Do I Enjoy Prescribing Meds?

Mark, I work acute inpatient as a therapist and I have seen people who are suffering from severe confusion, delusions and mania “improve” on meds as well. I have seen people shift from severe psychosis to increased stability after taking meds and I would guess that the sedation from the drugs allows people to get some rest and sleep. However, I have seen many cases where people don’t get “better”, they just become increasingly sedate, quiescent, dulled.

You say you like to improve suffering but doctors are increasingly not prescribing pain medications, because they are addictive and potentially lethal. Doctors have increasingly stopped prescribing benzodiazepines because they are addictive and potentially lethal. Both of those drug classes “relieve suffering” as you say, but they are fraught with complications. I’m wondering how you see that differently with antipsychotics or mood stabilizers. They indeed can help some people, but they come at the cost of severe side effects and long term health problems when taken regularly.

Is a doctor relieving suffering if they are immediately decreasing psychotic symptoms, but at the cost of causing long term health problems such as obesity, cardiovascular problems, dystopia, akathisia, etc? Relief of suffering is great if it is prolonged. If it is only for a brief window and the long term picture leads to increased suffering, is it worth it?

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I am sad to see psychiatric drugs or brain damaging poisons referred to as medications. I strongly recommend Dr. Peter Breggin’s great books like Toxic Psychiatry, Your Drug May Be Your Problem, 2nd ed., Medication Madness, The Antidepressant Fact Book, Talking Back to Prozac, Talking Back to Ritalin, Reclaiming Our Children, Brain Disabling Treatments In Psychiatry and others along with his great web sites. Finally, Dr. Breggin has gotten the credit he has long deserved for being so right as the conscience of psychiatry when almost everyone else sold out.

There are many other books exposing the fraud of the DSM and the deadly but useless effects of psychiatric drugs. Yes, there may be an initial placebo effect, but they have been shown to be quite useless and ultimately brain/body damaging while making the so called “patient” far worse off in the long run as shown by many experts in countless books and articles. Of course, ECT and other similar brain damaging treatments are just as vile if not more so.

Sorry, I think if you truly study all the literature by those not in Big Pharma’s pocket, you would have to seriously question how much you are helping people with such poison drugs known to destroy countless lives. Dr. Grace Jackson, Psychiatrist, does a great job exposing the great dangers of these drugs in her books like Rethinking Psychiatric Drugs. Her book, Drug Induced Dementia: The Perfect Crime, is another horrific exposure of the huge harm of psychiatric drugs.

http://www.amazon.com/Drug-Induced-Dementia-MD-Grace-Jackson/dp/1438972318

Given all the disease mongering by Big Pharma and cohorts due to the shooters they mostly created, perhaps those like you and your colleagues could fight more NON-DRUG treatments that really help people.

Have you heard of such things as the “halo effect” or even just wishful thinking that might make you think these poison drugs work better than they do? Also, your so called patients probably have many reasons to hide the truth created by psychiatry itself!

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The title of this blog post says it all.
I hard a really hard time getting through the rest, without feeling rage.

No other comment.

Duane

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This entire blog reads like a sad lament for a return to the “good ole days.” A time when things were more simple, less complicated. A time when we had state hospitals and back wards where psychiatry had the power and control to keep patients for weeks and months at one time. A time when psychiatrists could be “all powerful warriors” with unfettered ability to drug people into submission, removing all their symptoms and truly ending all their “suffering.”

Unlike today, when things are so much more complicated because we now are aware of the great costs and harm done by psychiatric drugs (of which there was not a single reference made within in this blog) and we have a survivor/activist movement shaking the status quo of Biological Psychiatry and making life more difficult for their “business as usual.”

I, myself, long for the “good ole days” at Mad in America when we had the likes of Dr. Steven Moffic to contend with. It was a more simple and straight forward defense of Biological Psychiatry.

Richard

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I agree with Richard Lewis when he rights that the article reads like a sad lament for a return to the “good ole days.”

Given what we now know empirically about the extreme costs and profoundly limited benefit offered by psychiatric drugs, particularly when prescribed under a “first, frequently and forever” model of practice – I don’t believe any attitude other than the utmost sobriety is morally appropriate to the subject.

“When I’m at my best, I’m both prescribing meds and helping people work through their suffering.”

No, sir. When you or anyone else in your position of power are “at your best,” you are listening and responding to the needs and requests of the person before you, you are not assuming that either medication or no-medication is the way to go, before you’ve have even bothered to hear and understand the person-in-context. When you are at your best, you are not ignoring empirical evidence that suggest long term use of psych medications is contra-indicated. And when you are at your best, you are not ignoring the empirical evidence which now documents, in exhaustive detail, the extremely limited usefulness and extremely severe dangers of psychiatric medications. When you are at your best, you follow the now formally evidence-based practice of limiting the role of psychiatric drugging in “treatment,” adopting a selective use model and discouraging reliance on dangerous medications whenever possible.

That would be you at your best.

It’s true I am not “anti-medication.” Which is to say that, I believe that if an individual believes that short term, selective use of certain psychiatric medications is the right option for them, I defend their right to make that choice just as much as I would defend the right of someone not to be pressured or coerced into taking medications against their will.

But given the fact that I know how to read, and have chosen to read empirical data, neither can I possibly be “pro-medication” given what we know.

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Mark thanks for being so honest in your blog post. I like how you admit to feeling like a “powerful warrior” and that you don’t have as much power now as what you used to have. That’s encouraging for me, as a warrior on the opposing side, if you like, who doesn’t often feel very powerful, more like under pressure.

