Niall McLaren

Niall McLaren (Jock)


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Listen to Dr. McLaren's interview on Humanizing Madness
Visit the author's website

Topics of conversation:

  • Fascinating criticism of the current biological model of Psychiatry, and McLaren's new "Biocognitive Model."
  • Societal repercussions of the over-prescription of psychiatric drugs as the only method of treatment - how a holitstic treatment protocol is necessary for real change and healing.
  • McLaren's thoughts on mass population diagnoses such as ADD, ADHD, Bio-polar disorder, Autism spectrum disorder, etc....
  • What really drives the psychiatric field?
  • McLaren speaks candidly about his personal expereince with industry backlash due to his critisim of the psychiatric establishment.

Dr. Niall McLaren, who is only ever known as Jock, is an Australian psychiatrist living in Darwin, in the remote north of the country. He was born in a tiny country town in Western Australia and trained in medicine at the University of WA, in Perth. He began to train as a surgeon but a chance placement in psychiatry convinced him that this was the field he had always wanted. He graduated in psychiatry in 1977 and first worked in prisons, then taught in Thailand for a year. On returning to Australia, he commenced a PhD jointly in psychiatry and philosophy before moving to the far north of WA to work with the Aboriginal people. He has now completed two monographs on the scientific status of psychiatry, developing a rational mentalist theory which is totally opposed to the biological model which dominates modern psychiatry. He lives in the bush outside Darwin with his family and makes occasional trips to the US to lecture on his work.  

Humanizing Psychiatry: The Biocognitive Model

Niall McLaren, M.D.
Future Psychiatry Press (2010)
ISBN 9781615990115 
Reviewed by Paige Lovitt for Reader Views (10/09) 

Read the review on ReaderViews.com

Synopsis: Does psychiatry have a future?

Assailed from many directions, under constant attack for its reliance on "a drug for all problems" and increasingly unable to attract bright new trainees, the specialty is showing every sign of terminal decline. The reason is simple: modern psychiatry has no formal model of mental disorder to guide its daily practice, teaching and research. Unfortunately, the orthodox psychiatrists who control this most conservative profession are utterly antagonistic to criticism. Despite the evidence, they maintain a blind faith that "science will deliver the goods" by a biological examination of the brain.

This book argues that their faith is entirely misplaced and is contributing to the destruction of an essential part of civilized life, the fair and equitable treatment of people with mental disorders. The author offers a rational model of mental disorder within the framework of a molecular resolution of the mind-body problem. Fully developed, this model will have revolutionary consequences for psychiatry--and the mentally-afflicted.