Dr Caroline Leaf and Zombie Chemical Imbalance Myth

Posted on December 28, 2018 by cedwardpitt

Sometimes if you tell a story often enough, people forget that it’s just a story and it takes on a life of its own. It’s like a zombie … the story isn’t real but it continues to wander around eating people’s brains and it’s very hard to kill off.

Dr Caroline Leaf is a communication pathologist and self-titled cognitive neuroscientist. She also believes that reading a few blogs from fringe psychologists entitles her to call herself a mental health expert. She is the Christian church’s pin-up girl for the Dunning-Kruger effect.

Dr Leaf recently posted a blog on “The Chemical Imbalance Myth”. It’s a zombie. She’s posted on this before (on the 26th of October 2015 to be precise) but her blog post in 2015 was so inaccurate that she later took it down, only for it to resurface later on her website (in the section dubiously titled “Scientific FAQ”).

And like every good zombie, it’s resurfaced again. Dr Leaf hasn’t changed any of the inaccuracies that forced her to take down the original post, but instead added a couple of extra bits in, mixed it up a little and then just served it up, like a reheated bowl of rancid Christmas scraps.

I won’t go through each and every point like I did with her previous iteration of this blog, although if you want to review my more in-depth analysis of this subject, then please feel free to read my previous blog post: https://cedwardpitt.com/2015/10/26/dr-caroline-leaf-and-the-myth-of-chemical-imbalances-myth/. But I thought it was worth highlighting a couple of key things from this year’s fetid reincarnation which are so flawed that not even a B-grade science fiction writer would seriously entertain them.

THE MIND AND THE BRAIN

Dr Leaf says:

“In other words, mental ill-health is a thought disorder based in the mind, which changes the brain physiologically and is a response to the complex and multifaceted challenges of life.” This is based on her underlying assumption that the brain doesn’t control the mind, but instead the mind controls the brain.

However, she also says that “Psychotropic drugs can directly affect our health, with side effects such as an increased risk of suicide, loss of sexual ability, potential brain shrinkage, agitation, insomnia, weight gain and obesity-related diseases like diabetes, lethargy, mental fog, emotional apathy, homicide”.

This statement is really ignorant and prejudiced; psychiatric drugs don’t make people into murderers for a start.

But the most striking flaw of all is that Dr Leaf is contradicting herself. She confidently asserts that psychotropic medications and their terrible chemical imbalances have ghastly side effects on emotional and cognitive functions such as “mental fog” and “emotional apathy”. But how can that be? After all, if the brain does not control the mind as she says, then the medications affecting the brain would not have any effect on the mind.

Dr Leaf can’t have it both ways – either her entire ministry is built on a false premise (the brain really controls the mind after all) or her dire assertions about psychiatric medications are unfounded (chemical imbalances in the brain can’t cause effects on the mind).

One way or the other, Dr Leaf has a serious problem in her reasoning.

Real science has clearly demonstrated that the mind is a product of the brain. Things that alter the structure of the brain (trauma, tumours) or the function of the brain (medications like ropinirole, every day drugs like caffeine, or illicit drugs like LSD) can all cause changes in how the mind functions with resulting changes in behaviour.

If Dr Leaf isn’t able to get the basics of science right and make even the most basic cogent argument then how can she be trusted to speak to more complicated issues surrounding mental health and illness.

DR LEAF’S RESEARCH

Dr Leaf has never been one to undersell her scientific work. Accordingly, in her blog post she says:

Following a similar research path, I have also demonstrated, using my research on the power of mind-action in changing the brain, that mental disorders are primarily based in the mind …

I have researched the effectiveness of mind action techniques (which are thought-based) in overcoming the negative effects of neurological issues such as TBI, dementias, movement disorders, autism, aphasia, and learning disabilities, emotional trauma as well as various cognitive, emotional and mental health issues …

My Geodesic Learning Theory has been shown not only to be effective in mental health care, but also treating physical damage to the brain that occurs in Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), learning disabilities and to improve learning techniques in both schools and the corporate world …

my research and experience indicated that many of these conditions were influenced by, or originated in, a disorder of the mind that was either caused by a trauma or negative thinking patterns. In other words, mental ill-health is a thought disorder based in the mind, which changes the brain physiologically and is a response to the complex and multifaceted challenges of life.

