Anatomy of Moncrieff's Anti-Medication Playbook @joannamoncrieff has a carefully honed 3-step strategy of attacking psychiatry, which she has used with remarkable power against the medical establishment. Step 1: Identify a narrow, technical assertion pertaining to the neurobiology or medical treatment of mental health problems, and show that the evidence supporting that assertion is not as strong or high quality as commonly believed. Step 2: Use the uncertainty of evidence to make the claim, or imply, or pretend that the assertion has been shown to be false. [This step is a logically invalid inference since weak evidence in favor of thesis A does not equal strong evidence in favor of inverse A.] Step 3: Use the claim as a stepping stone to bash medical psychiatry by making claims that extend far beyond the scope of the narrow, technical assertion in step 1. Rely on rhetoric, ignorance of the audience, and prevalent prejudices to pull this off, and make strategic motte-and-bailey retreats when needed. This 3-step attack is bolstered by 2 ancillary moves: a) Make isolated demands for rigor, and set the required bar of evidence to a level that favors one’s own position, while simultaneously lowering the bar or shifting the burden of proof when it suits your favored positions. b) Pretend your personal opinion carries the same epistemic weight as the clinical consensus of the medical community. See details of how this play out in my post: psychiatrymargins.com/p/anat…

I worry that folks who pit sociopolitical solutions against psychiatric care hope for a Faustian bargain: there is little political appetite for meaningful investments into public & preventative health, but there is ready supply of hatred & stigma directed at psychiatric care. /1