- That a disorder or condition 'running in the family' means that it is 'genetic' is also a common misconception.
- That psychiatry seems to be focused on finding the 'cause' of mental disorders within the body, rather than acknowledging that social and environmental factors are the main causes of trauma, distress, and psychological dysfunction.
Relevant links:
Schizophrenia and Genetics: The End of an Illusion
Bias and Deception in Behavioral Research
Schizophrenia Genetic Research – Running on Empty
To get in touch with us email: podcasts@madinamerica.com
© Mad in America 2017
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Welcome to the Mad in America podcast, your source for science, psychiatry and social justice. |
| 0:13.5 | Hello, this is James, and welcome to episode 21 of the Madden America podcast. Before we get started, I wanted to thank you for taking the time to get in touch |
| 0:22.4 | and for sharing your feedback with me. |
| 0:24.2 | It is very much appreciated. |
| 0:26.4 | This week, my guest is Dr. J. Joseph. |
| 0:29.2 | Dr. Joseph is a clinical psychologist, an author, |
| 0:32.0 | who brings a critical perspective to claims in the media and the academic literature |
| 0:36.4 | that disordered genes |
| 0:37.9 | underlie psychiatric disorders. His most recent books are The Trouble with Twin Studies, a reassessment |
| 0:43.8 | of twin research in the social and behavioral sciences in 2015, and the 2017 e-book, Schizophrenia |
| 0:50.7 | and Genetics, The End of an Illusion. In this interview, we discussed the evidence for a genetic basis for mental disorders, |
| 0:57.6 | and the reasons why psychiatry is still searching, even after many decades of work. |
| 1:02.5 | Dr Joseph, thank you so much for taking the time to talk with me for the podcast. |
| 1:06.3 | Firstly, for the listeners, could you tell me a little about yourself, |
| 1:09.3 | and what led you towards psychology |
| 1:10.9 | and in particular your interest and research in genetics and the relationship to psychiatric disorders? |
| 1:16.7 | Yes, I'm a clinical psychologist in California and in the 90s I was in my graduate program. |
| 1:23.7 | I got interested in some of the critical psychiatry authors of the 60s and 70s, and I noticed that, you know, schizophrenia was a big topic there about whether it was, you know, a valid construct or, you know, the political, social aspects of it. |
| 1:39.6 | So, and then I noticed that there were a lot of claims that schizophrenia was, you know, heavily genetic. |
| 1:43.7 | So I kind of wanted to look into that issue. So that was the topic of my dissertation of the late 90s, |
| 1:49.3 | the genetics of schizophrenia, which has kind of launched, you know, what I've been doing ever since for the last 20 years. |
| 1:54.0 | But I kind of discovered that the evidence in favor of genetics is very weak, and a lot of it's based on twin and adoption studies. |
... |
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