AD4E 'Crucial Conversations' Event

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https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/a-disorder-for-everyone-crucial-conversations-tickets-148924947527?aff=ebdssbeac

 

Dr James Davies and Professor Joanna Moncrieff talk about their recent books.

About this event

 

'More people are taking psychotropic drugs than ever before. It has never been more urgent to have these cruicial conversations.'  AD4E

 

A Disorder for Everyone! - Crucial Conversations is delighted to welcome James Davies and Joanna Moncrieff to talk about their books.

A panel discussion inviting questions from the audience will follow the presentations.

Joining Joanna and James for a panel discussion following the presentaions are:-

Dr Ché Rosebert

Ze'v Faith

Dr Anne Guy

Miranda Levy

 

About James 

James Davies is Associate Professor of mental health and social anthropology at the University of Roehampton. He is a qualified psychotherapist (having previously worked in the NHS) and is the co-founder of the Council for Evidence-based Psychiatry (CEP), which is secretariat to the All Party Parliamentary Group for Prescribed Drug Dependence. He has been an expert drug advisor for Public Health England. He is the author of the bestselling book Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm than Good.

 

About ' Sedated: How Modern Capitalism Created Our Mental Health Crisis'

Sedated: How Modern Capitalism Created Our Mental Health Crisis is a provocative and shocking look at how western society is misunderstanding and mistreating mental health problems, at the depoliticization of distress and just how damaging the privileging of drug treatments for economic and political reasons has been.

In Britain alone, more than 20% of the adult population take a psychiatric drug in any one year. This is an increase of over 500% since 1980 and the numbers continue to grow. Yet, despite this prescription epidemic, levels of distress of all types have increased. Using a wealth of studies, interviews with experts, and detailed analysis, Dr James Davies argues that this is because we have fundamentally mischaracterised the problem. Rather than viewing most mental distress as an understandable reaction to wider societal problems, we have embraced a medical model which situates the problem solely within the sufferer and their brain.

Urgent and persuasive, Sedated systematically examines why this individualistic view of 'mental illness' has been promoted by successive governments and big business - and why it is so misplaced and dangerous.

Endorsements

A wonderful, moving and truly life-changing book. Sedated is an urgent intervention for post-pandemic society, written with expertise and clarity. Warning: it will cause irritation to powerful interests who fear us all becoming better informed about the root causes of so much human suffering. ― Baroness Shami Chakrabarti, former Director of Liberty 

James Davies is one of the most important voices on mental health in the world. This is a beautiful and deeply sane book. Everyone who's suffering - and wants to know how to make it stop - should read it right away. ― Johann Hari, author of Lost Connections 

In this game-changing polemic, James Davies leaves us in no doubt: to tackle the mental health crisis we need major social and economic reform. ― Nathan Filer, author of This Book will Change Your Mind about Mental Health

James's talk is titled .... The New "Opium of the People" - why our mental health sector has failed.

 

About Joanna

Joanna Moncrieff is Professor of Critical and Social Psychiatry at University College London, and a consultant psychiatrist at the North East London Foundation Trust. She is one of the founders and the co-chair of the Critical Psychiatry Network. Her research consists principally of a critique of mainstream views about psychiatric drugs. She also writes about the history of drug treatment and about the history, politics and philosophy of psychiatry more generally. She is currently leading UK government-funded research on reducing and discontinuing antipsychotic drug treatment and collaborating on a study to support antidepressant discontinuation. She is the author of numerous papers and several books, including The Bitterest Pills: the troubling story of antipsychotic drugs and The Myth of the Chemical Cure.

 

About 'A Straight Talking Introduction to Psychiatric Drugs: The Truth About How They Work And How To Come Off Them.'

In an era when more people are taking psychiatric drugs than ever before, Joanna Moncrieff's explosive book challenges the claims for their mythical powers. Drawing on extensive research, she demonstrates that psychiatric drugs do not 'treat' or 'cure' the experiences we call 'mental illness' by acting on hypothesised chemical imbalances or other abnormalities in the brain. There is no evidence for any of these ideas. Moreover, any relief the drugs may offer from the distress and disturbance of a mental disorder can come at great cost to people's physical health and their ability to function in day-to-day life. And, once on these drugs, coming off them can be very difficult indeed. This book is a wake-up call to the potential damage we are doing to ourselves by relying on chemical cures for human distress. Its clear, concise explanations will enable people to make a fully informed decision about the benefits and harms of these drugs and whether and how to come off them if they so choose.

