The Medicalisation of Distress

Along with this shift, psychiatric drugs and limited formulaic psychotherapy have become the default modes of care. Born out of the rejection of psychoanalysis and social psychiatric models in the 1980s, the shift was explicitly intended as a biomedical ‘revolution’. With the “decade of the brain,” a new era of enlightened mental health medicine was supposed to ensue. Yet, after decades of research and countless billions of dollars spent, not only has very little of scientific value resulted in terms of treatments, we are increasingly hearing about mental health “crises” and even “pandemics.” At the same time, more and more research has been supporting the centrality of the social and interpersonal factors that have traditionally been neglected by the medical model and medicalised therapies. Could the medical framing have been contributing to the problem? Has the power behind the medical model occluded the issues at hand and contributed to ongoing social injustice? Our presenters will try to address these and other questions in the hopes of starting this important conversation afresh.