And yet the reality is that Dr Leaf only did one PhD in South Africa, and has not done any other university based research since. Her PhD did not look at “the power of mind-action in changing the brain”. In fact, her research didn’t focus on mental health or illness at all, and it certainly didn’t focus on dementias, movement disorders, autism, aphasia, and learning disabilities, emotional trauma, cognitive, emotional or mental health issues.

Her PhD was the evaluation of her Geodesic Learning Theory on a group of very normal students in a South African School. None of them had dementia. None of the other conditions were mentioned either. The overall results were likely due to chance, and in some cases, her intervention made the students grades worsen. The only other research that Dr Leaf performed was a similar intervention in come schools in Dallas, but the results were much the same as her PhD and given the unflattering results, this study was never published in a peer-reviewed journal.

Dr Leaf should know what she studied for her own research, and yet her description in her current blog post is so strikingly different from what is on the public record. So again, this begs the question – how can someone who is so wrong about her own research be trusted with any level of authority in any other subject?

PREJUDICE AGAINST MENTAL ILLNESS

For someone who claims to be an expert on mental health, Dr Leaf is extremely callous and dismissive of those people who suffer from mental illnesses. She repeatedly uses quotation marks to refer to mental illnesses, like ‘“diseases” like depression’ as if to suggest that they aren’t illnesses at all. Can you imagine if this same level of disrespect was applied to someone with a physical disability? That people in wheelchairs have the “disability” of paraplegia, for example. It’s extremely disrespectful and intolerant whether it is speaking about a physical disability or a mental illness.

The other thing which is highly inappropriate is her scare-mongering about psychiatric treatments. Psychiatric patients are not imprisoned, drugged, locked in solitary confinement and compelled to “live their days marinating in their own excrement.” I doubt whether Dr Leaf has ever set foot in a psychiatric facility. She is simply regurgitating the information fed to her by alarmist groups such as Mad In America, a group of psychologically trained rogue extremists – the Taliban of the world of psychiatry. It’s propaganda in it’s purest form, but Dr Leaf takes it at face value and repeats it no matter how inaccurate it actually is.

Dr Leaf’s criticism of modern psychiatry is breathtaking in it’s ignorance, especially in the face of published science, but what makes it more concerning is that it is internally inconsistent her own teaching, and this isn’t the first time that she’s contradicted herself.

Dr Leaf should take down this ignorant, inaccurate and intolerant post. This particular zombie myth needs to be buried once and for all.

Can an aspirin a day keep the psychiatrist away?

Posted on May 2, 2016 by cedwardpitt

Floating across my Facebook feed this morning was an article on the possible link between depression and inflammation. Its premise was that depression, the joyless soul-sucking disease affecting millions of people around the world, is related to inflammation. If that were true, might mean that we could cure depression with medications that stop inflammation. Maybe we should be consuming an aspirin a day to keep the doctor away, and not the proverbial apple?

Inflammation is a hot topic right now. Inflammation in the medical sense refers to a normal body process to promote healing and recovery from sickness or injury. It’s a complex dance of chemical signals which is triggered by damage to tissue. Inflammation is essential to life. Without it, we would be unable to repair our tissues if they were damaged.

When tissues are damaged, a number of local cells in the damaged area release pro-inflammatory cytokines which then trigger a cascade of responses; increase in the size of the local blood vessels to allow greater blood flow to the area, attracting pus-cells (neutrophils) to the area, and increasing the ‘leakiness’ of the blood vessels to allow the pus cells into the area. This response is governed by a number of chemical mediators throughout the body, including histamine, serotonin, complement system, kinins, substance P, prostaglandins and leukotrienes, cytokines and nitric oxide. Anti-inflammatory cytokines balance out the process, keeping the pro-inflammatory cytokines in check so that the process doesn’t spiral out of control.

