Leon Eisenberg - Themes of Most Recent Writing

Themes of Most Recent Writing

Leon Eisenberg is credited by numerous colleagues with "simple and direct" prose (Arthur Kleinman, Norma Ware, etc.). He will be remembered most for his writings in these areas, though his encyclopedic comprehension reached much more broadly:

• Evidence-based medicine
  • Capacity of academics to accept ideas that are absurd and later rejected
• Why and how did psychoanalysis come to be so dominant for so long (the triumph of psychopharmacology over psychotherapy and changes in the way care was financed) has been explored repeatedly, but outlined here in two papers for different Josiah Macy Conferences:
  • "Modern Psychiatry: Challenges in Educating Health Professionals to Meet New Needs"
  • "The Challenge of Neuroscience: Behavioral Science, Neurology, and Psychiatry"
• Diagnostic classifications (see below) - a theme continued from the very beginning of his career
• Human rights of patients
• Overdiagnosis of ADHD
• Conflict of Interest (COI) in the Practice of Psychiatry and Medicine
  • Issues in rewriting the entire psychiatric taxonomy at one time (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders = DSM): COI, empirical evidence to support DSM changes, timing of revisions
  • Complicity of the medical and psychiatric professionals in torture.
  • Criticizing the replacement of patient interests with the profit motive in healthcare.
  • The relationship between the pharmaceutical industry and medical education through sponsorship and educational programs.