I’m one of the ones for whom psychiatric drugs and coercive practice were abusive and depressing. I only had suicidal impulses on venlafaxine whereas life to me is sweet and the psychoses only meant I was more sensitive to the world around and maybe more vulnerable than usual. I count myself fortunate to have survived “mental illness” and psychiatric treatment.

I think your blog posts are refreshing because of their honesty that come over as arrogance. Maybe because I’m like that too. And it’s that very arrogance that helped me resist psychiatric power and the do-gooders who think that I need to be protected from the cruel world and its pain. When the reality is that psychiatry is far more scary and insidious in its doctrines of madness being biological, in our genes. A patriarchal system that is far too big for its boots.

RD Laing was one of a kind, a fellow Scot like me. Here’s tae us, wha’s like us, damn few an’ they’re a’ deid!

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Thanks for your honesty Mark. I was harmed the most by psychiatrists who are thoughtful and considered, because I trusted them a little bit more than the others. The concern I have with this line of thinking is that the psychiatrists and community aren’t taking responsibility for their part. If you need someone to be on a drugs in order to connect with them, do you ever ask yourself what might be going on with you? Any relationship between 2 individuals should not label one as mentally ill and the other as a doctor. If psychiatrists are doctors of the soul (the literal meaning), why do they need someone to be on a drug in order to love them?
I do appreciate your acknowledgment that suffering can have value. I’ve never found taking a pill to help me work through any issues more easily though. For me it has always been the opposite. On a pill the issues get all muddled up and there are more problems that the pill creates so the whole thing just becomes a huge mess. Others may SEE a person on a pill as being more able to work through things, but it might be a superficial judgement. For me the only time I wasn’t able to shower or take care of myself was when I was on psych drugs.
Perhaps what is needed is a higher level of faith. If we believe those we work with need a pill to work things through, perhaps we don’t hold enough confidence in the human spirit to actually support them. There may actually be enough love in your heart to open up to anyone. My understanding is that love is what heals, which you also elude to. The love needs to be huge to be healing.
If we are too scared to open up to someone because they are violent, smelly, incoherent or something else, that is valid. Yet our own fear is part of the picture. We may feel vulnerable and need to protect ourselves. Our own fears may be getting triggered. We may need to humbly admit we are not capable of helping everyone and do what is necessary to protect ourselves. Let’s just admit when we need to do that.

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Perhaps people would truly be helped if someone were willing to help them work through their trauma issues. However, that takes a lot of time and effort and hard work doing therapy; it’s so much easier and simpler to pop a pill into someone’s mouth, often against their will, and say: “Gee, Mr. Jones, how much better you seem to be doing now that you’re on your ‘meds’!” And of course, the insurance companies don’t want to pay the big bucks to do any kind of talk therapy with people in distress. A lot of money can’t be made off of people if they aren’t chronically “mentally ill.”

The interesting thing about the good old days before the toxic drugs is that when people finally did get out of the “hospital” they never or seldom came back. Whatever their problem was seems to have been episodic. But we’ve made it into something that is chronic through the use of the toxic drugs. Go figure. No money to be made if the so-called “illness” is a one time thing.

Why not be a warrior doing trauma work rather than prescribing toxic drugs?

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I have noticed that MDs and those with a tendency to be favorably disposed to clinical pharmacology tend to assume that medications work, and tend not to look very far beyond immediate, short-term reactions to drugs – as is the case with this author. This perspective ignores, or glosses over, the long-term damage these drugs cause, and also ignores the tenuous evidence base for their effectiveness in the first place.

Then I have noticed that people who have been harmed by the medications, or who are disposed to be suspicious/mistrustful of Pharma and perhaps of psychiatry or medicine in general, tend to assume that everyone has a negative reaction to medications, that they help no one and harm everyone.

As in most things in this world, the truth, I believe, lies somewhere in the middle. MDs should examine the science behind the chemicals they prescribe, and discard everything they’ve been taught that could possibly have been influenced by the profit motive. Biased pseudoscience has left much of conventional medicine in a rotten state.

People with an “anti-” perspective would be well-served by making “I” statements rather than sweeping generalizations. Drugs do help some people, and don’t harm everyone. Unfortunately, though, we don’t know who will be helped, who will be harmed, and why medications are active, or useless, in general or in any given case.

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All that anybody, here or in the media or anywhere, needs to know that Mark Ragins.

By his own admission, he works at a treatment center for the poor where they force people to have to take drugs to receive services. He admits that many of his parents were foster children growing up and were those who make up the atrocious statistics of foster kids being zonked out on these drugs, but in defending himself in forcing these kids to keep taking the drugs to receive services when they turn 18, he said “But I work with them to determine which drugs they want to continue taking, since they’re not children anymore and don’t have to just do what they’re told.”

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Hi Mark Ragins M.D. Even though you enjoy prescribing drugs , why should anyone do that ? Aren’t you just a superfluous middle man whose elimination would at least leave those wanting drugs without the stigma of a life long label ? All that’s needed is honest information about these drugs , real full disclosure , their real track record , how really safe or dangerous they really are , their real long and real short term effects, in large print ,in video and or audio what they are really made of, how they are really made, who really makes them and really why .They should be sold no questions asked to anyone over the counter who’s old enough to serve in the military. Mark really this would be to your long term benefit because within the status quo, when you’re really old and your loved ones put you in a nursing home , and you start rambling about how you used to be an M.D. the staff will be forced to medicate you into silence and you will be labeled at least agitated if not demented depending on how much your M.D. enjoys prescribing drugs. He may even enjoy administering ECT, or he may enjoy experimentation.