Despite the literal plethora of chemical reactions going on simultaneously, most of the time the reaction eventually runs out of noxious agents, the anti-inflammatory cytokines dampen down the reaction, and the tissue returns to either normal, or at least functional. Though inflammation isn’t just limited to repairing damage but also preparing for damage –psychological stress prepares the inflammation system for potential damage. Physical stress triggers the inflammation system to repair any damage.

Chronic inflammation occurs when the acute illness or injury does not fully resolve and continues to smoulder, the natural healing pathway is obstructed, or the body remains in a psychological state in which it is always expecting a fight. In chronic inflammation, the processes of active inflammation, tissue destruction and attempts at healing occur simultaneously. In terms of cytokines, the anti-inflammatory cytokines can’t balance out the excess pro-inflammatory cytokines.

There’s a theory about depression which is gaining momentum within the scientific community, that depression and a number of other psychiatric and neurodegenerative conditions are the result of chronic inflammation which occurs because of chronic stress.

Remember when I said before that psychological stress readies the inflammatory system for potential damage? Well, what if that damage never comes? If there’s chronic psychological stress, the system is constantly being worn down, and never getting a chance to recover. This seems to make sense – chronic stress reduces new nerve cell production and growth, and may interfere with the action of nerve growth factors like BDNF and neurotransmitters like serotonin. Hence why this article by Feelguide seems to ring true.

But is it true? Is depression fundamentally an inflammatory disease, and if so, can we treat it with medications that decrease inflammation, like aspirin?

Let’s go through the various statements made in the Feelguide article and see what the medical evidence says.

First, a necessary correction to avoid confusion. The Feelguide article says that, “New research is revealing that many cases of depression are caused by an allergic reaction to inflammation.” Depression is not an allergic reaction. A true allergy is an antibody response which releases a chemical called histamine from cells called mast cells. If the current theory about depression and inflammation is true, then depression is related to cytokines, chemicals that are entirely different to histamine. It may be really annoying to sneeze like you’re demon possessed if a cat’s been in the same room a week ago, but it’s not going to make you depressed.

Is inflammation caused by obesity, high sugar diets, high quantities of trans fats, unhealthy diets in general? There’s limited evidence that the foods you eat result in inflammation. Most of the positive data comes from observational studies which are relatively weak. Better, stronger studies generally give conflicting information [1]. For example, if high fat, sugary foods were really the cause of low grade inflammation, then diets like the Palaeolithic diet, which replace sugary, fatty processed foods with a bucket load of vegetables should improve inflammation. Yet there have been no statistically significant changes in inflammatory markers recorded in subjects following the Palaeolithic diet [2].

The Feelguide article claims that, “By treating the inflammatory symptoms of depression – rather than the neurological ones – researchers and doctors are opening up an exciting new dimension in the fight against what has become a global epidemic”, but let’s not get too excited. Again, there’s precious little evidence that medications or supplements reported to reduce inflammation make any difference to depression. For example, the article mentions omega-3 and curcumin as having some benefit in the treatment of depression, which is half-right. There’s some evidentiary support that EPA-predominant omega-3 supplements may have some effect on depression, but none at all for DHA omega-3’s [3] or curcumin [4].

When it comes to other medications with an anti-inflammatory effect, the results are similarly mixed. The issue seems to be the specific cellular action of the medication on a particular immune cell in the brain called the microglial cell. For example, normal anti-inflammatory medications like aspirin and other Non-Steroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs (NSAID’s) increased the activity of these special microglial cells which resulted in an increase in depressive symptoms in otherwise healthy individuals, whereas a medication called minocycline has been noted to decrease the activity of these microglia, and reduced the risk of depressive symptoms (in animal studies at least) [5].

So we really can’t say whether medications believed to have an anti-inflammatory effect really have any significant benefit. As neuroscientists, Dr Dora Brites and Dr Adelaide Fernandes wrote,

“Nevertheless, we should be cautious in believing that depression can be treated by therapies targeting inflammation. Further studies are required to evaluate whether a combined therapy with anti-inflammatory compounds and antidepressants will result in additional clinical benefits.” [5]

That’s really because we don’t know whether inflammation causes depression, or if depression causes inflammation. The article by Feelguide seem pretty confident, but the science is still a long way from being settled.

