Parents, teachers and pressure groups – not doctors – to blame for huge rise in antidepressant and stimulant prescriptions, claims new president of Royal College of Psychiatrists

In an interview with The Times, the incoming president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Sir Simon Wessely, has launched a defence of psychiatry, claiming that the rise in antidepressant and stimulant prescriptions for children has been caused by pushy middle-class parents, teachers and pressure groups. “Medicalisation is not often done by doctors,” he claims. “In areas that are more accessible to public debate it’s almost the other way around.  Now we see a huge rise in support groups, we see pressure brought to bear to bring in labels… You get obvious pressure from parents… It’s psychiatry which is against the medicalisation of normality.”

Furthermore Professor Wessely said it was nonsense to say that antidepressants did not work. “It’s the same with Ritalin. It’s probably over-prescribed, but it’s also under-prescribed because we don’t have good enough [child and adolescence mental health] services,” he said.  Wessely also claims that other doctors look down on psychiatry because “we don’t have very big machines that buzz”.

The full article can be seen at: http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/health/news/article4125848.ece

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13 Responses to Parents, teachers and pressure groups – not doctors – to blame for huge rise in antidepressant and stimulant prescriptions, claims new president of Royal College of Psychiatrists

  1. kiwi 21/06/2014 at 12:46 am #

    What an absolute load of nonsense its doctors who have prostituted their souls to pimp life ruining drugs for pharma driven on by prescribing bonuses for poisons peddled under a wrapper of lies fraud and deceit leaving people such as myself ruined for life because I fell for the hoodwinking of uninformed consent and off-label pushing. Then its deny deny deny with the Hippocratic oath suddenly morphing into ‘First admit no harm’.
    Now it looks like its morphed again into ‘Second blame the patient’

  2. Eamonn Gosney 21/06/2014 at 2:56 am #

    The incoming president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, Sir Simon Wessely sounds quite depressed. Would he please declare whether he has prescribed himself (or one of his colleagues in his profession has prescribed for him) a batch of antidepressants.

  3. Annabelle 21/06/2014 at 8:32 am #

    “the rise in antidepressant and stimulant prescriptions for children has been caused by pushy middle-class parents, teachers and pressure groups.”

    Really??!!! I was unaware that pushy middle-class parents (or any parents, for that matter), teachers and pressure groups could prescribe antidepressants!!

    “It’s psychiatry which is against the medicalisation of normality.”

    Wow! Makes one wonder where all the ‘labels’ came from then, doesn’t it? If psychiatry didn’t come up with all of the labels, who did?

    “It’s probably over-prescribed, but it’s also under-prescribed because we don’t have good enough [child and adolescence mental health] services,”

    So, which is it – over-prescribed or under-prescribed? One would imagine if you had ‘better’ services, psychiatrists would prescribe more.

    “Wessely also claims that other doctors look down on psychiatry because “we don’t have very big machines that buzz”.”

    Awww Is he feeling small and inadequate? There’s probably a label that could be attached here and maybe even some psychiatric medidcation for it!!

    From what can be seen in the media, especially with regard to Sir Wessely, psychiatry has very big machines and they certainly ‘buzz’!! Psychiatry has gained huge power over the years but now that people are ‘educated’, whether that be formal education or self-education, people are now questioning the nonsense that was spewed and believed. Therein probably lies the problem. Psychiatry is being questioned!

    What a defensive man Sir Simon Wessely appears to be.
    Is psychiatry taking a beating?
    Are people beginning to question its validity?
    How could it be validated? It’s not like it is evidence-based. It’s not like it’s science. It’s mostly conjecture, beliefs and theories.

    It’s time psychiatry was put in its place. It seems, from the above article, that it has gone on the defensive. “Attack is the best form of defence”, is what comes to mind, after reading the above article.

    ” ‘Physician’, heal thyself” is the best advice that could be given here! Hopefully Sir Wessely and other psychiatrists will take that advice.

