Our debate began with our differing responses to the involvement of some psychiatrists with the pharmaceutical industry, some of whom are now under congressional investigation. Larry Diller saw those persons, and their ideas, as mere shills for the pharmaceutical industry. I argued that this approach is one-sided and simplistic. I disagree with some (but not all) of their ideas, on the grounds of their ideas, not because they are corrupt people (which may or may not be the case). I argued that this approach - that money and power is all there is to it - is conceptually unsound and practically dangerous.

My colleague, Nassir Ghaemi, in response to my challenge of his notion of "truth" in psychiatry, unfortunately, responds with media's "third rail" -- connecting this discussion to the advent of the National Socialist Party or Nazis of Germany.

Those who are on the warpath against the pharmaceutical industry, and its collaborators in academic medicine, betray a deep philosophical commitment: postmodern nihilism. This is the concept that Larry Diller wanted to discuss to start our CrossTalk discussion.

No scientific theoretical model is completely divorced from the values of the society and power of its time and place. Nassir Ghaemi and I have been asked by Psychology Today's editors to begin a Cross-Talk blog. I was willing to begin by following up on something Nassir wrote about "truth" in psychiatry (the quote is added by me) in a previous post of his on conflict of interest issues in psychiatry