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The Scientific Evidence That Today’s Psychiatry Cripples Itself—By Excluding ‘Intent’
Bob Johnson
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DOI:10.17265/2159-5313/2020.06.003
MRCPsych, MRCGP, Consultant Psychiatrist, (retired) formerly Head of Therapy, Ashworth Maximum Security Hospital, Liverpool; formerly Consultant Psychiatrist, Special Unit, C-Wing, Parkhurst Prison, Isle of Wight.
PSYCHIATRISTS DISAGREE profoundly with lawyers, about what we human beings are capable of. The one says we have ‘intent’—the other that we do not. They cannot both be right. All non-psychiatrist doctors must perforce agree with the lawyers. This paper argues that these harmful discrepancies will continue, until we undo the separate watertight human knowledge silos, which have grown up between legal procedures, general medicine, and psychiatric practice. All three would benefit. Psychiatry in particular, suffers from a grievously narrow view of scientific evidence, one which is open to fundamental criticism. There are radical differences in how the fuzzy concept of ‘intent’ is regarded in law, in general clinical medicine and in psychiatry. Once ‘intent’ is accorded its due weight, our understanding of justice, health and sanity is vastly improved, allowing us hugely more optimism. This paper is based on two earlier papers—The Scientific Evidence That ‘Intent’ Is Vital for Healthcare and Why Quakerism Is More Scientific Than Einstein. These are deployed here, to unpick the unhealthy tangle in which today’s psychiatry now finds itself. Its six sections are—(1) why ‘intent’ matters in law, in medicine & in psychiatry; (2) scientific quagmires; (3) a working definition for ‘madness’; (4) “children are impressionable”; (5) “trust me, I’m a doctor”; and (6) skin heals, why can’t minds? The breakthrough is that verbal fuzziness means that words can mean different things at different times––not that they are 100% meaningless. Only a better understanding of trust, autonomy and consent can open the way to something that is painfully absent from today’s psychiatry––a cure for any and all mental disease.
Intent, human knowledge silos, scientific evidence, sanity, optimism, Trust, autonomy, Consent, Adverse Childhood Events (ACE), curing mental disease
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