Healthy Skepticism Announcements
Conference: Science, clinical practice and psychotropic drugs, Bruxelles Oct 12
In recent years, the overprescription of psychiatric drugs has become the subject of frequent public debate in Europe and the US. In March 2010, the Belgian Minister of Social Affairs and Public Health, announced to the Senate that a plan to tackle the overconsumption of psychotropic drugs was in preparation.
The symposium will attempt to analyse this social phenomenon along two different lines:
* The first issue to be addressed is the scientific basis for the prescription of these drugs; how was it constructed and is there any scope for questioning its validity?
* The second issue concerns the question of disease categorization, the distinction between mental pathology and the ups and downs of daily life, and the impact of disease-mongering on how we perceive ourselves.
 
speakers
David Healy, psychiatrist, Professor in Psychological Medicine at Cardiff University School of Medicine, Wales, UK, and Director of the North Wales School of Psychological Medicine.
“The Antidepressant Era”, Harvard University Press, 1999.
” Psychiatric Drugs Explained”, 5th Edn, Churchill Livingstone, 2008.
Kalman Applbaum, received his PhD from Harvard University in medical anthropology. He teaches at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee, USA.
“The Marketing Era: From Professional Practice to Global Provisioning”, Routledge, 2003.
Alain Giami, researcher at INSERM (the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research) in Paris and teaches in the doctoral program in Psychology at Université Paris 8.
Giami A. «De l’impuissance à la dysfonction érectile. Destins de la médicalisation de la sexualité ». pp. 77-108. In Fassin, D. Memmi (eds). Le gouvernement des corps. Paris. Ed. EHESS, 2004
Trudy Dehue, professor of Philosophy and History of Science, University of Groningen, The Netherlands.
” De depressie-epidemie [The depression epidemic]”, Augustus, 2008.
Walter Vandereycken, M.D., Ph.D, Professor of Psychiatry at the Catholic University of Leuven, Belgium.
“Psychiaters te koop [Psychiatrists for sale]”, Cyclus, 2006.
Benoit Majerus, PhD in History, is a postdoctoral researcher (FNRS) at the Free University of Brussels (ULB). He is a member of the European Science Foundation program Standard drugs and drug standards. A comparative historical study of pharmaceuticals in the 20th century.
“Revisiting psychiatry in twentieth-century Europe”, European Review of History, 15 (1), February 2008, pp. 55-67.
The symposium will take place on the 12th of october 2010 from 9.00 am to 6.00 pm in the Salle Dupréel on the Solbosch site of the Free University of Brussels (ULB), 44, avenue Franklin Roosevelt, 1050 Bruxelles.
Simultaneous translation into French, English and Dutch will be provided.
For further information and registration, please contact .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address). (NB: participation is subject to the availability of places).
Organising Committee
Prof. Philippe Fouchet, ULB ; Prof. Sigrid Sterckx, VUB and Ugent; Dr Philippe Hennaux, l’Equipe; Dr Monique Debauche, Free Clinic. http://www.freeclinic.be
 
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