The word denial is defined in our family dictionary as: ‘the act of denying or disowning; contradiction, refusal.‘
This definition fits with a pattern of responses made by psychiatrists in relation to population-wide experience of prescribed psychiatric drugs. For decades the psychiatric profession has disowned the very idea of dependence or withdrawal-related issues associated with psychiatric drugs. Simply put, such lived experience of these drugs was disbelieved. This denial was exhibited top-to-bottom in my former profession. This only began to change following the public outcry in relation to this letter published in the Times.
However, it seems that this pattern of denial by psychiatrists [a refusal to believe patient experience] is once again repeating. This time in relation to distressing, and sometimes persistent, sexual and urinary dysfunction related to antidepressant use [so-called “side-effects”] .
Denying patient experience is at the very root of stigma.
Psychiatry needs to do better. Much better. Short-term, pharma-based-studies, cannot provide overall evidence on prescribing. If science stops listening to lived experience [in relation to any intervention] then evidence will never be properly ‘based’.