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This is a troubling blog post, in various ways, yet I feel no need to explain all the difficulties it presents, to my mind.

I’d only wind up offering many words, poorly repeating what other commenters have already put quite well.

I mean, I can begin instead by saying this: I agree entirely with Chaya and with Andrew L. Yoder. (Everything they say, above, I second.)

Now, here, I add this, about my own personal experiences, as they relate to the author’s relayed experiences, regarding R.D. Laing…

I was very impressed by the writings of R.D. Laing, when I first encounter them, back in the early 1980’s. (I have mentioned this previously, in MIA comments.)

I had just recently entered college, and my discovery of Laing was a revelation. His overall message appealed, as it seemed suggesting, that he well understood, we were living in time, in which society was growing increasingly ‘psychotic,’ in the worst ways possible. In a desperate attempt, to ward off the ‘Other,’ men and women (the ‘moderns’ of our ‘Western’ world) had lost their bearings.

Laing explained it beautifully, so why should I accept the ways of such a society, I wondered?

Laing viewed the individual so-called “psychotic,” as potentially quite enlightened; s/he was someone outraged, at the world; s/he was rightly beside herself or himself, standing in defiance, of the insanity, of society, at large.

The staggering (incomprehensibly enormous) dangers of the Cold War (with its mind-bogglingly massive build-up of nuclear weaponry, by the time I was in college) were the outgrowth of a collective ‘psychosis’. Laing explained this, in so many words.

He was quite eloquent, so I would well relate to that ‘madman’ (or ‘madwoman’), whom Laing honored; and, in deed, I wound up acting out, my own relatively outrageous sort of ‘personal protest,’ in my parents’ backyard. One night, as my folks were preparing to leave the house, to socialize with friends, I’d ‘frisbee’ a stack of cheap dinner plates, one by one, into their garage door.

Never, previously, had I been in any way directly ‘rebellious,’ at home; only my siblings had been… Thus, quite instantly, that night, I became known as ‘psychotic,’ to my family and friends (that was thanks largely to the E.R. psychiatrist, who my parents contacted by phone; he happened to look a lot like the author of this blog post!).

(Yes, Mark Ragins — if you’re reading this — I see, in your thumbnail picture, a very striking physical resemblance, to my first “hospital” psychiatrist. No kidding.)

So, I would become known as ‘psychotic,’ to everyone I knew.

At first, considering myself in such a role was no worry.

I knew that the days of “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” were long gone.

Playing the ‘psychotic’ would be fairly romantic, I felt.

But, I would soon find how ‘psychotics’ are treated in “hospitals”.

Certainly, they would not be treated as cultural heroes.

I was ‘treated’ quite recklessly, really.

I was forcibly drugged — twice, my first day.

That changed everything.

Later (many years later), in the course of reading more Laing, I’d learn that he thought a great deal of his own supposed ability to very quickly identify “psychotic” individuals, as such. I would learn (from those further readings): Laing figured he was so very ‘knowing,’ in that particular way, he had harbored doubt whatsoever, that he could ‘know’ who was or wasn’t ‘psychotic’ — always.

That discovery, about him, was terribly disappointing for me.

(I had initially chosen to idealize Laing; for, he seemed so wise. This new information, I felt, revealed an extraordinary arrogance, on his part — perfectly antithetical to his view, that society, at large, was the true ‘psychotic,’ ostensibly in need of salvation.)

That and individual supposed ‘psychotic,’ would be, in any way, singled-out — ‘outed’ — by a psychiatrist, who would think so highly of his own self-declared, outstanding ability to discern who is or is not supposedly ‘psychotic,’ seemed patently wrong.

(Still, it seems patently wrong to me.)

My having been tortured with repeated forced-druggings, in a handful of relatively brief “hospitalizations,” in the course of barely over two years, had seemed so contrary to what Laing believed, yet as I came to realize that he figured himself the perfect identifier of ‘psychotic’ individuals, my view of him changed considerably.

I began to think that maybe he would have condoned the sort of ’emergency treatment’ I’d received.

Then, just this past year, via comments on this website, I became aware that Laing forcibly drugged one of his own friends — which represents, I believe, a most incredible violation of everything that I’d thought Laing stood for (considering he was supposedly a foremost pioneer, in providing non-coercive care for ‘psychosis’).

Mark Ragins recalls his youthful exchange with Laing, explaining,

“…when I was a first year inpatient resident at USC and I went to see a panel presentation that included the legendary R.D. Laing. He seemed to be on a different plane than everyone else. I couldn’t tell whether he was enlightened or psychotic or a charlatan. He talked about schizophrenia becoming healed when everyone on earth was reconnected and when the Earth was aligned with the moon and the planets and the sun and the stars. He said the key was loving the person with schizophrenia.”

Dr. Ragins continues,

After the panel, I went up to the microphone and said, “I’m trying to do that, but don’t find it so easy to love people who are really psychotic and who I can’t understand and whose emotions don’t seem to be connected to what we’re talking about. How do you get through to do that?” He told me to keep trying. It would work out. It seems to me that medications have often helped it work out; helped us to connect and share love.

Mark Ragins (our blogger) ultimately states, “It seems to me that medications have often […] helped us to connect and share love.”

