Copyright Massachusetts Medical Society,
Publishing Division Nov 23, 2006
MOVING BEYOND PROZAC, DSM, AND THE NEW PSYCHIATRY: THE BIRTH OF
POSTPSYCHIATRY (Corporealities: Discourses of Disability.) By Bradley
Lewis. 198 pp. Ann Arbor. University of Michigan Press, 2006. 570 (cloth);
$24.95 (paper). ISBN 0-472-11464-6 (cloth); 0-472-03117-1 (paper).
IT IS NOT VERY OFTEN THAT WE FIND A SINgle voice with the ability to
bridge clinical experience and scholarly investigation and, in doing so,
find clarity and a vision that speaks to a broad audience. Bradley Lewis
is that voice, coming to us as an advocate, provider, and consumer of
psychiatric medicine as well as a scholar ot philosophical and
sociocultural thought. In Moving beyond Promt, DSM, and the New
Psychiatry, Lewis critically examines how psychiatric classification,
diagnostic methods, and treatment practices tall short of identifying with
and caring for the human condition. Other scholars have revealed the
limitations of the Diagnostic and Sramfioil Manual of Mental Disorders
(DSM) and the idealistic drive toward reductionism within psychiatric
inquiry and practice. Lewis not only validates these criticisms and
arguments but also presents an alternative vision of psychiatry. The
purpose of this novel vision, or what he calls postpsychiatry, is to
provide a means of discourse through which clinicians, patients,
researchers, and academics can share interdisciplinary, multidimensional
knowledge. To achieve this vision, Lewis uses resources from
poststructuralism, postmodernism, and cultural studies, all of which
illustrate the need for postpsychiatry and provide the scaffolding for
putting it into practice.
Early chapters of Lewis's book familiarize readers with the limitations
of contemporary psychiatry and show how the humanities and social theory
can shape psychiatry as the helping profession that it should be in
contrast to the biologically dominated, politically driven profession that
it is. Chapter 5, "Postdisciplinary Coalitions and Alignments," in which
the model of postpsychiatry surfaces fully, shows the strength of Lewis's
theoretical work. In this chapter, he maintains that the current, Hawed
institutional structure of psychiatry resists scholarship outside the
basic sciences. For this reason, he argues, cultural studies would best
serve as a scholarly model for postpsychiatry. In a thorough and
interesting discussion of how to link cultural studies to psychiatric
medicine, Lewis calls for a new genre of intellectual thought - "cultural
studies of psychiatry" - in which scholars from multiple disciplines
examine psychiatric inquiry ;ind practice, exposing the various types of
knowledge and practice that mainstream psychiatry fails to
acknowledge.
In subsequent chapters, Lewis applies cultural studies of psychiatry to
two phenomena: the development and implementation of the DSM and an
analysis of the popular prescription drug Prozac (fluoxetine). By
analyzing the ethical, political, social, and cultural problems associated
with current psychiatric classification, diagnostic methods, and treatment
practices, and by showing how such problems can be addressed, if not
resolved, by postpsychiatry, these chapters speak directly to all
practicing psychiatrists and consumers of psychotropic medications. In
chapter 8, "Postempiricism: Imagining a Successor Science for Psychiatry,"
Lewis shows how postpsychiatry, in its ideal form, can be especially
influential in a clinical setting in which human values take precedent
over the sciences and in which self-ordained "experts" see themselves, in
Lewis's words, as "servicepeople." In the end, it is up to these people to
foster the growth and development of Lewis's vision.
[Author Affiliation] |
Julie M. Aultman, Ph.D. |
Northeastern Ohio Universities College of
Medicine |
Rootstown, OH 44272 |
julieaultman@xahoo.com |
|