Amen Clinics is a group of mental and physical health clinics that work on the treatment of mood and behavior disorders. It was founded in 1989 by Daniel G. Amen, a self-help author and psychiatrist.[1][2] The clinics perform clinical evaluations and brain SPECT (single photon emission computed tomography) imaging to diagnose and treat their patients.[3][4] Amen Clinics uses SPECT scans, a type of brain-imaging technology, to measure neural activity through blood flow.[5][6] It has a database of more than 100,000 functional brain scans from patients in 111 countries, [7] and several locations throughout the United States.[4][8] The American Psychiatric Association has criticized the clinical appropriateness of Amen's use of brain scans, and in 2006 published a statement saying that "the clinical utility of neuroimaging techniques for planning of individualized treatment has not yet been shown".[9]
Operations
Amen Clinics was founded in 1989. It has been using brain SPECT in an attempt to diagnose and treat psychiatric illness since 1991.[10] Amen Clinics incorporates questionnaires, clinical histories, and clinical interviews in its practice.[5][11] Some Amen Clinics locations also use quantitative electroencephalography as a diagnostic tool.[12] Amen Clinics has scanned 50,000 people, at an estimated cost of $170 million, according to Daniel Amen.[13]
As of 2014, Amen Clinics had a database of more than 100,000 functional brain scans.[7] The subjects are from 111 countries with ages from 9 months to 101 years old.[7] The database was funded in part by Seeds Foundation in Hong Kong, and developed by Daniel Amen with a team of researchers including Kristen Willeumier.[7] Amen Clinics has treated numerous former athletes, including NFl players.[14][15] Some researchers and physicians have said that evidence for the efficacy of the methods in which the clinic uses SPECT is unclear or absent.[16][17][18][9][13]
Questions have been raised about the ethics of selling SPECT scans on the basis of unproven claims: neuroscience professor Martha Farah calls such use "profitable but unproven" and says, "Tens of thousands of individuals, many of them children, have been exposed to the radiation of two SPECT scans and paid thousands of dollars out of pocket (because insurers will not pay) against the advice of many experts".[19] Professor of psychologyIrving Kirsch has said of Amen's theory: "Before you start promulgating this and marketing it and profiting from it, you should ethically be bound to demonstrate it scientifically in a peer-reviewed, respected journal", as otherwise, "you're just going down the path of being a snake oil salesman".[20] In a 2011 paper, neuroscientistAnjan Chatterjee discussed example cases that were found on the Amen Clinic's website, including a couple with marital difficulties and a child with impulsive aggression. The paper noted that the examples "violate the standard of care" because a normal clinical diagnosis would have been sufficient and that there "was no reason to obtain functional neuroimaging for diagnostic purposes in these cases."[21] Most patients do not realize that the SPECT scans rely on unproven claims.[22] In 2021, Steven Hyman, director of the Stanley Center for Psychiatric Research, stated, "people who are desperate are vulnerable to snake oil, and this has all of the look and feel of a clinic that's preying on people's desperation."[23][24]
An initial evaluation with SPECT at Amen's clinics cost about $4,000 in 2020.[25] As reported by The Washington Post in 2012, officials at major psychiatric and neuroscience associations and research centers see Amen's claims for the use of SPECT as "no more than myth and poppycock, buffaloing an unsuspecting public."[20]