The final word is this:
1. Depression is complicated and still poorly understood.
2. It may be related to inflammation, but please don’t rely on herbs or medications that claim to have anti-inflammatory or “immune boosting” properties.
3. If you really want to try and treat your depression without pharmaceutical medications, take some EPA Omega 3 supplements by all means, although I’d encourage you to exercise and engage with a good psychologist too, both of which have more evidence of benefit overall.

References

[1]        Minihane AM, Vinoy S, Russell WR, et al. Low-grade inflammation, diet composition and health: current research evidence and its translation. The British journal of nutrition 2015 Oct 14;114(7):999-1012.
[2]        Pitt CE. Cutting through the Paleo hype: The evidence for the Palaeolithic diet. Aust Fam Physician 2016 Jan-Feb;45(1):35-8.
[3]        Hallahan B, Ryan T, Hibbeln JR, et al. Efficacy of omega-3 highly unsaturated fatty acids in the treatment of depression. The British journal of psychiatry : the journal of mental science 2016 Apr 21.
[4]        Andrade C. A critical examination of studies on curcumin for depression. J Clin Psychiatry 2014 Oct;75(10):e1110-2.
[5]        Brites D, Fernandes A. Neuroinflammation and Depression: Microglia Activation, Extracellular Microvesicles and microRNA Dysregulation. Front Cell Neurosci 2015;9:476.

Dr Caroline Leaf and her can of worms

Posted on October 18, 2015 by cedwardpitt

Dr Caroline Leaf is a communication pathologist and a self-titled cognitive neuroscientist. She also likes to think that she’s an expert on mental health. So this morning, she felt like she was quite justified in publishing a meme about the evils of psychiatric medications.

She quoted Professor Peter Gøtzsche, stating that “Psychiatric Drugs are the third leading cause of death, after heart disease and cancer.” Then followed it with “Take all thoughts into captivity, not drug all thoughts into captivity. You have the mind of Christ! (1 Cor 2:16) **DRUG WITHDRAWAL should ALWAYS be done under the supervision of a qualified professional. These drugs alter your brain chemistry, and withdrawal can be a difficult process.”

The subsequent comments were primarily made up of the usual sycophantic responses that Dr Leaf has cultivated by blocking anyone that disagrees with her. But there were more than the usual responses confused by her meme, and quite a few that we’re asking for help in weaning off the medications that they were on.

Then there were those who weren’t happy at all. One respondent, a certified Nurse Practitioner, wrote, “I am appalled that you are posting this inaccurate information and causing vulnerable people to possibly stop taking medication that may be allowing them to function and live.” The same person followed up with another comment soon after, quoting the CDC figures for the top ten causes of death in the US, in which the third on the list wasn’t psychiatric drugs at all, but chronic lower respiratory diseases.

The overall response must have taken her aback, because Dr Leaf posted a follow-up comment to explain herself, an unusual step for her.

In it, she said, “I do not speak out against psychiatric medication because I want to condemn people, or make them feel guilty. I want to help people. If, for example, I knew that eating some food could kill you or seriously injure you, and kept this to myself, you would justifiably be angry at me. These drugs have serious, proven long term side affects that are hidden from the public, and the logic behind them is not God’s desire for you to be healthy in your spirit, soul and body. Psychiatric drugs are based off of a theoretical view of evolution as a mindless, unguided process that created you as mechanistic individual with a biological brain that has chemicals that need to be “balanced”. You are more than your biology; you are the temple of the Lord, created in his image. This is not a game: these drugs can decrease your lifespan by 15-25 years. I want you to have those 15-25 years, and I want them to be characterized by God’s perfect, good plan for your life. I ask you to not to just take my word for this, but to do your own research. You can find a multitude of references on my site http://www.drleaf.com under Scientific FAQs. It is my earnest desire that people do not perish for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6). **DRUG WITHDRAWAL should ALWAYS be done under the supervision of a qualified professional. These drugs alter your brain chemistry, and withdrawal can be a difficult process.”

