Medicine isn’t the cure to deep-rooted distress

“...after all, if biology isn’t central to the experiences that have become known as mental illness, what special expertise do psychiatrists really possess ?”

Jennifer Hough (Irish Examiner, September 21) quotes Dr.Terry Lynch and others in her withering exposé of the fallacies pertaining to the ‘all-too-standard’ responses to those in life-distress - commonly called ‘mental-health’ issues.

The brain imbalance theory takes a bashing and proper order too - given, that, as Terry Lynch testifies, “ the notion that a chemical imbalance in the brain is responsible for depression was started by pharmaceutical companies to market their pills.”

The most scathing appraisal in Lynch’s book, which is highlighted by Hough is that “psychiatry is unique in medicine in that none of its diagnoses have any scientifically established biology or pathology.” Wow.

Why should life-distress be considered within a biomedical paradigm> It has little or nothing to do with medicine or medicines.

It’s a sociological impasse with familial and societal roots and repercussions.

Pull the pills and address the issues.

Jim Cosgrove

Chapel Street

Lismore

Co.Waterford