Updated: Oct. 2010

MindFreedom International Scientific Advisory Board:

 

 

• David Antonuccio, PhD
• Fred Baughman, MD
• Mary Boyle, PhD
• David Cohen, PhD
• Sarah Edmonds, PhD
• Albert Galves, PhD
• Jay Joseph, PsyD
• Bruce Levine, PhD
• Craig Newnes, PhD
• Lloyd Ross, PhD
• Stuart Shipko, MD
• Jacqueline Sparks, PhD

 

News Release Announcing Re-Launch of Scientific Advisory Board

 

MindFreedom International announced that its Scientific Advisory Board (SAB) is being revitalized. The Board played a crucial role in the success of MindFreedoms Fast for Freedom hunger strike in August, 2003.

At that time six MindFreedom members vowed to eat no solid food until the American Psychiatric Association (APA), the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI) and the U.S. Surgeon General provided adequate scientific evidence to support the following statements of biopsychiatry: 

• that mental illnesses are biologically-based brain disorders;
• that antidepressant drugs correct chemical imbalances in the brain;
• and that psychotropic drugs are not harmful to people.

The Scientific Advisory Board, comprised of psychiatrists and psychologists, was created to review any scientific evidence that was submitted by the APA, NAMI or the Surgeon General.

Neither NAMI nor the Surgeon General replied to the challenge. The APA submitted references from a neuroscience textbook. The Scientific Advisory Board used statements and citations from that textbook and other scholarly articles to expose the lack of adequate scientific evidence behind the statements of biopsychiatry.

After 25 days, the hunger strikers declared that adequate scientific evidence had not been presented by the challenged organizations and ended the strike.

David Oaks, Executive Director of MindFreedom, said, “The Scientific Advisory Board will continue to serve as the scientific truth committee of MindFreedom, critiquing scholarly articles and textbooks which purport to support the beliefs of biopsychiatry with scientific evidence.”

The MindFreedom Scientific Advisory Board was also involved in a back-and-forth debate with Pfizer, Inc. about the scientific validity of their advertisements claiming that Zoloft “helps correct” a chemical imbalance.

MindFreedom International is an organization of psychiatric survivors and others which, according to its mission statement, leads a nonviolent revolution of freedom, equality, truth and human rights that unites people affected by the mental health system with movements for justice everywhere. More information can be found on its website  www.mindfreedom.org.

 

Following are brief biographies of some of the members of the Scientific Advisory Board:

 

David Antonuccio is a professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Nevada School of Medicine.  A fellow of APA and an ABPP diplomate in clinical psychology, Dr. Antonuccio is internationally known for his work in depression and smoking cessation.  His articles on the comparative effects of psychotherapy and pharmacotherapy have received extensive coverage by the national media and are models of careful scholarship.  He was named Outstanding Psychologist by the Nevada Psychological Association (NSPA) in 1993, received an award of achievement in 1999 from NSPA for his work on depression, was awarded the 2000 McReynolds Foundation  Psychological Services Award for “outstanding contributions to clinical science,” and received the APAHC (Association for Psychologists in Academic Health Settings) Bud Ogel Award for Distinguished Achievement in Research in 2006.

Mary Boyle is Professor of Clinical Psychology and Head of the Doctorate in Clinical Psychology at the University of East London. She has worked in the United Kingdoms National Health Service as a Clinical Psychologist. She is the author of Schizophrenia: A Scientific Delusion? (Routledge, revised 2002).

David Cohen is Professor of Social Work at Florida International University in Miami and a practicing psychotherapist and consultant. He is co-author of Your Drug May Be Your Problem (Perseus, 2nd revised edition 2007) and Critical New Perspectives in ADHD, winner of the 2006 NASEN/Times Educational Supplement Prize for Best Academic Book.

Sarah Edmonds is a psychologist in private practice in Prescott, Arizona.  She earned her doctoral degree from Syracuse University in 1993 with a dissertation on the effects of traumatic bereavement in parents who lost a child in the Pan Am Flight 103 tragedy.  She was involved in the Network Against Psychiatric Assault in Berkeley during 1993, and was instrumental in planning the teach-in and demonstration at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association Convention in San Francisco.  Her passions include working against abuses of power, psychotherapeutic healing of psychosis, compassionate parenting, and nonviolent communication.  In recent years she has given presentations at the Arizona Psychological Association Convention, ICSPP, and the International Cultic Studies Association.

Albert Galves is a licensed psychologist in Colorado, now retired and living in Las Cruces, New Mexico. He is the author of Lighten Up. Dance With Your Dark Side (Tasora, 2007).

Jay Joseph is a practicing psychotherapist in Oakland and Hayward, California. He is the author of The Gene Illusion: Genetic Research in Psychiatry and Psychology Under the Microscope (Algora, 2004) and The Missing Gene: Psychiatry, Heredity and the Fruitless Search for Genes (Algora, 2006).

Bruce Levine is a clinical psychologist in private practice in Cincinnati, Ohio. He is the author of Surviving Americas Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy and Community in a World Gone Crazy (Chelsea Green, 2007) and Commonsense Rebellion: Taking Back Your Life From Drugs, Shrinks, Corporations and a World Gone Crazy (Continuum, 2003).

Craig Newnes was trained at the Institute of Group Analysis and the Boston Psychoanalytic Institute and completed his clinical psychology training in 1981. He was editor of Clinical Psychology, the house journal of the British Psychological Society’s Division of Clinical Psychology for 18 years and the longest serving member of the DCP National Executive Committee, with a special interest in ethics, common sense and valuing personal experience as evidence. Having retired from active practice, he is currently the editor of the Journal of Critical Psychology, Counselling and Psychotherapy and is commissioning editor for the Critical Division of PCCS Books.

Lloyd Ross attained his Ph.D. in 1976 from New York University, and completed postdoctoral training in  Psychodynamic Ego-Developmental Theory & Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy with specialization in child and adolescent areas, and received two years of direct supervision from Margaret Mahler, M.D.  He is also certified as a school psychologist.  He is a Founding Fellow, American College of Advanced Practice Psychologists, and was a member of the New Jersey Psychological Association Program Committee.  He has been in full time private practice for the past 32 years with specialization in child-adolescent-and family psychotherapy, therapist supervision, and forensics.  He has been a consultant to several adolescent and child treatment centers, has taught at several psychoanalytic training programs in the New Jersey metropolitan area, and is currently United States Director, International Center for the Study of Psychiatry & Psychology.  Dr. Ross has provided numerous seminars and workshops in areas such as ADHD, Depression, Suicide, the sexually and physically abused child, The DSM, Psychotherapy with difficult patients, the aggressive, acting-out patient, and treatment without medication.

Stuart Shipko is a Diplomate of the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology. He practices general psychiatry in Pasadena, California with a special interest in panic/anxiety disorders, stress and issues relating to benzodiazepines and SSRI/SSNI antidepressants. He is the author of Surviving Panic Disorder (Authorhouse, 2003).

Jacqueline A. Sparks is an associate professor of family therapy in the Department of Human Development and Family Studies at the University of Rhode Island. Her primary interests include teaching accountability via outcome management, researching feedback and change in couples and family therapy, transforming systems of care to privilege client goals and promote social justice, and critical analysis of child psychotropic medication. She is co-author of Heroic Client and Heroic Clients, Heroic Agencies: Partners for Change, and co-founder of the Heroicagencies Listserv, an international discussion forum for client-directed, outcome-informed implementation.

 

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