From Mad in Norway: In January 2025, the Norwegian Directorate of Health published guidelines for drug treatment of psychosis (1). The Directorate writes: “Experience shows that it is felt to be irresponsible not to offer antipsychotics.” When it says “ felt to be irresponsible” and not “ is irresponsible,” the explanation may be that the evidence for the treatment is weaker than one would think. Although antipsychotics are seen as a natural, if not mandatory, treatment for acute psychosis, research shows that few people benefit significantly from the drugs (2–6).
This article was first published in the Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association , and is reproduced with their permission.
Read the full article here and the English translation here.
Thank you for sharing that blog. Forgive my ignorance, but I didn’t see a comment section on Mad in Norway … and I’m not even certain what language is spoken in Norway, Norwegian? but of course.
The word for mad and the word for food must be similar in Norwegian? Or the translator is goofy, since many of the “Mad in …” websites are translated into English as “Food in.” This may be something that MiA wants to look into? I did report a couple of them as bad translations.
Nonetheless, in as much as I agree with much of what the author said. If anyone knows how to remind the Norwegian psychiatrists that, I think all doctors, were taught in med school that the neuroleptics/antipsychotics can create “psychosis,” via anticholinergic toxidrome.
But knowing this means, I agree with his conclusion that renaming the neuroleptic drugs, “antipsychotics,” was quite morally reprehensible, on the part of psychiatry and/or big Pharma.
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