The Gene Illusion
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The Gene Illusion
''The Gene Illusion'' is a 2003 book by clinical psychologist Jay Joseph, in which the author challenges the evidence underlying genetic theories in psychiatry and psychology. Focusing primarily on twin and adoption studies, he attempts to debunk the methodologies used to establish genetic contributions to schizophrenia, criminal behaviour, and IQ. In the nature and nurture debate on the causes of mental disorders, Joseph's criticisms of genetic research in psychiatry have found their place among those who argue that the environment is overwhelmingly the cause of these disorders, particularly with psychiatry critic Jonathan Leo, and with Oliver James. It was also reviewed favorably in ''Choice'' and the ''British Journal of Learning Disabilities''. Some of the conclusions of ''The Gene Illusion'' have been criticized in reviews of the book. See also * Anti-psychiatry * Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder controversies * Biological psychiatry * Biopsychiatry contro ...
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Jay Joseph
James Jay Joseph (born April 13, 1959) is an American clinical psychologist and author. He practices psychology in the San Francisco Bay Area. He is known for his criticisms of behavior genetics and twin studies in psychology and psychiatry. His view, as he articulated in his 2003 book '' The Gene Illusion'', is that such research is so flawed as to render all of its results completely meaningless. Biography Joseph received his undergraduate education from the University of California, Berkeley. He went on to receive his master's degree from the New College of California in 1994 and his Psy.D from the California School of Professional Psychology in 2000. He received his license to practice psychology in California in 2003. In 2014 he published ''The Trouble with Twin Studies'', which argued that research based on twin studies was highly flawed and could not be used to prove heritability of traits, as they fail to adequately control for environmental factors, as well as accusatio ...
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PsycCRITIQUES
''PsycCRITIQUES'' was a database of reviews of books, videos, and popular films published by the American Psychological Association. It replaced the print journal ''Contemporary Psychology: APA Review of Books'', which was published from 1956 to 2004. The official blog of ''PsycCRITIQUES'' allowed free access to the full text of some recent reviews. It was discontinued on December 31, 2017. Archives are available to the public via the Center for the History of Psychology (University of Akron) or via a paid subscription to Portico. See also *PsycINFO References External links * * at the Center for the History of Psychology at the University of Akron The University of Akron is a public research university in Akron, Ohio. It is part of the University System of Ohio. As a STEM-focused institution, it focuses on industries such as polymers, advanced materials, and engineering. It is classifie ...''PsycCRITIQUES'' blog Works about psychology Magazines established in 1956 B ...
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English-language Books
English is a West Germanic language of the Indo-European language family, with its earliest forms spoken by the inhabitants of early medieval England. It is named after the Angles, one of the ancient Germanic peoples that migrated to the island of Great Britain. Existing on a dialect continuum with Scots, and then closest related to the Low Saxon and Frisian languages, English is genealogically West Germanic. However, its vocabulary is also distinctively influenced by dialects of France (about 29% of Modern English words) and Latin (also about 29%), plus some grammar and a small amount of core vocabulary influenced by Old Norse (a North Germanic language). Speakers of English are called Anglophones. The earliest forms of English, collectively known as Old English, evolved from a group of West Germanic ( Ingvaeonic) dialects brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the 5th century and further mutated by Norse-speaking Viking settlers starting in the 8th an ...
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Biology Of Bipolar Disorder
Bipolar disorder is an affective disorder characterized by periods of elevated and depressed mood. The cause and mechanism of bipolar disorder is not yet known, and the study of its biological origins is ongoing. Although no single gene causes the disorder, a number of genes are linked to increase risk of the disorder, and various gene environment interactions may play a role in predisposing individuals to developing bipolar disorder. Neuroimaging and postmortem studies have found abnormalities in a variety of brain regions, and most commonly implicated regions include the ventral prefrontal cortex and amygdala. Dysfunction in emotional circuits located in these regions have been hypothesized as a mechanism for bipolar disorder. A number of lines of evidence suggests abnormalities in neurotransmission, intracellular signalling, and cellular functioning as possibly playing a role in bipolar disorder. Studies of bipolar disorder, particularly neuroimaging studies, are vulnerable to t ...
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Anti-psychiatry Books
Anti-psychiatry is a movement based on the view that psychiatric treatment is often more damaging than helpful to patients, highlighting controversies about psychiatry. Objections include the reliability of psychiatric diagnosis, the questionable effectiveness and harm associated with psychiatric medications, the failure of psychiatry to demonstrate any disease treatment mechanism for psychiatric medication effects, and legal concerns about equal human rights and civil freedom being nullified by the presence of diagnosis. Historically critiques of psychiatry came to light after focus on the extreme harms associated with electroconvulsive treatment or insulin shock therapy. The term "anti-psychiatry" is in dispute and often used to dismiss all critics of psychiatry, many of who agree that a specialized role of helper for people in emotional distress may at times be appropriate, and allow for individual choice around treatment decisions. Beyond concerns about effectiveness, anti- ...
