This image is from Wikipedia Gaslighting which gives the credit details. The word Gaslighting comes from the 1944 movie Gaslight about a husband's attempts to get his wife to doubt her sanity. It caught on slowly but as this graph shows in the last decade its use has taken off. The greatest relative rise in its use may be in healthcare. Until recently it was inconceivable … [Read more...] about Gaslighting, Milgram and Madness
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Gaslighting in Healthcare
This post features Letters from Peter Scott-Gordon to Lade Smith - the originals are in the link. Readers outside Britain should assume that the gaslighting here applies to regulators and medical bodies in their country also and should not be fooled by this apparently polite correspondence. 4 February 2026 Dear Dr Lade Smith, PATIENT SAFETY I wanted to write to you … [Read more...] about Gaslighting in Healthcare
Health a Privilege of Wealth
This post was written 5 years ago. It is a sequel to a lecture posted last week on RxISK with its comments - Are Healthcare and Science Compatible? The comments brought out how we now have a system that gaslights both patients and doctors leading to tensions on all sides as this post illustrates. It also links to RxISK's - Guilty Until Proven Innocent - Prime Facie - this … [Read more...] about Health a Privilege of Wealth
The Once and Future Pharmacopsychology
Emil Kraepelin’s famous Textbook created modern psychiatry a hundred and thirty years ago. After the World Wars, Freud’s influence grew and his thinking dominated the US mental health scene after World War II. Nearly 90 years after Kraepelin established his framework, US psychiatry dramatically swept Freud away under the influence of a group of psychiatrists branded as … [Read more...] about The Once and Future Pharmacopsychology
I Come to Praise SSRIs not to Bury Them
This talk was given in Maastricht at the invitation of David Linden, Scientific Director of the Mental Health and Neuroscience Research Institute on November 27 and again to a group of Primary Care Doctors in Sweden at the invitation of André Marx on Nov 28. There were some great questions afterwards. This post gives the text of the talk along with the slides and links to … [Read more...] about I Come to Praise SSRIs not to Bury Them
Authenticity Inc meets Grok
Two weeks ago, RxISK ran Authenticity Inc., a post by Johanna Ryan, which tackled a growing story – the exponentially escalating use of SSRIs among Tik-Toxing and Instagramming Gen Zs, more women than men. A generation for whom these drugs were never approved and for whom SSRIs come with Black Box warnings for suicide. In this post Tik-Tox meets AI following on … [Read more...] about Authenticity Inc meets Grok
Artificial Intelligence Triggers a Tsunami
This post follows on from Miracles of Artificial Intelligence and Artificial I. The trigger was an intervention by Chris Dubey, who earlier this year wrote an article on ECT (electroconvulsive therapy - Shock Treatment) for the International Journal of Risk and Safety in Medicine, which was sent to me for review. Most people, whether familiar or not with ECT, would figure … [Read more...] about Artificial Intelligence Triggers a Tsunami
Artificially Intelligent or Artificial I ?
The image here is the front of the Great Seal of the United States - but it has been doctored. The word Unum is replaced by Mediocris which is not Latin for Mediocrity although it might as well be - it's Latin for Average. Earlier posts have dealt with Artificial Intelligence (AI) issues - The Miracle of Artificial Intelligence - and although it may not look like it is … [Read more...] about Artificially Intelligent or Artificial I ?
Skills and Pills for Depression
David Antonuccio, a close friend for 20 years since we met around the issue of antidepressants and suicide, and now an emeritus Professor of Psychology at the University of Nevada, organized a Skills and Pills for Depression meeting in Reno on October 4 2025. The recordings of the talks are available now. The quality is not perfect, even after a clean-up operation, but … [Read more...] about Skills and Pills for Depression
Health, Care and Science in Real Life
This post was delivered as a Medicine in Crisis lecture at a Pills and Skills for Depression meeting that David Antonuccio organized in Reno Nevada on October 4. Kim Witczak who features throughout the post was a panellist at the meeting. There was an audience of over 200 primarily University of Nevada students - so the talk is not like a tight academic article, it is … [Read more...] about Health, Care and Science in Real Life