Biological psychiatry and the invention of the asylum in modern America organic theories and somatic treatments: A history and case study

The history of modern biological psychiatry is inextricably entwined with the history of the mental asylum. This study evaluated the theories and practices of modern biological psychiatry and the asylum in the United States.;The study is divided into 4 sections. First, presentation of the author's own case study of being labeled schizophrenic, institutionalized, and receiving electroconvulsive shock treatments as a teenager. Second, a history of the asylum and biological psychiatry in modern America. This history emphasizes 20th-century developments: the advent of the shock therapies, lobotomies, and neuroleptic drugs; the discrepancies between claims made for various somatic treatments and actual efficacy studies; the finances and demographics of deinstitutionalization; the evolution and hegemony of the DSM. Third, the commentary section presents the medical model of mental illness as the originary tale---the premier regime of truth---driving the field, deconstruction of the major genetic psychiatry studies, a feminist critique of the unique relation women have to psychiatry in the West, and the sociological critique emphasizing cross-cultural studies and labeling theory. Fourth, the discussion section presents suggestions for improvements.;There were several major conclusions. First, in the United States where billions of dollars are spent on legions of practitioners by millions of clients, both prevalence and chronicity rates for "mental illness" have increased substantially. Secondly, in the West, prognoses for severe mental illness are much worse and chronicity is much higher than in developing countries. Thirdly, historically, the asylum population was disproportionately drawn from the ranks of the poor, the immigrant, female, elderly, and persons of color; hence, the dynamics of race, class, gender, and age are reflected in psychiatric evaluations. Finally, evidence used to support any organic theory of persons labeled mentally ill---including the biochemical imbalance theory---is inconclusive because: (a) the field of biological psychiatry is pervaded by hyperbole, false claims, and pseudoscience; (b) no genetic basis for "mental illness" has been demonstrated and genetic psychiatry research is riddled with methodological flaws and ideological bias; and (c) the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on the field of biological psychiatry is extensive.