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2003 Non-fiction Books
3 (three) is a number, numeral and digit. It is the natural number following 2 and preceding 4, and is the smallest odd prime number and the only prime preceding a square number. It has religious or cultural significance in many societies. Evolution of the Arabic digit The use of three lines to denote the number 3 occurred in many writing systems, including some (like Roman and Chinese numerals) that are still in use. That was also the original representation of 3 in the Brahmic (Indian) numerical notation, its earliest forms aligned vertically. However, during the Gupta Empire the sign was modified by the addition of a curve on each line. The Nāgarī script rotated the lines clockwise, so they appeared horizontally, and ended each line with a short downward stroke on the right. In cursive script, the three strokes were eventually connected to form a glyph resembling a with an additional stroke at the bottom: ३. The Indian digits spread to the Caliphate in the 9 ...
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Mad In America
''Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill'' is a 2002 book by medical journalist Robert Whitaker, in which the author examines and questions the efficacy, safety, and ethics of past and present psychiatric interventions for severe mental illnesses, particularly antipsychotics. The book is organized as a historical timeline of treatment development in the United States. ''Mad in America'' received positive reviews from the general public and mixed reviews from the medical community, which criticized some bias in sourcing but nonetheless acknowledged the need to address the critical questions raised by the book regarding modern psychiatry. Synopsis Part One: The Original Bedlam (1750–1900) Part One describes early treatments like a spinning chair which could reach 100 revolutions per minute, the Tranquilizer Chair which immobilized patients, and water therapies. Whitaker then describes moral treatment, dating back to 1793 an ...
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Inheritance Of Intelligence
Research on the heritability of IQ inquires into the degree of variation in IQ within a population that is due to genetic variation between individuals in that population. There has been significant controversy in the academic community about the heritability of IQ since research on the issue began in the late nineteenth century. Intelligence in the normal range is a polygenic trait, meaning that it is influenced by more than one gene, and in the case of intelligence at least 500 genes. Further, explaining the similarity in IQ of closely related persons requires careful study because environmental factors may be correlated with genetic factors. Early twin studies of adult individuals have found a heritability of IQ between 57% and 73%, with some recent studies showing heritability for IQ as high as 80%. IQ goes from being weakly correlated with genetics for children, to being strongly correlated with genetics for late teens and adults. The heritability of IQ increases with the chi ...
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Causes Of Schizophrenia
Risk factors of schizophrenia include many genetic and environmental phenomena. The prevailing model of schizophrenia is that of a special neurodevelopmental disorder with no precise boundary or single cause (i.e. arises from multiple mechanisms). Schizophrenia is thought to develop from very complex gene–environment interactions with vulnerability factors. The interactions of these risk factors are intricate, as numerous and diverse Insult (medical), medical insults from conception to adulthood can be involved. The combination of genetic and environmental factors leads to deficits in the neural circuits that affect sensory input and cognitive functions. Historically, this theory has been broadly accepted but impossible to prove given ethical limitations. The first definitive proof that schizophrenia arises from multiple biological changes in the brain was recently established in human tissue grown from patient stem cells, where the complexity of disease was found to be "even more ...
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Biopsychiatry Controversy
The biopsychiatry controversy is a dispute over which viewpoint should predominate and form a basis of psychiatric theory and practice. The debate is a criticism of a claimed strict biological view of psychiatric thinking. Its critics include disparate groups such as the antipsychiatry movement and some academics. Overview of opposition to biopsychiatry Biological psychiatry or biopsychiatry aims to investigate determinants of mental disorders devising remedial measures of a primarily somatic nature. This has been criticized by Alvin Pam for being a "stilted, unidimensional, and mechanistic world-view", so that subsequent "research in psychiatry has been geared toward discovering which aberrant genetic or neurophysiological factors underlie and cause social deviance". According to Pam the "blame the body" approach, which typically offers medication for mental distress, shifts the focus from disturbed behavior in the family to putative biochemical imbalances. Research issues ...
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Biological Psychiatry
Biological psychiatry or biopsychiatry is an approach to psychiatry that aims to understand mental disorder in terms of the biological function of the nervous system. It is interdisciplinary in its approach and draws on sciences such as neuroscience, psychopharmacology, biochemistry, genetics, epigenetics and physiology to investigate the biological bases of behavior and psychopathology. Biopsychiatry is the branch of medicine which deals with the study of the biological function of the nervous system in mental disorders. There is some overlap with neurology, which focuses on disorders where gross or visible pathology of the nervous system is apparent, such as epilepsy, cerebral palsy, encephalitis, neuritis, Parkinson's disease and multiple sclerosis. There is also some overlap with neuropsychiatry, which typically deals with behavioral disturbances in the context of apparent brain disorder. In contrast biological psychiatry describes the basic principles and then delves deep ...
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Attention-deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Controversies
Despite the scientifically well-established nature of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), its diagnosis, and its treatment, each of these has been controversial since the 1970s. The controversies involve clinicians, teachers, policymakers, parents, and the media. Positions range from the view that ADHD is within the normal range of behavior to the hypothesis that ADHD is a genetic condition. Other areas of controversy include the use of stimulant medications in children, the method of diagnosis, and the possibility of overdiagnosis. In 2009, the National Institute for Health and Care Excellence, while acknowledging the controversy, states that the current treatments and methods of diagnosis are based on the dominant view of the academic literature. With differing rates of diagnosis across countries, states within countries, races, and ethnicities, some suspect factors other than the presence of the symptoms of ADHD are playing a role in diagnosis, although the preval ...
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