But it was too late. Dr Leaf had opened a can of worms, and once out, those wriggly little critters are impossible to put back in.

Both her initial offering and her reply shows just how poor Dr Leaf’s understanding of mental health truly is. She is fixated on the notion that the mind controls the brain, and she is unwilling to consider any other notion, instead preferring to accept any opinion that conforms to her world view, no matter how poorly conceived it might be. This includes the work of Gøtzsche, accepting it as gospel even though he has critics of his own.

It’s important to examine Dr Leaf’s reply in more detail as her statement has the potential to cause a great deal of harm to those who are the most vulnerable. Lets break down Dr Leaf’s statement and review each piece, and then I will outline some other important and contradictory considerations of Dr Leaf’s stance.

The safety of psychiatric medications

Dr Leaf claims that “These drugs have serious, proven long term side affects {sic} that are hidden from the public” and “This is not a game: these drugs can decrease your lifespan by 15-25 years.”

Dr Leaf is right in saying that psychiatric medications have serious proven long term side effects. And we should be careful. I mean, if you knew that thrombocytopenia, anaphylaxis, cutaneous hypersensitivity reactions including skin rashes, angioedema and Stevens Johnson syndrome, bronchospasm and hepatic dysfunction were the potential side effects for a medication, would you take it?

Most people wouldn’t. Reading the list makes that drug sound really dangerous. We should be up in arms about such a dangerous drug … except that this list of side effects isn’t for a psychiatric drug at all, but is actually the side effect profile of paracetamol (Panadol if you’re in Australia, Tylenol if you’re in the US). People take paracetamol all the time without even thinking about it. Saying that we shouldn’t take medications because of potential side effects is a scarecrow argument, a scary sounding straw man fallacy. All drugs have serious proven long term side effects, and most of the time, those serious long term side effects don’t occur. Licensing and prescribing a medication depends on the overall balance of the good and the risk of harm that a medication does.

Oh, and no one has ever hidden these side effects from the public as if there’s some giant conspiracy from the doctors and the pharmaceutical companies. The side effects are listed right there in the product information (here is the product information for fluoxetine. See for yourself).

As for Dr Leaf’s assertion that psychiatric medications decrease your lifespan by 10-25 years, I think that’s a red herring. I read through Dr Leaf’s ‘Scientific FAQ’ and I couldn’t find any references that back up these statements, so who knows where she got this figure of ’15-25 years’ from.

On the contrary, what is known is that severe mental illness is associated with a 2 to 3-fold increase in mortality, which translates to an approximately 10-25 year shortening of the lifespan of those afflicted with severe depression, schizophrenia or bipolar disorder [1]. So Dr Leaf has it backwards. It isn’t the medications that cause people who take them to die 25 years earlier than they would have without the illness, but it’s the illness itself.

The benefits of long term psychiatric medications

So psychiatric medications have their side effects, true, but they also have protective benefits which Dr Leaf consistently fails to acknowledge.

Correll and colleagues note in the conclusion to their article that “Although antipsychotics have the greatest potential to adversely affect physical health, it is important to note that several large, nationwide studies providing generalizable data have suggested that all-cause mortality is higher in patients with schizophrenia not receiving antipsychotics.” [1]

More specifically, in one recent study, the use of any anti-psychotic medication for a patient with schizophrenia decreased their mortality by nearly 20% [2]. In another study, the mortality of those with schizophrenia who did not take anti-psychotics was nearly ten times that of the healthy population, but taking anti-psychotic medication cut that back to only four times the risk [3].

These findings are mirrored by other studies on other psychiatric medications. For example, as noted by Correll and colleagues, “clozapine, antidepressants, and lithium, as well as antiepileptics, are associated with reduced mortality from suicide. Thus, the potential risks of antipsychotics, antidepressants and mood stabilizers need to be weighed against the risk of the psychiatric disorders for which they are used and the lasting potential benefits that these medications can produce.” [1]

So psychiatric medications are not useless. Let me be clear, I’m not saying that taking psychiatric medications always makes life a cake-walk – there are still side effects from the medications, and the disease isn’t always fully controlled. But on average, well treated patients with psychiatric conditions clearly do better than patients who are not treated.