And, really, I don’t doubt there’s considerable truth in that statement.

However, upon reading that, I can’t help but think of the man whom Mark describes, in his preceding paragraph.

About that man, he blogs,

I know a man now who only says, “It’s alright. It’s OK.” over and over, never bathes or changes clothes smelling horribly of urine and dirt, and is usually homeless when he’s not on meds. When he is on meds he can have most of a conversation, live somewhere, eat, change clothes, bathe, and have friends more or less. That’s pretty satisfying. But he always refuses meds when he has a choice, so after a few weeks out of jail or a hospital he drifts away again. That’s pretty heartbreaking.

What is heartbreaking, I think, is how that story is told.

That poor man has apparently been through a classic, modern ordeal — the psychiatric “hospital” revolving door mill…

To some small extent, I know that ordeal, from first hand experience. (Thankfully, I extracted myself from it, by, once and for all, successfully ridding psychiatry and its ‘meds’ from my life, roughly 25 years ago.)

That man has been repeatedly ‘medicated’ by our so-called “mental health” system — in and out of “hospitals” — never finding good reason to choose to remain ‘medicated’; i.e., modern Psychiatry has apparently made no favorable impression on him, ultimately — despite the fact that it has, seemingly, made him, when ‘medicated’ comprehensible, to a psychiatrist, such as Mark.

Though I may be misreading Mark, I take his telling of that particular story to be his best ‘true-life’ example of why some individuals should, perhaps, be forcibly ‘medicated’ and coerced into staying ‘medicated’. (Of course, I may be misinterpreting him; but, that’s what I take away from his telling us about that man.)

I take the blogger to be saying, that man should really be ‘medicated’; and, that’s what I find terribly heartbreaking — especially, as I think to myself, ‘Hey, there is a man who could really teach Mark something!’

Yes, I may be dreaming the impossible dream, here, now, as I say this, but I do find myself thinking: ‘Here may be a perfect opportunity for this psychiatrist, Mark Ragins, to take an huge leap, toward learning what Laing was attempting to convey, about the power of love. Perhaps, Mark could even transcend Laing’s own limitations, if he cared to do so; after all, apparently, Laing himself failed to realize the full potential of the power of love, in relation to ‘psychosis’ (he failed, e.g., when resorting to forcibly drugging his own friend!).’

In deed, promise him you’ll do everything in your power, from this point forward, to defend him against forced drugging…

I presume, that, eventually you’d find what his true needs are, and you’d realize he does not truly need psychiatric drugs; but, he does have needs. You could consider how you might help him to meet some of those needs.

And, of course, everyone needs a friend who’s there, just to listen…

I’m willing to bet, that you could learn MUCH through developing that kind of friendship — that kind of deliberately non-medical endeavoring.

Or, if it is not friendship, think of it as work.

Work ‘pro-bono’ on behalf of any number of individuals, like that; be the psychiatrist who would listen, rather promote ‘medications’; many people could use such psychiatry, as that; for they are alone and homeless, and they choose to be alone and homeless — if the only alternative presented requires their being ‘medicated’ by psychiatry.

You’ll could realize, soon enough, a man such as that man whom you’re describing, can become far more comprehensible than your current description of him suggests.

Currently, you seem to have the notion, that some people must remain totally incomprehensible, when ‘unmedicated’; and, that is not a notion which I buy into.

Really, I think it reflects a profound mis-understanding, on your part; but, don’t feel badly, it’s a misunderstanding shared by many psychiatrists.

I trust you can get beyond that mis-understanding — if you really put your mind to it…

Respectfully,

Jonah

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It is somewhat possible to see how psychiatrists felt about psychiatric medication in the 1960s by googling “psychiatric ads 1960s.” “You can’t set her free, but you can help her feel less anxious. Serax.” “For prompt control of senile agitation. Thorazine.” “Cooperation often begins with Haldol. A first choice for starting therapy.” It was certainly a Brave New World.

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I could, in no way, assess the character, integrity, and competence of each individual psychiatrist that exists, and I’ve no doubt that there are plenty of well-intentioned and compassionate people in this field. I imagine you may be one of them. From what you write, you do seem to reach out to clients in a heartfelt way.

But overall, I think it’s become more than obvious that psychiatric treatment, and particularly all this medication crap, has severely harmed countless people—SEVERELY harmed, very badly, chronically. You see the rage, right here in this thread and all over this website. It has also driven people to suicide, as it almost did to me, with its stigmatizing negative projections and aggressive messages of disenfranchisement and marginalization.

The field, itself, is madness—illusions about power and social hierarchy, along with toxic medications that hardly have credibility when you consider the _obvious_ economics and politics of it all. This is all written and spoken about at length on this and other websites, has been for a long time now.

Psychiatry is the one field I know of where there are myriad examples of clients complaining of being hurt and harmed, and the responses can so easily be glib, cold, dismissive, and blaming to the client. Ok, so ‘first do no harm’ has fallen to the wayside, here.

What pisses me off even more is that when a client tells a psychiatrist that the meds are hurting them or that they are feeling disrespected, demeaned, and/or stigmatized, the doctors get angry, defensive, blaming, and shaming. That’s unconscionable, and it happens OFTEN. I experienced this many times, and I’ve heard and read about this countless other times.

When someone is hurting you and you tell them, and they give you a hard time about it, and add more insult to injury, that’s clearly oppressive and abusive. This kind of life experience is what leads people to seek mental health care to begin with, only to experience it all over again in the field, by those who are supposed to be remedying it. Mind-boggling paradox, and tragic.

