The writer, James Davies is psychotherapist with a PhD in Medical and Social Anthropology from the University of Oxford. He is a Senior Lecturer in Social Anthropology and Psychology at the University of Roehampton, London.

Davies acknowledges that as a psychotherapist he could be seen as being biased in favour of the psychotherapeutic approach which can be considered to be in opposition to the ‘pharmaceutical’ approach of psychiatry. He makes no attempt to present a balanced account in this book—it unashamedly presents a series of arguments against psychiatry and its sugar-daddy (Alejandro’s words…) the pharmaceutical industry.

Overall, thestrongest arguments presented concern depression and the inefficacy of anti-depressant drugs, and perhaps he should have narrowed his argument to focus just on depression rather than extrapolate to the whole field. Regardless, he makes a number of compelling points that portray psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry as nothing short of despicable.

The main points of this book can be summarised as follows:

1. psychiatric diagnostic models are more products of culture than of science
2. the efficacy of antidepressant drugs is no better than placebo
3. pharmaceutical companies engage in behaviours that present antidepressants as more effective than they really are
4. behind Western psychiatry is a variety of cultural assumptions about human nature and the role of suffering of questionable validity and utility.
5. Western practices of psychiatry may undermine successful local ways of managing distress

We also consider in this episode one of the most important chapters in the history of psychedelic culture, being the adventures of the brothers McKenna to La Chorera in the Colombian Amazon, and their encounter there with The Mushroom…

References

• Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good (2013) written by James Davies
• Episode 1 — Challenging Psychedelic Experiences
• Moncrieff, J., Cooper, R.E., Stockmann, T. et al. The serotonin theory of depression: a systematic umbrella review of the evidence. Mol Psychiatry 28, 3243–3256 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-022-01661-0
  • vs…
• Jauhar, S., Arnone, D., Baldwin, D.S. et al. A leaky umbrella has little value: evidence clearly indicates the serotonin system is implicated in depression. Mol Psychiatry 28, 3149–3152 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41380-023-02095-y
• Ferguson, I., & Dowd, P. (2019). Mental health social work: the dog that hasn’t barked. In M. Lavalette (Ed.), What is the Future of Social Work? (1st ed., pp. 57–68). Bristol University Press. https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvqc6hjk.11
• Corpus Christi (2019)
• Martín Prechtel — The Smell of Rain on Dust: Grief and Praise
• Dr Rosalind Watts
• Terence McKenna — True Hallucinations: Being an Account of the Author's Extraordinary Adventures in the Devil's Paradise

Links

Altered Mates Website

Altered Mates Instagram

Music for the show by Si Mulumby

A Glimpse of Eternity by Alejandro Tuama

• Purchase the novel here.
• Listen to the serialised audiobook here.

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest was originally a novel, written by Ken Kesey and published in 1962. (Ken Kesey, worked the graveyard shift as an orderly at a mental health facility in Menlo Park, California. He spoke to the patients and witnessed the workings of the institution. He also voluntarily took psychoactive drugs, including mescaline and LSD, as part of Project MK Ultra. In addition to his work with MK Ultra, Kesey took LSD recreationally.)

The novel was adapted into film in 1975, directed by Miloš Forman, and went on to win five Academy Awards.

The narrative focusses on the antics of the rebellious Randle Patrick McMurphy (played by Jack Nicholson in the film), who fakes insanity to serve his sentence for battery and gambling in a psychiatric hospital rather than at a prison work farm. The head administrative nurse, Nurse Ratched, rules the ward with absolute authority, assisted by her three day-shift orderlies and her assistant doctors and nurses.

In this episode we discuss the character of McMurphy, as an example of an “individual” who stands out from the crowd like Tyler Durden in Fight Club (who we discussed in Episode 8 — Monsters & Masculinity). McMurphy cannot be allowed to run loose in society, and so he is trapped and forced into the punishment system. One Flew Over the Cuckoos nest is about “the combine”, the machine, that forces us to fall into line. With the arbitrary rules, the opiate drugs to dull our senses, with the shame that turns us into our own police.

Towards the end of the book, one of the patients comments how they forced McMurphy to stand up for them, as they are too cowardly to stand up for themselves. McMurphy pushes the boundaries of the system in their behalf, smashing up against a machine that he cannot defeat, a machine that wants to grind everyone down into the dirt.

But despite this seemingly hopeless situation, this film (and novel) can still serve as a call to action. It can be a call to be an individual in the face of the oppressive machine. To be the one who stands, not the masses who push. Either way we are destined to be ground into dust by the machine, but to be an individual is surely a more glorious way to live and honourable way to die.

References

• Episode 8 — Monsters & Masculinity: delving further into the Jungian Shadow
• Episode 9 — From Pepe Silvia to Geshinka: the curious domains of psychosis
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975) directed by Milos Forman
• One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) written by Ken Kesey
• Rottnest Island Prison & Burial Ground
• The Mask (1994) directed by Chuck Russell
• Tyler Durden from Fight Club, as discussed in Episode 8 — Monsters & Masculinity
• Paris Williams — Rethinking Madness: Towards a Paradigm Shift in our Understanding and Treatment of Psychosis
• The Shawshank Redemption (1994) written and directed by Frank Darabont
• The Liberators
• It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia — Sweet Dee Has a Heart Attack

Links

Altered Mates Website

Altered Mates Instagram

Music for the show by Si Mulumby

A Glimpse of Eternity by Alejandro Tuama

• Purchase the novel here.
• Listen to the serialised audiobook here.