First Personal Injury Lawsuit Over Risperdal Starts in New Jersey

February 3, 2012

Gary Skala’s claim that 14 years of Risperdal caused his diabetes went to trial in New Jersey yesterday in the first personal injury lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson to be presented to a jury. The trial follows J&J’s losses in Risperdal-related cases in Louisiana, South Carolina, and to the United States Government, and starts two weeks after J&J’s settlement of claims regarding fraudulent marketing of Risperdal in Texas.
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Adverse Childhood Events Contribute Significantly to Most Mental Health Problems

February 2, 2012

John Read and Richard Bentall write in the British Journal of Psychiatry about the growing understanding and acceptance of the significant role adverse childhood events play in most mental health problems, and the theoretical, clinical and primary prevention implications of this profound shift. Their commentary provides perspective on two other articles in the same issue; on the impact of maternal depression on psychopathology, and of mistreatment in childhood on specific psychiatric disorders.
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Bribery Alleged in Largest Antidepressant Study Ever Conducted

February 2, 2012

A 2011 whistleblower complaint that was unsealed on January 20 of this year alleges that Forest Pharmaceuticals bribed a principle investigator of the STAR*D (Sequenced Treatment to Relieve Depression) study to fix the results in favor of the company’s drug Celexa. The complaint alleges that because of this bribe, Celexa was the only antidepressant employed in the first part of the study, and also led to falsification and overstatement of the drug’s effectiveness. The whistleblower is Ed Pigott, who has blogged on the STAR*D trial for madinamerica.com.
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Assessing Increased Mortality Risks of Antipsychotics and Mood Stabilizers in Dementia

January 31, 2012

An article in January’s American Journal of Psychiatry weighs the relative risk of mortality associated with various antipsychotics and mood stabilizers used in the treatment of 33,604 patients with dementia. An accompanying editorial in the same issue points out that the least risky options were also the least effective in curbing aggression.
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Religion and Spirituality Protect Against Depression

January 31, 2012

In The American Journal of Psychiatry, a longitudinal study of 114 persons at high risk for depression found that those who reported more religiosity at 10 years were 75% to 90% less likely to be depressed at 20 years. An editorial in the same issue discusses the historical and current relevance of religion and spirituality to clinical work and the validity of empirical research on the topic.
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Psychosis is Not Unique to Schizophrenia

January 30, 2012

In a sample of 3021 adolescents and young adults with anxiety or depression, Dutch researchers found that 27% also had one or more psychotic symptoms.
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A Psychiatrist Remembers His Recovery from Schizophrenia

January 23, 2012

Nathaniel Lehrman, M.D.

A psychiatrist since 1949, I was psychiatrically hospitalized on December 21, 1963 at New York City’s Mt. Sinai Hospital.   I stayed for three months, was diagnosed correctly as “schizophrenic reaction, paranoid type,” and recovered fully.   Full Article →

From the Loony Bin To Stand-Up Comedy

January 14, 2012

Andrew Hays

I was sixteen and going on seventeen and I had never gone crazy before.  I think the most startling aspect of it is how utterly unable to acknowledge it I was. Even after.

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Remembering A Medication-Free Madness Sanctuary

Michael Cornwall, Ph.D.

February 3, 2012

In my last blog entry, I described how the I-Ward first episode madness sanctuary came into being and how I ended up working there as a therapist for over three years. As you read now about my time there, I would again like to ask you to keep in mind the question I posed in my first two blog entries- “If Madness isn’t what Psychiatry says it is, then what is it?”
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On a Paradox Revealed: Discontinuing Neuroleptics

Sandra Steingard, M.D.

February 2, 2012

In Anatomy of an Epidemic, Robert Whitaker posits that long-term exposure to neuroleptics does more harm than good. I will discuss how I have wrestled with this in my practice.
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Bring in the Peer!

Keris Jän Myrick

February 1, 2012

Around the country, consumers of the public mental health system speak of ‘empowerment’, ‘recovery’ and ‘independence’ while being disempowered, and made reliant on a system that uses the word ‘recovery’ as only a buzzword. How can Peer provided services help?
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Madness Radio: Grainne Humphry on the Psychiatric Incarceration of John Hunt in Ireland

Will Hall

February 1, 2012

Grainne was courageous to do this interview: I was struck by her strong love for John and her very deep sensitivity to the violence she has witnessed him undergo in the name of treatment. Let us all lend our hearts and passion to the international campaign to free John Hunt and to ensure that no one ever has to suffer the abuses he has suffered.
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Return to Self an Alternative Medication?

Elliot Goldberg, LCSW

February 1, 2012

After nearly two years in Utah, from 2008-2009, I made the decision to return to the splendor of the Pacific Northwest where I had previously practiced as a psychotherapist. Relocation is one of the most profound experiences. I noticed and …
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Letters from the Front Lines

Mark Foster, D.O.

February 1, 2012

Dear Bob– I’ve had a couple of remarkable conversations, not with my own patients, but with friends and acquaintances asking me for advice.  Each example depicts so much that is wrong with the biomedical model of mental health care. First, …
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The Power of Storytelling

Lisbeth Riis Cooper

February 1, 2012

Over the years, I have heard many powerful recovery stories. I’ve also had many opportunities to share our family’s struggle with mental health challenges and our recovery journey.
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On Traumatizing “Care”

Nadia Mahjoub

January 30, 2012

In 1996, at the age of 24, I had my first episode of what doctors in Belgium would later define as ‘psychosis’. I want to start off by saying that I really don’t like the term ‘psychosis’. I consider what …
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No More Psychiatric Labels

Sami Timimi, M.D.

January 29, 2012

I would like to let readers know about a campaign called ‘No More Psychiatric Labels’ that I started a few months back. The subtitle is “Campaign to Abolish Formal Psychiatric diagnostic Systems like ICD and DSM”.
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Navigating the System

Chrys Muirhead

January 29, 2012

Through my childhood and youth in the 50’s and 60’s in Perth, Scotland, I remember my mother having nervous breakdowns and stays in the local mental hospital.  These episodes didn’t affect the happy memories of my upbringing as grandparents were …
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