Identifying priorities for future research on reducing and stopping psychiatric medication: results of a James Lind Alliance priority-setting partnership.

Objective: The objective of this study is to identify the top 10 research priorities on reducing and stopping psychiatric medication that reflect the perspectives and unmet needs of three key stakeholder groups (people with lived experience, family members/carers/supporters and healthcare professionals).

Methods: A priority-setting partnership was conducted using the James Lind Alliance's seven-step process. This involved (1) creating an international Steering Group of key stakeholder representatives and (2) identifying potential partners; (3) gathering stakeholders' uncertainties about reducing and stopping psychiatric medication using an online survey and summarising the survey responses; (4) checking the summary questions against existing evidence and verifying uncertainties; (5) shortlisting the questions using a second online survey; (6) determining the top 10 research questions through a prioritisation workshop; and (7) disseminating the results.

Free Energy Differences in Nonequilibrium Thermodynamic Processes.

Systems which may be allowed to go out of equilibrium have been of interest recently. A quantity is formulated whose average over an ensemble of microscopic realizations of the process depends only on the initial and final states. This is so even though the system may not be in equilibrium during the process.

Falling charge in a gravitational field and radiation reaction.

The Lorentz-Dirac equation is formulated and studied in flat Minkowski spacetime. A concise, novel derivation of the equation is presented. The problem is then enlarged to study radiation damping of an electron moving through a gravitational field.

Priorities for future research on reducing and stopping psychiatric medicines using a James Lind Alliance priority setting partnership: The PROTECT study protocol.

: There is a growing number of service users looking to discontinue use of psychiatric medicines. Tapering is the recommended approach for reducing and/or discontinuing the use of psychiatric medicines. This involves gradually reducing the dose over time to minimise the potential for withdrawal symptoms.

Mahi a Atua: A Māori approach to mental health.

Māori are the indigenous people of Aotearoa New Zealand. European colonisation had a devastating effect on their communities and their way of life. While there is some evidence of a renaissance of Māori culture in recent years, like other indigenous people across the world, they continue to be massively overrepresented in their country's figures for poor mental and physical health.

Primum non nocere. The case for a critical approach to global mental health.

The Movement for Global Mental Health (MGMH) argues that there is a moral imperative that psychiatric treatments should be made available to all communities across the world. But psychiatric theories, categories and interventions emerged in the Western world are based on a set of assumptions about the nature of the self and society, nature and the supernatural, health and healing that are not universally accepted. In this paper we argue that there is a stronger moral case for caution with regard to the export of psychiatric thinking.

Motion on constant curvature spaces and quantization using Noether symmetries.

A general approach is presented for quantizing a metric nonlinear system on a manifold of constant curvature. It makes use of a curvature dependent procedure which relies on determining Noether symmetries from the metric. The curvature of the space functions as a constant parameter.

Psychiatry beyond the current paradigm.

A series of editorials in this Journal have argued that psychiatry is in the midst of a crisis. The various solutions proposed would all involve a strengthening of psychiatry's identity as essentially 'applied neuroscience'. Although not discounting the importance of the brain sciences and psychopharmacology, we argue that psychiatry needs to move beyond the dominance of the current, technological paradigm.

Psychiatric power: A personal view.

One of the most important questions facing psychiatry today concerns its relationship to the emerging international service user movement. I believe that this movement presents not only the greatest challenge to psychiatry, but also the greatest opportunity. As it becomes more organised and influential this movement is starting to play a major role in shaping the sort of questions that are being asked about mental health services and their priorities.

The Myth of Mental Illness: 50 years after publication: What does it mean today?

In 1960, Thomas Szasz published The Myth of Mental Illness, arguing that mental illness was a harmful myth without a demonstrated basis in biological pathology and with the potential to damage current conceptions of human responsibility. Szasz's arguments have provoked considerable controversy over the past five decades. This paper marks the 50th anniversary of The Myth of Mental Illness by providing commentaries on its contemporary relevance from the perspectives of a range of stakeholders, including a consultant psychiatrist, psychiatric patient, professor of philosophy and mental health, a specialist registrar in psychiatry, and a lecturer in psychiatry.

Recent translations of Foucault on mental health.

Purpose Of Review: The work of the French philosopher and historian, Michel Foucault, often dealt with subjects either directly or indirectly related to psychiatry. In the past, his work has been largely ignored or rejected by mainstream psychiatry.

Recent Findings: In the period under review, two important English translations of Foucault's work on psychiatry have been published.

Hearing voices: A phenomenological-hermeneutic approach.

The word "phenomenology" has a number of meanings. In this paper we briefly contrast the different meanings of the word in psychiatry and philosophy. We then consider the work of the philosophers Heidegger and Merleau-Ponty, as examples of what Hubert Dreyfus calls ontological phenomenology, in contrast to an epistemological approach.

Organ and non-organ specific autoantibody titres and IgG levels as markers of disease activity: a longitudinal study in childhood autoimmune liver disease.

No longitudinal study has investigated whether autoantibody titres and serum IgG levels correlate with disease activity in autoimmune liver disease. To determine this, we investigated prospectively 19 patients on 254 occasions between 10 months to 5 years from diagnosis. Nine had anti-nuclear and/or anti-smooth muscle antibody (ANA/SMA) positive autoimmune hepatitis (type 1 AIH), 5 liver kidney microsomal type 1 (LKM-1) positive AIH (type 2 AIH) and 5 ANA/SMA positive autoimmune sclerosing cholangitis (ASC).