  4. Tina Coldham 21/06/2014 at 9:07 am #

    “Wessely also claims that other doctors look down on psychiatry because “we don’t have very big machines that buzz”.”
    Mmm, the next time I’m ‘offered’ ECT for my depression, I’ll ask about this…

  5. Alabaster 21/06/2014 at 11:47 am #

    Hmmm…I have a quote from Wellesly where he once said….
    “Do we really need all these (mental disorder) labels? Probably not. And there is a real danger that shyness will become social phobia, bookish kids labelled as Asperger’s and so on.’
    Dr. Simon Wessely, Psychiatrist

    Regarding the article, what other stance would anyone expect him to have considering he’s the incoming president of the Royal College of Psychiatrists?
    It’s not in the nature of Psychiatry or psychiatrists to self-detect any wrongdoing in themselves (most psychiatrists). When you have a pseudo-science full of ‘diseases’ that were created subjectively and THEN attempted to prove objectively (back-asswards), you have a bona-fide endless circus of misfortune and confusion.

    I still believe that ‘evidence-based’ and ‘psychiatry’ is a total oxymoron.

  6. Terri Smith 21/06/2014 at 3:18 pm #

    Yes Prof Wessley, the first thing I did when I gained my teaching qualification was grab my prescription pad and prescribe antidepressants for all the children in my class. My sole reason for entering the profession was to fry their developing brains with such drugs.

    Drugged our not, the children could have told him that it is impossible to over and under prescribe at the same time

    What a load of nonsense. No wonder other doctors look down on psychiatry, it seems a pseudo-science based on unprovable suppositions.

  7. Dan Clarke 21/06/2014 at 5:50 pm #

    Surely a vital factor in the increasing medicalisation of people’s lives is the exaggerated claims made about the efficacy of treatments. This is an area where psychiatrists have played a very active role, both in the over-promotion of drug and talking therapies.

    I’ve mentioned some of the problems with a trial examining treatments designed by Wessely in a BMJ comment: http://www.bmj.com/content/347/bmj.f5963/rr/674255

    So long as it’s seen as acceptable for people to exaggerate their expertise, we’re going to continue to see too many people wrongly turning to ‘experts’ for treatments.

  8. susan bevis 21/06/2014 at 11:40 pm #

    Absolute rubbish comment by Sir Simon Wessely – perhaps he should take the time to read my blog – there are many mothers like myself who are horrified with the extent of drug pushing and he should concentrate his efforts on research to do with drug metabolism as my daughter is TREATMENT RESISTANT.

  9. Nasim Marie Jafry 22/06/2014 at 10:04 am #

    Professor Wessely is rather well known for his distaste for ‘support groups and labels’ . Worryingly, if you try to stand up for your own experience/point of view, in an intelligent, articulate, informed manner, it further condemns you as being a pushy patient. In Simon’s world, doctors – psychiatrists – seem infallible. It is the patient who is wrong

  10. Greg White 22/06/2014 at 4:53 pm #

    Yes to all of this, but there is a lot of uncomfortable truth for here for those of us with normal consciousness.
    Pity most folk, not least Wessely, cannot stand the tension between that, and what it perceives as ‘mental illness’.

  11. bernard 22/06/2014 at 7:23 pm #

    This is about a guy who has become far to big just to do his job treating the mentally ill he would rather spend most of his time promoting himself in the media or on twitter with his wife coming out occasionally to denounce the public in the press.
    the Maddox prize invented for standing up for science tells me that Simon and his friends treat the public as stupid illogical anti science and in the way.

    People might think he is modest but he now has more power than most politicians .
    Mental health or those who use it and work for it have got themselves a whole heap of trouble here for a long time to come

  12. Justin Reilly, esq. 03/07/2014 at 1:34 am #

    To all those for whom this is their first exposure to Prof. Wessley, this is par for the course. He has been consistently pushing anti-scientific theories in order to protect special interests and at the expense of patients. It is a scandal that he was knighted and is the President of the Royal College.

    Psychiatry is loosing its credibility and it will only get worse until they admit their short comings and police their own. A good start would be for Psychiatry to come clean about Prof. Wessley’s war on science and patients.

  13. truthman30 15/07/2014 at 1:46 am #

    Perhaps Simon Wesseley would care to discuss why he said on BBC Radio (in a debate on antidepressants with James Davies) that he has never worked for a drug company? According to JAMA- he has worked for Eli Lilly and Fabry Pharmaceuticals. However, maybe Simon’s definition of work doesn’t include academic meetings and speakings engagements with drug companies? Maybe that doesn’t count in his world? Maybe he thinks this type of work is perfectly appropriate? It would be nice if he could clear this definition issue up… but I won’t hold my breath…

    https://truthman30.wordpress.com/2014/07/07/spotlight-on-simon-wesseley-president-of-the-royal-college-of-psychiatrists/

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