My hope is that we can, once and for all, begin to ascend past all of this by turning to other sources of healing, and forgetting about psychiatry. Regardless of the small handful of well-meaning psychiatrists, the field is tarnished by this plethora of negative testimonials. I’m one of them.

Fortunately, I kicked 20 years of meds, and eventually healed all the damage it had done to me. Took a few years and lot of different and somewhat radical kinds of healing, but it all worked, thank God. Now, on the other side of this, looking back with new clarity, it is easy to see how meds were only pouring salt into wounds–wounds from which I was able to heal once I was OFF the meds, and clear from the confusion and malaise they had caused me for so long. In the meantime, they compromised my life for two decades, until I wised up.

I was resentful for a time, but I no longer have ill-feelings on a personal level, I’ve done my work around this and have moved on in my life, far away from this. Dropping resentment and blame is good for my health. But cause and effect is easy to see, here, and I’m painfully aware that this field has become a vampire to society, and I’d like to see that kind of energy disempowered, one way or another, for the sake of living in a safe and trustworthy world. Diminishing the power of psychiatry would be a good start, in my opinion.

I do apologize for being so blunt about this, I realize this is your field, and I really mean nothing personally. Still, I experienced a lot of blatant harm from a variety of psychiatrists over the years, that led to needless suffering. And so have tons of others. ‘Nuff said.

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“Someone can be entirely isolated in their own world – of voices or paranoia, or delusions or depression or dissociation or panic or mania or obsessions or anorexia, etc – and by taking medications they can “come back” and reconnect with the world. I know a man now who only says, “It’s alright. It’s OK.” over and over, never bathes or changes clothes smelling horribly of urine and dirt, and is usually homeless when he’s not on meds. When he is on meds he can have most of a conversation, live somewhere, eat, change clothes, bathe, and have friends more or less. That’s pretty satisfying. But he always refuses meds when he has a choice, so after a few weeks out of jail or a hospital he drifts away again. That’s pretty heartbreaking.”

http://youtu.be/d9FRFaWSS_c

What world does HE want to connect with? And what world is he CHOOSING to disconnect from, and why?

If he’s telling you it’s okay, he’s telling you something. Obviously, he doesn’t want the neatly packaged life of domestication. He’s choosing to get away from it, and he’s telling you it’s okay.

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Allow me some alternative paradigms…

“But he always refuses meds when he has a choice, so after a few weeks out of jail or a hospital he drifts away again. That’s pretty heartbreaking.”
…
No that’s a wonderful affirmation in the triumph of human beings- even the heavily disturbed have enough common sense to realize that any emotional life is better than a drug lobotomy and realize that a drug can never solve a problem of consciousness.

If you take away a person’s suffering you take away what makes them human.
And I am talking about the long term use of drugs not temporary relief from crisis.
..
The most import thing is that so long as the Bio-med “solution” is applied as a solution the person is condemned to psychic death – they can never become a full person because they need all their emotional parts working unrestricted to get there.

..

“I’m trying to do that, but don’t find it so easy to love people who are really psychotic and who I can’t understand and whose emotions don’t seem to be connected to what we’re talking about.”

Yes, that’s obviously true – you, like so many others (suffering under the Star Trek Spock-Data Syndrome) do not understand human emotionality and Dr, Laing’s advice to you still applies – you need to keep trying or rather START trying.
..

All of the “good things” you think you are doing – you are not doing good – you are murdering psyches, finalizing drug lobotomies – it’s not a relationship when the person is a drugged puppet or trained dog pleasing you with the correct behaviour -it’s just a fantasy – your fantasy – and you are alone there – the other being no longer exists as a person.
..
Who are you protecting from suffering? Yourself from seeing it? Psych Meds do not eliminate suffering – they suffocate it – the psyche of the person become trapped like in the “Phantom Zone”.
What is this “recovery” If you have something positive to offer, why use this word. The popular idea of “recovery” as well as the bio-med model idea is not much better than an Ice pick lobotomy.
When you can write a book called “A road to Cure” then you will have something and you will have finally understood What Dr, Laing was saying.
People who have had rotten lives when they become cured will naturally become troublemakers – I wish you well , I hope you unleash generations of troublemakers upon this we certainly do need a new population that will demand their political and economic freedom.

..
“It’s pretty enjoyable to help people feel better. Isn’t that what a doctor is supposed to do?”

No.

OMG you actually said “feel better” . Feel better than who?
Yes, massa, I’m quivering, shuffling ma feet along “feeling better”..
Is that your vision of “success” for others “Be the best you can be ” is that?
Well at least you can still be looking downwards.
It’s insulting.

No you want to help people to feel and the first thing and best thing they will feel is pain. Oodles and oodles of wonderful pain. Purifying rage, oceans of sweet sadness etc – then they have arrived, then they are free standing on that big open plain of emotion where nothing bothers them.
But every one knows all this, I suppose I’m preaching to the choir.
heh

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Thanks MJK Utah Phillips is great . Hail to the ” Chief .” I escaped 5 times from “mental hospitals” . They caught me once and brought me back and tortured me to Hell : at the first opportunity I escaped again. If these psychiatrists cared at all about us they would help organize and finance an underground railroad and Esalen type retreats. Did you ever hear Utah Phillips sing about moose turd pie?

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I hope one day you will write an article titled “Do I enjoy facilitating the mentally ill to be cured”?.

