title: First, do no harm: confronting the myths of psychiatric drugs.
abstract: The enduring psychiatric myth is that particular personal, interpersonal and social problems in living are manifestations of 'mental illness' or 'mental disease', which can only be addressed by 'treatment' with psychiatric drugs. Psychiatric drugs are used only to control 'patient' behaviour and do not 'treat' any specific pathology in the sense understood by physical medicine. Evidence that people, diagnosed with 'serious' forms of 'mental illness' can 'recover', without psychiatric drugs, has been marginalized by drug-focused research, much of this funded by the pharmaceutical industry. The pervasive myth of psychiatric drugs dominates much of contemporary 'mental health' policy and practice and raises discrete ethical issues for nurses who claim to be focused on promoting or enabling the 'mental health' of the people in their care.
authors.affiliation: Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Nursing, University of Dundee, Scotland, UK. phil.j.barker@btinternet.com
authors.forename: Phil
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Barker
authors.forename: Poppy
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Buchanan-Barker
mesh_terms: D006801:Humans; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000188:drug therapy* / Q000451:nursing*; D011568:Psychiatric Nursing / Q000941:ethics*; D011619:Psychotropic Drugs / Q000009:adverse effects / Q000627:therapeutic use*; D016896:Treatment Outcome
chemical_list: D011619:Psychotropic Drugs