Endorsement

'There has never been a greater need for calm and reasoned thinking about psychiatric drug use, and, as a practising and open-minded psychiatrist, Joanna is the very best person to provide it. This book brings evidence and rationality to a contentious topic and offers people sound, researchbased information and genuine choice.' --Dr Lucy Johnstone, consultant clinical psychologist, author of A Straight Talking Introduction to Psychiatric Diagnosis and lead co-author of The Power Threat Meaning Framework

 

 

Miranda Levy is a journalist and author of more than 25 years’ experience. Starting out on magazines including Cosmopolitan and New Woman (RIP), she then hacked it at the Daily Mail and Sunday Mirror before heading back to glossies and the launches of GLAMOUR and Grazia. Miranda had two babies, wrote the Rough Guide to Babies in 2006, and became editor of Mother & Baby, where she was twice nominated for a British Society of Magazine Editors award. Now a freelance writer and editor for national newspapers, she covers many topics – but particularly health – for titles including the Telegraph platforms, the Mail on Sunday and the i. Miranda has contributed to the Spectator, the Jewish Chronicle and the New York Post - as well as several literary festivals, radio and TV shows and podcasts.

Miranda’s ‘self-help memoir’: The Insomnia Diaries: How I Learned To Sleep Again was published by Octopus Books in June 2021.

 

Dr Ché Rosebert is a Clinical Psychologist & Organisational Consultant with many years’ experience of working both within the NHS, Charity and Private Sectors.

Ché is Director of External Relations for The Association of Clinical Psychologists UK and a former Chair of the Psychosis & Complex Mental Health Faculty and member of the Division of Clinical Psychology Executive within the British Psychological Society.

Whether working at an individual, team or whole organisation strategic level Ché has a passion for supporting the health and wellbeing of staff and the people who use services alongside their supporters and communities.

As a mixed-race woman from a working-class family, fortunate to grow up within many homes and communities, Ché is particularly keen on inclusion, social justice and learning from others. Paying it forward makes sense to Ché and she has been a Cub Scout Leader for over 30 years and works primarily within the homelessness sector.

 

Z’ev Faith - Jewish,Mad/Disabled, *****, Transsexual, Survivor of adolescent and adult psychiatric abuse. Aspiring Mad Scholar with an MSc in Creative Arts and Mental Health, Interdisciplinary Affect Artist specialising in Performance/Live Art/Automatic Drawing/Writing rooted in themes of madness/disability/addiction, alienation, social justice, anti-capitalism, the psychiatric industrial complex, ***** identity and emotional exhibitionism. As an nonconforming creative child he was given a first ‘disorder’ at age 9 leading to a full psychiatric career of adolescent institutionalisation, a full-spectrum rainbow of psychiatric drugs with all the iatrogenic affects and alphabet soup of ‘diagnosis’ They have been creating survivor art since institutionalised at 15. Currently studying for a Hypnotherapy Practitioner diploma looking to use hypnotherapy as a way of easing the mental and bodily distress caused by psychiatric drug withdrawal and aiming to start a creative peer support group for psychiatric survivors. He exists outside of psychiatry since 2018 and is currently tapering off Duloxetine after 12 years of being polydurgged with 25> different psychiatric drugs.

 

Dr Anne Guy, UKCP (Reg), MBACP (Accred) is a psychotherapist in private practice, having previously worked as lecturer at the University of Roehampton. She is a member of the Council for Evidence-Based Psychiatry, the secretariat co-ordinator for the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Prescribed Drug Dependence and an associate member of the Institute for Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal.

She is the lead editor for the “Guidance for Psychological Therapists: Enabling Conversations with Clients Taking or Withdrawing from Psychiatric Drugs” created in collaboration with leading UK therapy organisations and academics.

She has co-authored articles on patients and therapists’ experiences of psychiatric drugs and reports for the APPG describing current and potential service models for supporting prescribed drug dependence in the UK. She is chairs the Withdrawal Services Working Group convened to define patients’ needs and sits on the NHS Advisory Group for the NHSE&I programme considering the implementation of PHE’s recommendations for action on prescribed drug dependence.

Prior to training as a therapist, she worked as a senior manager in financial services with a focus on process design and improvement.

 

 

[Faure]

I’m really sorry I missed this. I am reading the sample of ‘Sedated’ on my kindle and will probably order hard copies of both books.