Or just take the short form “Do I enjoy curing people”? which though technically can not be correct is easier to communicate.

When do you think you will get there? How many cures have you racked up or facilitated to date?
I am thinking of starting an Organization something like a “Society of the Cured” as a kind of social service or legacy to civilization.
Cure is possible. I was cured – so are many others.
Dare to dream. Dare to cure.

If you have not yet cured anyone, perhaps you need to tone down your enjoyment a little bit until you achieve something more useful. Perhaps alter your paradigm. Perhaps you must feel that you life efforts have been useful but by recognizing failure you may finally achieve real success.

As Dylan said ” there’s no success like failure. And that failure’s no success at all.”

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I must say it takes some guts to post on this web-site with an almost inflammatory title; “Do I Enjoy…” I do respect the writers’ willingness to engage, and his openness and honesty. He cannot speak for all psychiatrists/Psychiatry, anymore than other writer’s can speak for all survivors of psychiatric maltreatment. Similar to Steingard’s recent article in WaPo, I think having M.D.’s join in this intense dialogue can help change the system for the better.

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I’m writing a new article for PETA. It’s called, “Do I enjoy Strangling Kittens?”

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mjk, if you want, you can contact me through MIA.

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Ted,
Thank you for your kindness. I try to read as many articles that are most relevant to the issues I am most interested in. But I often cringe at some of the very antagonist blogging to some pf the authors. I appreciate each and everyone’s opinions on MIA, and I have tried to share the appreciation and knowledge I have gained from the MIA site. I realize how many people who blog have been horrifically harmed by the MH system. Honestly, when I blog most everyone who responds to my comments, though many disagree with the origin of my son’s (2) breakdowns have not personally attacked me. I am grateful beyond. I was brought up to respect the opinions of others, even if I don’t agree. I wish there was more civility in our world: can’t we agree to disagree?

I wish to ask for more kindness towards one another, as you just responded so compassionately to mjk. I have met a wonderful (IMO) p-doc who I hired to review my son’s medical records and his insight and review of what the psych hosp did to my son has validated everything I witnessed happening to him. Until I met this p-doc, all the other p-docs from both of my son’s locked hosp and out-ot f/u, I felt there wasn’t a decent p-doc practicing. But I have read some of the p-docs who blog but the hostility is troubling, IMO. I can’t convince the p-doc I met to write for MIA. I would love for him to share how he would have treated my son in his practice (says the worst place to take anyone in severe emotional crisis is to a psych hosp). But I respect that his comfort level for writing on MIA is not there yet.

Most know I lost my first-born son, I feel there isn’t enough kindness and respect for people in this crazy world today. I’m on this site now because I want to be part of the change I envision needs to happen in MH. I have one small voice, but in my son’s memory I hope, one day, there will be alternative programs to offer a person and let help, hope and recovery reign.

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Advice to Dr. Ragins: I have read all your blog postings and most of your comments, and I would be totally amazed if you told me that you had spent more than one minute reading the MIA website before posting here.

So I am advising you to: 1) Do your homework, and 2) Try to find some humility. I am not talking about false humility. I am talking about humility based on a rigorous scientific evaluation of the state of your profession, including a cost/benefit analysis of prescribing psychiatric drugs. That analysis should include the many postings at MIA by articulate psychiatric survivors and other dissident doctors and activists in the mental health field.

Even a partial reading and acceptance of a critical analysis of modern psychiatry found at MIA should lead any one working in the field to acknowledge that the scientific and philosophical foundation of the psychiatric profession is on extremely shaky ground. And that anyone prescribing psychiatric drugs today is literally “flying by the seat of their pants.” That prescribing these drugs is fraught with so many scientific and ethical contradictions that only a fool would profess extreme confidence at the content of their prescribing methods.

There are other doctors who successfully write at MIA and still prescribe psychiatric drugs who at least express some humility regarding the conflicting ethics related to this activity, and they share how they are morally wrangling over these troubling questions. You reveal none of this.

Dr. Ragins, in contrast, you come to MIA with enormous hubris(excessive self-confidence and arrogance) and grandiosity regarding your gifted ability to prescribe psychiatric drugs. For example, you started this blog by making note of your past 90% success rate in the hospital and 80% success rate in the a clinic at finding the right drug regimen for a patient or tweaking someone’s prescriptions so that their “suffering” was relieved.

Dr. Ragins, critical psychiatry 101 would tell any critically thinking doctor that patient improvement can often be illusionary or very time limited due to the brains constant tendency to seek homeostasis and make compensatory changes pushing back against the effects of perturbing neurotransmitter systems. So, if in fact some of your patients did feel better before leaving treatment, the important questions to ask is: for how long and at what price?

Dr. Ragins, another vital question to ask is: TODAY, WHERE ARE ALL THOSE 90% AND 80% SUCCESS STORIES YOU BRAGGED ABOUT. Following your hubris about your past successful prescribing ability, you then complain that today’s prescribing environment, including today’s patients are so much more complicated and things ain’t so easy any more.

Dr. Ragins, I’d like to posit a theory for why today things are so much more difficult when prescribing psychiatric drugs. Perhaps, all those patients that you and your contemporaries started on antipsychotics, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, and benzodiazapines have now undergone many years of the brain’s compensatory changes(I mentioned above) in response to each category of drug.