Therefore Dr Leaf’s assertion that psychiatric medications are harmful are inaccurate. And given that there are genuine benefits to these medications, particularly in the prevention of suicide, Dr Leaf’s discouragement of these medications has the real potential to result in real harm to those of her followers who take her at her word.

The ‘logic’ behind psychiatric medications

Dr Leaf says in her statement, “the logic behind them (psychiatric medications) is not God’s desire for you to be healthy in your spirit, soul and body. Psychiatric drugs are based off of a theoretical view of evolution as a mindless, unguided process that created you as mechanistic individual with a biological brain that has chemicals that need to be ‘balanced’. You are more than your biology; you are the temple of the Lord, created in his image.”

Dr Leaf’s argument here is that based on a false premise and some straw man fallacies which inevitably leads to a false conclusion.

Evolution is a mindless unguided process
Evolution says that you are just a machine
Psychiatric illness is because of a chemical imbalance in that machine (a false premise)

therefore taking psychiatric medication is accepting evolution (a straw man fallacy)

and

You are more than your biology,
you are the temple of the Lord, created in his image,

therefore evolution is wrong (another straw man fallacy)

therefore psychiatric medications are not God’s desire (false conclusion)

The problem with this logic is that it could be applied to all medications, since modern medicine has predominantly been devised by agnostic scientists within an evolutionary framework, and nearly all disease is defined by an imbalance of one thing or another.

For example, simply rewording Dr Leaf’s statement shows up the distorted logic that it entails:

“Insulin can have serious, proven long term side affects that are hidden from the public, and the logic behind it is not God’s desire for you to be healthy in your spirit, soul and body. Diabetes is based off of a theoretical view of evolution as a mindless, unguided process that created you as mechanistic individual with a biological pancreas that has chemicals that need to be ‘balanced’.”

You can’t have this both ways. If psychiatric medications are against God’s plan, then all medications are against God’s plan. But if we accept medications for physical ailments, then we also have to accept medications for psychological ailments.

The Mind-Brain link

Dr Leaf tried to protect herself with a glib disclaimer at the end of both posts in question today, “**DRUG WITHDRAWAL should ALWAYS be done under the supervision of a qualified professional. These drugs alter your brain chemistry, and withdrawal can be a difficult process.”

Which is interesting, because in her Scientific FAQ, Dr Leaf has this to say about the mind,

“The Brain is part of the Physical Body and therefore is controlled by the Mind. The Mind does not emerge from an accumulation of Brain activity. Brain activity, rather, reflects Mind activity. Even though the Mind controls the Brain, the Brain feeds back to, and influences, the Mind. The Brain seats the Mind, and therefore the Mind influences the Physical world through the Brain.”

So if that’s true, then why is withdrawal from psychiatric medication so difficult? If the mind is outside the physical realm and controls the brain as Dr Leaf proposes, then the medications effect on brain chemistry should make little or no difference to the mind, and withdrawal should be simple.

The fact that withdrawal from these medications is not simple is testament to the fact that the mind is a function of the brain, and does not control the brain as Dr Leaf proposes here and through her books and other written materials.

Issuing the warning is responsible, but shows again just how far Dr Leaf’s teaching is from scientific reality.

Dr Leaf’s motivations

Finally, I want to talk about Dr Leaf’s motivation. In her statement, Dr Leaf said, “I do not speak out against psychiatric medication because I want to condemn people, or make them feel guilty. I want to help people.” And, “I want you to have those 15-25 years, and I want them to be characterized by God’s perfect, good plan for your life … It is my earnest desire that people do not perish for lack of knowledge (Hosea 4:6).”

I want to state, for the record, that I believe Dr Leaf when she says this. I don’t doubt her motives are to try and help people. But good intentions are not enough. What she says has real life consequences.

