Body: Simple techniques and strategies to heal, reset and restore

Product Information

So the illnesses defined in the DSM are deeply suspect and the criteria used to define them are deeply suspect but worse, the DSM has led to a situation where the drug companies have medicalised the illnesses and produced drugs to treat these "illnesses". James Davies has written a new book to help people reset and restore their bodies (Image: Supplied) Read More Related Articles Medical naming encourages thinking about human beings in all their complexity as broken, and needing mending – and opens the door to the over-prescription. In fact, as one astute expert (among the many) Davies consults, points out tersely, this thinking of these drugs as ‘cures’ is erroneous, as unlike most physiological disease there just is no hard evidence to support the biology of a lot of what is now being treated as ‘disease’ through these medications – which alter mood. They do not ‘cure’ shyness, (or, lets medicalise it as social phobia) any more than a glass of wine ‘cures’ shyness – both change ways of perceiving the world, that is all. A simplistic biological reductionism has increasingly ruled the psychiatric roost … [we have] learned to attribute mental illness to faulty brain biochemistry, defects of dopamine, or a shortage of serotonin. It is biobabble as deeply misleading and unscientific as the psychobabble it replaced.’ (Andrew Skull, Professor of History of Psychiatry, Princeton University, in The Lancet) Author James Davies obtained his PhD in medical and social anthropology from the University of Oxford. He is also a qualified psychotherapist (having worked in the NHS), and a senior lecturer in social anthropology and psychology at the University of Roehampton, London. He has delivered lectures at many universities, including Harvard, Brown, CUNY, Oxford and London, and has written articles about psychiatry for the New Scientist, Therapy Today and the Harvard Divinity Bulletin.

In other words, trainings are places where persons are socialised to uphold the values and beliefs of the particular tradition into which they are being initiated. What is good for the ‘patient’ is often less important than what will ensure the longevity of the therapeutic tribe upon which one’s status and livelihood will come to depend. So I tried to expose anthropologically the tacit institutional devices used in training to transform persons into celebrants and defenders of the tradition (often in ways, and unbeknown to practitioners themselves, that are at the expense of the ‘patient’)". I can confirm that they are no longer together," said Kruger's agent Mark Klemens of Profile Management. Improve your wellbeing with exercises expertly designed to optimise your body. Enhance your health and mobility by understanding common conditions from arthritis and muscle strains, to IBS and stress, and empower yourself with the knowledge you need to achieve full-body health. Combine this with a longer reset at the end of the month. We update and reset our phones and laptops, and we should do the same for our bodies. A reset doesn't have to be an expensive treatment - a self-massage or an Epsom salt bath can be just as effective.

You've got people going out there fighting for our country, people getting diagnosed with serious illnesses, then when you think you've hurt a joint in your body and all you're doing is missing a few games, it puts it all into perspective. Patients have been diagnosed with chemical imbalances, despite the fact that no test exists to support such a claim, and that there is no real conception of what a correct chemical balance would look like ". Dr David Kaiser, Psychiatric Times). So, according to Davies, after nearly 50 years of investigation into the chemical imbalance theory, there is not one piece of convincing evidence that the theory is correct.

Who bites the hand that feeds? There is a huge cover-up, smoke and mirrors going on in the world of funding ‘research’ into psychiatric medicine whether in academic institutions, or with clinicians. And, gentle reader, there is even less transparency over this in the UK than there is in the States, where under the Obama administration, spearheaded by a particularly truth-and-justice campaigning Senator, Senator Grassley, some efforts to bring the Pharma hyena under the spotlight are beginning to bear fruit. But not here, where there is murk a plenty. Perhaps though, the fact that fully 56% of the panel member luminaries involved in writing the DSM-IV bible had 1 or more financial associations with the pharmaceutical industry, should begin to rip the wool from over our eyes. And, for those writing/creating the diagnostic categories, which would or course be primarily treated by pharmaceuticals, - 88% of DSM-IV panel members had drug company financial ties.from Big Pharma. And things don’t have appeared to have changed for the better in terms of ‘arms length’ involvement with the writing of the now current DSM-V. After decades of trying to prove [the chemical imbalance theory], researchers have still come up empty-handed.’She is the second Channel 7 personality to endure a relationship breakup following Chris Bath's split from her partner Denis Carahan. She is now dating newsreader Jim Wilson. I find it worrying that a practising psychological therapist in the NHS knew so little about mental illness, diagnosis and treatment (!) as he claimed at the outset of writing this book. I learnt all about the problems with the diagnostic system (most prominently, the DSM) and how antidepressant medications work (or don't) during my undergraduate degree in psychology, and so what bothers me the most is that the picture he paints is one of a completely clueless psychological and psychiatric profession - which is plainly not true. And yes, it is correct that there are very few (if any) biomarkers for mental illness, but that does not mean they are not real illnesses. I would like to remind (or inform) James Davies that Alzheimer's disease does not yet have a biomarker, nor do any of the other dementias at present. Does he not think they are real illnesses either? This is why we keep doing research. Furthermore, his keenness throughout the book to keep referring to mental illness as 'perfectly normal human reactions' made me quite sad, because who is he to trivialise the suffering of people who are quite literally crippled by depression, social anxiety, schizophrenia? While I completely agree that the grief of losing a loved one and similar reactions should not be thought of as illness, and while I agree that medication should never be the first option (especially in children), I find his argument hopelessly one-sided. The points he is raising are extremely important and equally, we should be critical with regards to how psychiatry, psychology and medicine works. But reporting only one side of the story is not helping anyone, it just creates a basic mistrust in the psychological and psychiatric profession which is unwarranted. He is painting a picture of psychiatrists as pure, money-minded evil and completely fails to see the complex picture of treatment that psychiatry can form part of. Psychiatrists go to work every day wanting to help alleviate people's suffering. They chose that profession wanting to make a difference. His claim that "the only ones who have ever benefitted from psychiatric drugs are the drug companies" is not just biased, but very ill-informed. Psychiatry does not operate in a manner similar to any other field of medicine. Namely, diagnoses are granted based solely on symptomatic presentation, and not on objective biological testing. Davies writes: First of all, I do agree that overdiagnosing and overmedicalisation are problems that should be taken into account. However, I really didn't like the extreme approach in this book, as well as the awfully subjective examples (like interviews, "my neighbor once said" or "this person thinks that his son was misdiagnosed" type of shit) and far-fetched conclusions. I don't think there's a point in blaming the DSM and its creators for causing a wave of overdiagnosing - it's the specialists who are not doing their job correctly or considering the context of problems) and the problem lies with the education and moral principles and the system. The whole part where the author blames the DSM is just so unnecessary - the DSM is already out there and I still think it's better than nothing - the probability of misdiagnosing would be a lot greater if not for the DSM.