Perhaps those on antipsychotics have shrunken brains and amassed extra D2 dopamine receptors that have now become supersensitive leading to breakthrough psychosis and creating a desire to add stimulants and other dopamine enhancers to compensate for the brain deadening effects of the drugs. Perhaps these patients now comprise the statistics that Harrow, Wunderlick, and Whitaker discuss when describing those now “chronic” patients whose global functioning has deteriorated and have settled into a prolonged state of disability.

Perhaps those on antidepressants now have fewer serotonin receptors in their brains and other structural changes noted by Dr. Peter Breggin and others, and now are part of the statistics of those people with the condition of Tardive Dsyphoria.

Perhaps those started on benzodazapines have become hopelessly dependent and addicted to drugs that possibly permanently alter Gaba receptors in the brain leaving many people feeling like emotional cripples.

Dr. Ragins why do you not make reference to any of these potential problems with psychiatric drug prescribing or your role in it? Perhaps some of these long term negative effects of psychiatric drugs might explain why things are so much tougher today. Do you even acknowledge this possibility?

Dr. Ragins, your problems at MIA are not because you prescribe psychiatric drugs or that you have some different views than other people writing at MIA. Instead, it is your hubris and grandiosity.

We do not need any more “condescending (warrior) saviors” or Dr. Feelgoods. If you hold on to these qualities you will continue to have a tough time here. Please do some homework and work on humility. You may have something to offer our struggle, but we may never get to it unless you are willing to make some changes. If you do write again I look forward to something very different.

Richard

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Mark,

How about this?

Instead of a lecture on black-and-white thinking…
How about your putting yourself on a neuroleptic drug for a few weeks? (much longer would be inhumane)

You can get back with us afterward?
Whatta say, doc?

Then we can have a calm, civil, nuanced discussion…
You, of course will be drugged outta your gourd.
It will be the kind od “dialogue” you shrinks enjoy so much.

Duane

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Thanks for writing candidly about the subject of prescribing psychoactive medicine. It is interesting to learn how your thoughts have evolved from the beginning of your career to your more nuanced and informed views of today.

When and how to relieve suffering is a difficult question, and the example of grief is a good way to illustrate that dilemma.

It is courageous, and important to write on MIA that there exists some people for which anti-psychotics can be beneficial. But it is counter-productive to do so without insisting at the same time on their excessive use, their long-term damaging effects, and the recognition that the MIA audience is full of people that have been harmed by them or seen harm caused by them to other people.

Your use of the word “enjoys” sounded odd to me. There are many interesting dialogues in the comments of your text, but I am afraid the ambiguity about the meaning of the word “enjoy” in your title and conclusion unnecessarily closed some doors. Words can hurt, and some unfruitful suffering might have been avoided by choosing a word that does open a path to so many misinterpretations in this context.

Looking towards reading you again, I did enjoy reading all of your posts 🙂

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When and how to relieve suffering is a difficult question.

First, the drug pushers erroneously classify many behaviors as “suffering” so they can justify their drugs.

As for real suffering no one wants to be relieved or robbed of their suffering except the suicidal. Suffering is the human identity, without it we are lost. We can intervene for those in genuine crisis or facilitate people to be more resilient and accept and enjoy their suffering more than they are but to rob them of their suffering essentially destroys them as human. And having destroyed them of that their resulting condition is used as a further justification for more drugs.
..
Yes, I said “enjoy’ – most people enjoy their suffering more than they are aware of it. If people can understand that the inner feeling is part of oneself and not the exterior event which provoked the human response then this can be understood. Thus you can see that resilience is a battle for acceptance and love of one’s own body for one’s feelings are the body and thus is the inevitable understanding that love of one’s own feelings and emotions – ALL of them – is not only possible it is unavoidable as one achieves personality integration.
..
The easiest way to destroy a human is to “relieve them of their suffering”.

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I am not particularly in agreement with the author of this post; it doesn’t seem to be presented as organized or persuasive, and reliant on an outdated view of the medical model. However (and I realize I am taking some risk saying this), I am seeing, in these remarks, an awful lot of rage – which, in itself, is OK, but it’s crossing the line into outright personal contempt and slander. “Grandiosity…murderer…etc., etc.” Robert Whitaker has always been able to disagree strongly, but with a civil tongue, and without long diatribes that either attack the author personally or leading comments that seem to be for the purpose of shaming. I have no doubt that the people who comment here have had horrific experiences at the hands of the system, and I honor that. But is it possible we are inadvertently passing on the trauma?

If our movement is to be taken seriously, perhaps we should stay away from simply raging against The System (incredibly flawed as it is), and have a true dialogue – even with those we disagree with. Bloggers should be able to comment without being the object of mudslinging. Where is the moderator?

How can you make change if you’re preaching to a choir?

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Yes. Please do click the “report comment” button on any and all comments that you deem to be personal attacks and/or slander.
I will be interested to see the results, as I have not noticed any comments violating the posting guidelines.

slander n. oral defamation, in which someone tells one or more persons an untruth about another which untruth will harm the reputation of the person defamed.

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“And no, I’m not going to ‘report’ comments here, because everyone will know I’m the one doing it, henceforth making me a target as well!”

Do you really believe that? I highly doubt that would happen. And I object to your portrayal of those who have posted critical comments as being somehow vengeful or otherwise out of line.

“I can’t help but wonder if the likes of Torrey, Jaffe, etc. feel emboldened by this kind of dischord.”

One can only ask them, I suppose. Personally, I doubt that such individuals need the comments on this particular article to feel “emboldened”. And I’m not sure what discord you are referring to.

