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James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · 13h

Assuming a 'diagnostic identity' as your core identity (as it's supposedly hardwired into your brain) centres 'disorder' as a core & enduring characteristic of your self, over which the psych elite now have ideological & instrumental authority. This doesn’t sound like liberation.

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James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · 10d

If I’m sitting next to someone at a event whose politics I disagree with, rather than enter a debate with them, I've learnt to explore why they hold their views. That way I usually learn something intriging, while they feel heard. And overall its a far more pleasant & instructive evening.

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James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · Aug 3

If you think expanding the mental health sector is the way to remedy growing societial suffering, you've drunk the cool aid. The expansion of that sector (its ideology & interventions) only worsens the problem. The solution is the right kind of social, economic & political change.

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James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · Jul 19

The BMJ has altered it's original news piece on the recent antidepressant withdrawal study, "to clarify the study’s limitations and to add comments from James Davies" as the editor says....
- We all appreciate this critical amendment 👇
www.bmj.com/content/390/...

Most people have no severe withdrawal from antidepressants, large review finds

Most people do not experience severe withdrawal when discontinuing antidepressants, and clinical guidelines should be updated to reflect this, say the UK authors of the largest review of the evidence ...

www.bmj.com

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James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · Jul 15

"This flawed & misleading paper should at the very least be amended to reflect its clear limitations, with a formal acknowledgement by the authors. I will be writing to the Chief Medical Officer to this effect".
- Dr Simon Opher, Labour MP

www.standard.co.uk/comment/anti...

Don't believe the lies - antidepressant withdrawal is a real crisis

Many people have difficulties stopping antidepressants. Particularly if they have been taking these drugs for a long time, when they are at risk of suffering severe and long-lasting effects from withd...

www.standard.co.uk

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Reposted by James Davies PhD

James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · Jul 12

I think it is poor. He seems oblivious to the fact that there are longer-term RCTs on withdrawal, and that ANTLER was not included in the review's primary analysis! He writes with authority yet makes very basic errors.....

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James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · Jul 12

I think it is poor. He seems oblivious to the fact that there are longer-term RCTs on withdrawal, and that ANTLER was not included in the review's primary analysis! He writes with authority yet makes very basic errors.....

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James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · Jul 11

My response in New York Times: “If you are looking at people on the drugs for eight weeks, you are not going to find withdrawal,” said James Davies “It’s like saying cocaine isn’t addictive because we did a study on people who had only been taking it for eight weeks"👇
www.nytimes.com/2025/07/09/h...

New Research Questions Severity of Withdrawal From Antidepressants

www.nytimes.com

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James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · Jul 11

I delivered a presentation yesterday in the Houses of Parliament, Westminster, on the over-prescribing of antidepressants. Here is one of my slides👇

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James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · Jul 9

Researchers at Imperial College and King’s College London have been accused of endangering patient safety after publishing a study suggesting that most people do not experience severe withdrawal after coming off the drugs". #backfire
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/07...

Scientists accused of downplaying dangers of antidepressants

Row breaks out over risk of patients experiencing severe withdrawals

www.telegraph.co.uk

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James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · Jul 1

The word 'depression' is a catch-all phrase which, once you get to know a person deeply, tells us very little about the nuances, origins & substance of their experience. I find the phrase clinically unhelpful & the medicalised meanings with which it is laden regularly misleading.

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James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · Jun 28

As Robert Spitzer (chair of DSM-III) once told me about DSM-5: they created it to make money. As everyone would need to buy the new edition, the publisher, American Psychiatric Association, would make millions a year selling it. The same for DSM-6... New edition, familiar hustle.

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James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · Jun 27

Nearly 40% of women have a "mental health condition" says survey. Can't we ditch that language & the ideology it propagates & rather say: such women are in emotional pain, often for obvious socio-relational reasons. This take obliges a different response.

www.theguardian.com/society/2025...

One in four young people in England have mental health condition, NHS survey finds

Rates are higher in young women as in young men and mental ill health up across age groups, study shows

www.theguardian.com

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Reposted by James Davies PhD

Dr Chris Forman @drcjforman.bsky.social · Jun 22

Psychology students, if you are looking for an example of conflicts of interest in research and theory development, look no further.

James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · Jun 22

Maria A Oquendo, the new Chair of DSM-6 (yes it's coming) has received unrestricted educational grants and/or lecture fees form AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Janssen, Otsuka, Pfizer, Sanofi-Aventis, and Shire. She receives royalties from the commercial use of....

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James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · Jun 22

...the commercial use of the C-SSRS, and her family owns stock in Bristol-Myers Squibb. More of the compromised same....

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James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · Jun 22

Maria A Oquendo, the new Chair of DSM-6 (yes it's coming) has received unrestricted educational grants and/or lecture fees form AstraZeneca, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Eli Lilly, Janssen, Otsuka, Pfizer, Sanofi-Aventis, and Shire. She receives royalties from the commercial use of....

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James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · Jun 21

Let's not call for more resilience, diagnoses, drugs, medicalisation & neurofication to address escalating rates of poor mental health, let's call for new social policy to tackle its social determinants & properly fund demedicalised psycho-social support. That's it in a nutshell.

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James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · Jun 18

Pharma is using neurodivergence as an instrument of profit, establishment psychiatry is using it to make biological determinism great again, while the state is using it to exonerate the harms created by neoliberal social structure. The concept is ripe for conservative co-option.

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Reposted by James Davies PhD

Venetia Menzies @venetiamenzies.bsky.social · Jun 15

INVESTIGATION: 7% of England -3.8m people- have been on antidepressants for > 5 years 💊

While effective for some, long term use carries risks + raises chances of withdrawal when stopping, leaving some feeling "trapped" on the drugs @thetimes.com

www.thetimes.com/uk/healthcar...

A generation of women over 50 stuck taking antidepressants

A quarter of women in their fifties and sixties take antidepressants, and 15 per cent of women over 50 have been on them for longer than five years

www.thetimes.com

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James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · Jun 15

7/ To challenge this, we must re-anchor young people’s aspirations in movements for economic justice that confront power directly - not in Tate-like fantasies of personal ascendancy in comtempt of a world whose fate probably deserves to rot far below.

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James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · Jun 15

6/ What looks like entrepreneurial hyper-masculine freedom regularly masks a retreat from mature collective action, reinforcing neoliberal/libertarian ideologies and weakening the potential for substantive reform.

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James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · Jun 15

5/ These promises of ‘rising above’ the foray below obscure the structural causes of inequality, reframing failure as individual weakness (get to the gym!) rather than a product of economic and political arrangements that need to be challenged.

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James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · Jun 15

4/ The effect is a depoliticisation of young people’s economic grievances, redirecting frustration into right-wing promises of personal ascendancy rather than towards hard enagement with systemic reform

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James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · Jun 15

3/ Crucially, these narratives are not neutral. They’re actively co-opted by reactionary figures often on the right (Andrew Tate, crypto maximalists, and others) who weaponise wealth fantasies to pull youth away from political & socially ethical engagement.

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James Davies PhD @drjamesdaviesbskys.bsky.social · Jun 15

2/ These structurally-generated fears & concerns foster susceptibility to narratives promising rapid wealth accumulation via non-traditional routes: crypto, day trading, influencer hustles; schemes that foreground individual gain over collective progress.

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