Dr Leaf is idolised by her followers and portrayed as a mental health expert by the churches she preaches at. People don’t question experts recommended to them by their pastors or their friends. So when she says that psychiatric medications kill people, people on psychiatric medications will want to come off them, because of fear, because of stigma, because of their desire to live true to God and his good and perfect plan. Without wanting to sound melodramatic, there is a very real chance that some of those people who were stable on their medications but who unnecessarily cease them because Dr Leaf told them to, may harm themselves or take their own life, since that’s what the studies tell us [1, 4]. At the very least, they are likely to have a shorter life expectancy because of it [2, 3]. So telling people that psychiatric medications are dangerous is morally and ethically dubious.

There are also potential legal implications too. God forbid, but if a person committed suicide because they went off their medication because of what Dr Leaf wrote, law suits could easily follow. No one wants that situation. Dr Leaf also runs the risk of being accused of practicing medicine without a licence, since some of her followers have asked personal medical questions in the comments, and the reply from Dr Leaf’s Facebook team is to direct them to their programs like the 21-day detox, which depending on the legal interpretation and the mood of a judge, could be seen as giving medical advice, which Dr Leaf is not legally qualified to give.

To summarise, I certainly hope that neither of these hypothetical scenarios becomes reality, but Dr Leaf and her social media team are skating on thin ice, and a glib disclaimer at the end of a post won’t necessarily cut it.

I would hope that Dr Leaf and her social media team would reconsider their approach. In fact, I would suggest that Dr Leaf unequivocally apologises for what she’s written, retracts her statement, and encourages people to see their doctors if they have concerns about their medication, or their mental health.

Indeed, I would implore Dr Leaf to step back and re-evaluate the entire breadth of her teaching, and the advice that she is giving. Dr Leaf is obviously a very smart woman and a very engaging speaker. With great power comes great responsibility. If she were to reconsider her teaching and start from a basis of scientific fact, then she could be a major force for the good of the church and its physical and mental health. At the moment, I fear that she is doing the opposite.

This is not a game: people’s lives are at stake. I hope that Dr Leaf sees this before it’s too late.

References

[1]        Correll CU, Detraux J, De Lepeleire J, De Hert M. Effects of antipsychotics, antidepressants and mood stabilizers on risk for physical diseases in people with schizophrenia, depression and bipolar disorder. World psychiatry : official journal of the World Psychiatric Association 2015 Jun;14(2):119-36.
[2]        Tiihonen J, Lonnqvist J, Wahlbeck K, et al. 11-year follow-up of mortality in patients with schizophrenia: a population-based cohort study (FIN11 study). Lancet 2009 Aug 22;374(9690):620-7.
[3]        Torniainen M, Mittendorfer-Rutz E, Tanskanen A, et al. Antipsychotic treatment and mortality in schizophrenia. Schizophrenia bulletin 2015 May;41(3):656-63.
[4]        Tiihonen J, Suokas JT, Suvisaari JM, Haukka J, Korhonen P. Polypharmacy with antipsychotics, antidepressants, or benzodiazepines and mortality in schizophrenia. Archives of general psychiatry 2012 May;69(5):476-83.

Here’s my glib disclaimer: This article is a rebuttal of Dr Leaf’s opinion regarding psychiatric medication. This blog doesn’t constitute individual medical advice. If you do not like your medication or think you should come off it, please talk to your own GP or psychiatrist. Do not stop it abruptly or without adequate medical advice.

Dr Caroline Leaf – Exacerbating the Stigma of Mental Illness

Posted on October 18, 2014 by cedwardpitt

It was late in the afternoon, you know, that time when the caffeine level has hit critical and the only way you can concentrate on the rest of the day is the promise you’ll be going home soon.

The person sitting in front of me was a new patient, a professional young woman in her late 20’s, of Pakistani descent. She wasn’t keen to discuss her problems, but she didn’t know what else to do. After talking to her for a few minutes, it was fairly obvious that she was suffering from Generalised Anxiety Disorder, and I literally mean suffering. She was always fearful but without any reason to be so. She couldn’t eat, she couldn’t sleep, her heart raced all the time.

I was actually really worried for her. She let me do some basic tests to rule out any physical cause that was contributing to her symptoms, but that was as far as she let me help her. Despite talking at length about her diagnosis, she could not accept the fact that she had a psychiatric condition, and did not accept any treatment for it. She chose not to follow up with me either. I only saw her twice.

