Psychiatric Turf War

Joel and Ian Gold are brothers. Joel, a psy­chiatrist and psychoanalyst, teaches in New York. Ian, a PhD in psychology and philosophy, is at McGill University. They are part of a movement to drag psychiatry away from neurochemical thinking and to restore a place for social causation of illness, rather than just neurotransmitters that are out of whack.

Is this overdue? Yes. I am going to have a few critical things to say about the Golds’ book, Suspicious Minds: How Culture Shapes Madness, but I want to make clear up front that it should be seen as a kind of intellectual landmark, with social psychiatry launching this well-written, often amusing and frequently convincing counterattack on the neurotransmitter gang. After a slew of books on the miracles of the neurosciences, it is refreshing to see a raised eyebrow, a mouth downturned in scorn, a reaching back to the older...