Shortly after the birth of her daughter Rebekah Beddoe was diagnosed with post-natal depression. Two years later she was taking six different drugs, including lithium, a tranquilliser, an antipsychotic, and antidepressants. She had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder; given electric-shock therapy; made numerous attempts on her life; and was alternately manic and consumed by crippling despair during which she could barely move. She had a two-year-old daughter she hardly knew and a mother and partner who were at their wits' end, unable to recognise the formerly ambitious, vibrant and highly successful woman they loved so much.Her book 'Dying For A Cure' has been on sale in Australia for over a year now and will shortly be launched here in the UK.
Yesterday I recieved an email from an Australian who had stumbled upon my blog. They pointed me in the direction of a critique left by Michael Robertson, a psychiatrist from Sydney, Australia.
Robertson goes about disecting Rebekah Beddoe's experience with what we [SSRi sufferers] have come to expect from those who would rather blame the illness than the drug.
His opening para sets a precedent for his rebuke of Beddoe's experience:
Dying for a Cure reads like a prolonged formal complaint, rather than a considered piece on this controversial area. Rebekah Beddoe makes no attempt to conceal her contempt for the psychiatrists who tried to care for her during her crisis. The book depicts psychiatrists as either lecherous and hapless, or arrogant and officious. Regardless of the accuracy of these portraits, her frank account of her life story betrays a deeper problem which it would seem explains some of her anger. In describing the challenges motherhood presented her psyche, she invites us into the poisonous transference responses which lurk throughout the book’s narrative:
Robertson, also appears to have a dig at Breggin and Healy. He writes:
The book is quite well researched all the main scientific papers addressing the adverse effects of newer antidepressants are mentioned, although this scholarly dimension is undermined by the book’s overemphasis on the opinions of SSRI critics like Peter Breggin and David Healy. Indeed, this incessant use of the rhetorical device of ‘appeals to authority’ weakens Beddoe’s arguments considerably. Beddoe proffers little more than straw-man arguments against psychiatry delivered in an excessively contemptuous tone.
It was hardly surprising to learn that Robertson has recieved over $2 Million in grants from, as yet, unknown sources.
Maybe this rather large sum of money he has recieved 'weakens his argument considerably'
I wrote to Robertson but as yet I have not had a response.
I will keep you posted if he responds.
Fid
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