Perhaps it was fear for her job, social isolation, or a cultural factor. Perhaps it was the anxiety itself. Whatever the reason, despite having severe ongoing symptoms, she could not accept that she was mentally ill. She was a victim twice over, suffering from both mental illness, and its stigma.

Unfortunately, this young lady is not an isolated case. Stigma follows mental illness like a shadow, an extra layer of unnecessary suffering, delaying proper diagnosis and treatment of diseases that respond best to early intervention.

What contributes to the stigma of mental illness? Fundamentally, the stigma of mental illness is based on ignorance. Ignorance breeds stereotypes, stereotypes give rise to prejudice, and prejudice results in discrimination. This ignorance usually takes three main forms; people with mental illness are homicidal maniacs who need to be feared; they have childlike perceptions of the world that should be marveled; or they are responsible for their illness because they have weak character [1].

Poor information from people who claim to be experts doesn’t help either. For example, on her social media feed today, Dr Caroline Leaf said, “Psychiatric labels lock people into mental ill-health; recognizing the mind can lead us into trouble and that our mind is powerful enough to lead us out frees us! 2 Timothy1:7 Teaching on mental health @TrinaEJenkins 1st Baptist Glenardin.”

Dr Caroline Leaf is a communication pathologist and self-titled cognitive neuroscientist. It’s disturbing enough that Dr Leaf, who did not train in cognitive neuroscience, medicine or psychology, can stand up in front of people and lecture as an “expert” in mental health. It’s even more disturbing when her views on mental health are antiquated and inane.

Today’s post, for example. Suggesting that psychiatric labels lock people in to mental ill-health is like saying that a medical diagnosis locks them into physical ill-health. It’s a nonsense. Does diagnosing someone with cancer lock them into cancer? It’s the opposite, isn’t it? Once the correct diagnosis is made, a person with cancer can receive the correct treatment. Failing to label the symptoms correctly simply allows the disease to continue unabated.

Mental illness is no different. A correct label opens the door to the correct treatment. Avoiding a label only results in an untreated illness, and more unnecessary suffering.

Dr Leaf’s suggestion that psychiatric labels lock people in to their illness is born out of a misguided belief about the power of words over our thoughts and our health in general, an echo of the pseudo-science of neuro-linguistic programming.

The second part of her post, that “recognizing the mind can lead us into trouble and that our mind is powerful enough to lead us out frees us” is also baseless. Her assumptions, that thought is the main driving force that controls our lives, and that fixing our thought patterns fixes our physical and psychological health, are fundamental to all of her teaching. I won’t go into it again here, but further information on how Dr Leaf’s theory of toxic thinking contradicts basic neuroscience can be found in a number of my blogs, and in the second half of my book [2].

I’ve also written on 2 Timothy 1:7 before, another of Dr Leaf’s favourite scriptures, a verse whose meaning has nothing to do with mental health, but seized upon by Dr Leaf because one English translation of the original Greek uses the words “a sound mind”.

So Dr Leaf believes that labelling someone as having a mental illness will lock them into that illness, an outdated, unscientific and purely illogical notion that is only going to increase the stigma of mental illness. If I were @TrinaEJenkins and the good parishioners of 1st Baptist Glenardin, I would be asking for my money back.

With due respect, and in all seriousness, the stigma of mental illness is already disproportionate. Mental illness can cause insurmountable suffering, and sometimes death, to those who are afflicted by it. The Christian church does not need misinformation compounding the suffering for those affected by poor mental health. Dr Leaf should not be lecturing anyone on mental health until she has been properly credentialed.

References

Corrigan, P.W. and Watson, A.C., Understanding the impact of stigma on people with mental illness. World Psychiatry, 2002. 1(1): 16-20 http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16946807
Pitt, C.E., Hold That Thought: Reappraising the work of Dr Caroline Leaf, 2014 Pitt Medical Trust, Brisbane, Australia, URL http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/466848

Dr C. Edward Pitt

Faith, Hope, Love, Science.

Tag Archives: psychiatric

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