Readers Respond
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You can read here a response to the last issue of Mens Sana Monographs Series:
 
Medical Practice, Psychiatry and the Pharmaceutical Industry: And Ever the Trio Shall Meet, Mens Sana Monographs, Mens Sana Research Foundation (2005), Vol II, No 6, Vol III, No 1-3, March - October 2005.
ISSN 0973-1229.
ISBN 81-89753-11-8.
 
 
Please allow me to congratulate you on bringing out Mens Sana 8th and 9th Monographs on Medical Practice, Psychiatry and the Pharmaceutical Industry. You and Shakuntala have obviously put in an enormous effort to study dozens of documents, articles and books to bring out such a comprehensive review of this topic with focus on important areas for debate in India. You deserve congratulations of all the readers of these Monographs.
 
 
Dr. Narendra N. Wig
Prof Emeritus Psychiatry,
PGIMER, Chandigarh, India.
8th Sept, 2005.
 
 
(For responses to earlier Monographs see end of respective Monographs.) 
 
You can read here some responses to an earlier issue of the Mens Sana Monographs Series:
 
Resolution of the Polarisation of Ideologies and Approaches in Psychiatry
Mens Sana Monographs, Mens Sana Research Foundation
(2004-2005), Vol II, No 4-5, Nov 2004 - Feb 2005.
ISSN 0973-1229. 
ISBN 81-98753-08-8. 
 

Mens Sana Monographs [MSM]: A Mens Sana Research Foundation Publication

 
1.
I read with interest and appreciation your Monograph Resolution of the Polarisation of Ideologies and Approaches in Psychiatry. When I was a medical student in CMC, Vellore, Dr. Stafford Clark from UK visited us and gave a public lecture. The main message was that all diseases are psychosomatic, in the sense that emotions are involved in all diseases, either in the causation or in the perpetuation. This is all the more true in Psychiatry. The so called polarisation into biological and dynamic psychiatry is artificial and misleading. In all psychiatric conditions, both genetic and environmental factors are involved. The only difference is in the degree of involvement. In psychoses, genetic factors are more important than environmental factors and in neurotic and personality disorders, environmental factors are more important. We have to advocate integration and not polarisation. There should be only one school of psychiatry-- biopsychosocial model as proposed by Engel.
 
Dr. Abraham Verghese
Retd. Prof. of Psychiatry
CMC, Vellore
14-2-2005
 
 
 
2.
 The  Monograph " Resolution of the Polarization of Ideologies and Approaches in Psychiatry " is thought provoking.  It has come out very well.
 
 
J.K.Trivedi
President, Indian Psychiatric Society
27-1-2005
via email

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I MONOGRAPH

Psychiatric Consequences of WTC Collapse and The Gulf War, 

ISSN 0973-1229.

ISBN 81-89753-00-2.


Readers Respond

 

 

I am writing this letter to express my appreciation of the work you are doing. It is something different from the routine medical articles in India and hence a refreshing and welcome change.

N. N. Wig Prof. Emeritus, Psychiatry, PGIMER, Chandigarh

 

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I congratulate you for writing a very important document. As you know we have been working with the various disasters in the last 20 years. It will be useful if we can get together and discuss the common areas of interest.

R. Srinivasa Murthy Prof. of Psychiatry NIMHANS

 

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Comments

(I) About the Monograph :

(1) It is an important issue and very timely, and can be a good stimulus for Indian authors to start addressing such problems in greater numbers.

 (2) For a monograph, it is too brief. The historical background (the studies of PTSDs in the past wars/disasters) could have been in greater detail; and the outcome of those sufferers (if any such studies are available) could have been included.

 (3) Even now, you can, if you find it reasonable, attempt the above in the Monograph’s next edition.*

 (4) Keep up the good work.

(II) About the contents/issues raised in the Monograph :

 (1) Your idea of three earlier revolutions in the field of mental health is excellent. But the fourth revolution is not “evidence-based, integrated movement in Psychiatry”. The reasons for this are many :

(a) Evidences that are currently available are not complete, nor are they capable of integration. So far, majority of research findings are ‘disconnected’ islands (not comparable, not logically connected, etc.), based exclusively on (i) politics of research financing (ii) Conveniences of research guides, etc.

 (b) Available evidences are skewed or distorted (viz: ‘biological basis of behaviour’ as against the accumulating “evidence” that psychology influences biology/biochemistry!), predominantly influenced by pharmacological monarchs.

 (c) Because of the reasons sited in ‘a’ above, a proper integration is not yet possible. Ofcourse, attempts in that direction are always worthwhile.

(2) Really, the fourth revolution will be (or can be) when all medicine is acknowledged as psychosomatic medicine (for example, in Ayurveda, there is not a single disease one of whose etiological factors is not psychological); when it is recognised that an individual’s attitude and value systems will play a major role in whether he is healthy or ill.

(3) The questions that you have raised at the end are not easily answerable in a way that majority of people want to benefit from the answers.

(a) Every individual is in search of truth, but he/she wants the truth according to his own expectations. Most people are terrified by the truth. A proof of this statement in the present day culture is where progress (individual level, social level, or cultural level) is equated with a behaviour of pretence! People always strive to project an image contrary to what is .

 (b) Over the decades (or centuries), there have been an erosion of values( let alone social values, even of such a personal value as sincerity to one’s own belief systems). Consequently, such a corruption of values has spread to intellect, social interactions, commerce, and political behaviour. The consequences of what is happening all over the world can be likened to a state of ‘septicemia’ of the human race!

(c) I am not at all a pessimist. I believe that nature will cure this septicemia, but the price will be very heavy, and the time-scale very large.

 

- Prof. Dr.C. Shamasundar, (Retired), NIMHANS

 

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This is to felicitate you two on your endeavour to bring about the FourthPsychiatric Revolution through the Mens Sana Monographs - All the very Best! I wish to share with you a Quotation from a Discourse of the Buddha to the Kalamas, which perhaps is the First Charter of Freedom of Thought in human history. The Buddha advises therein :

DON’T ACCEPT SOMETHING BECAUSE (I) you have heard it many times; (2) it has been believed in traditionally for generations; (3) it has been believed in by a large number of people; (4) it is in accordance with your scriptures; (5) it seems logical; (6) it is in line with your own beliefs; (7) it is proclaimed by your teacher, who has an attractive personality and for whom you have great respect.

ACCEPT IT ONLY AFTER you have realised it yourself at the experiential level and found it to be wholesome and beneficial to one and all*. Then not only accept it but also live up to it.

Dr. R. M. Chokhani Psychiatrist, Mumbai

 

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