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The only purpose of a moderate view in this struggle is to help convince people who don’t have a dog in the fight which side is the good one.

What is a person who keeps going to a psychiatrist trying to reason with them while they’re getting billed and perscribed drugs in the process ?

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Jonathan Keyes

You raise a very good question. Despite the overall strength of Biological Psychiatry today I believe that the psychiatric profession, as a whole, is increasingly on the defensive having been wounded by the survivor/ activist movement, and MIA is a big part of this.

Many psychiatrists are aware that there are some serious ethical and scientific flaws in their profession and they fear it could crumble apart at some point in the future. So in response to this situation they are definitely interested in criticizing the most egregious violations within psychiatry because it makes them look bad and threatens their very existence. But at the same time they are fearful of a thorough going evaluation of the entire paradigm of treatment in the mental health system; they are afraid the revolution might go to far. This happens in every social/political movement.

For those enamored with the power and prestige of their profession and afraid of radical change, they believe they have too much to lose if things go too far. In response to this situation some of them will attempt to join with the survivor/activist movement to try and tone things down and lead it into a more reformist direction. That is, only want to change the most obvious and extreme forms of oppression and ethical violations. They are deathly afraid of a total dismantling of the mental health system in this country and around the world.

Those who lean toward reformism will want to avoid too much confrontation and move very slowly in challenging the status quo. They will push people in the direction of trying to work more within the system and change legislation, and act as a pressure group on liberal politicians. This would be a dead end for our movement. We must be on guard against those who would attempt to hijack our movement.

A minority of dissident psychiatrists can be united with, and others can and will change, but it will require principled and vigorous struggle. Back in the 60’s right wing critics of the antiwar movement would yell at us “Love it or Lose it!” We would yell back at them “Change it or Lose it!” This same approach can be taken toward psychiatrists today. If they don’t rise up and overthrow the Biological Psychiatry wing of their profession then their entire profession may end up in the dust bin of history.

If all new psychiatric drug prescriptions were stopped today there would at least be 20 years of valuable work necessary to help people taper off of and learn to live without psychiatric drugs. Radical and dissident psychiatrists could play an important role in this process as well as completely redefine the nature of their work in the coming decades. After that, who knows.

Richard

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After reading this whole blog, I would like to say that I think there is great hope for Dr. Mark Ragins. Otherwise, I would not have bothered wasting my time trying to provide concrete evidence to try to persuade him to reconsider main stream biopsychiatry’s views and the massive harm it has done and continues to do. I admire that he was able to relate to those like Chaya about his own emotions and upset upon being challenged/criticized while acknowledging this is how psychiatric survivors feel about their own mistreatment by biopsychiatry: misunderstood, unheard, negated, disrespected, angry, frustrated, silenced, abused, disempowered, etc. etc.

I am outraged at mainstream biopsychiatry and all the horrific evil and harm it has done since the Nazi Holocaust it created with evil eugenics theories to the present in the guise of medicine and “mental health.” Today’s DSM bogus, life destroying stigmas are no better than so called medical terms like “human vermin” to justify “mercy killings” or gassing to death of the so called “mentally ill” as practice for the horrific German Holocaust of the Jews, gypsies, gays and anyone else deemed subhuman, impure or powerless enough for the gas chambers.

I hope Dr. Ragins will give some very serious thought to all the comments here. I appreciate the fact that he has read Robert Whitaker’s books and has already reconsidered his approach to psychiatry during his career.

I do admire and respect him for hanging in there with us and not giving into the temptation to “take his bat and ball and go home” despite his social position of power. We are a tough bunch as Dr. Steingard knows, but she and others have won our respect by being honest and admitting what they don’t know and expressing real concern about the great potential for harm in biopsychiatry that has changed their current practice.

I have learned not to engage at all with certain people who have proven to be too psychopathic/narcissistic or plain evil (see Dr. M. Scott Peck’s The People of the Lie) because they are too blind, corrupt, sadistic, greedy, power hungry, well defended and deadly/dangerous to attempt to engage as the vampires of society that one astute person noted above.

I see Dr. Ragins as being a decent type of person who wants to do the right thing while caught up in this horrific paradigm created when the psychopathic KOL’s at the top of the American Psychiatric Association sold out to Big Pharma and corrupt government hacks to create this nightmare corrupt totalitarian, fascist human holocaust to benefit the 1% power elite only as part of their evil “new world order” biopsychiatry has been plotting since their inception as described by its original psychopathic creators (see quotations online about psychiatry’s world domination goals). Dr. John Nardo does a great job exposing this long term corruption on his web site, 1boringoldman, among many others though I don’t agree with all he says like promoting ECT in limited ways.

Despite my own seeming negative posts, I have responded favorably to Dr. Ragins when he talks about his attempts to reach out to people especially without toxic drugs despite the very serious funding and other limitations he himself must deal with on a daily basis when dealing with people who may be poor, homeless or facing other huge challenges. I am sure that must be frustrating.

I urge that domestic violence victims should be referred to DV shelters and not further destroyed by biopsychiatry to aid and abet their abusers, which include the psycho monsters running the very lucrative, fraudulent, corrupt family court system exposed all too well on the web. All one has to do is read “The Battered Women’s Testimony Report” to see how abused women are routinely treated with contempt by the courts as also exposed by Lundy Bancroft in his many books and articles as a DV expert and facilitator of batterer groups.

Consider the parable about an old man seeing a boy on a beach throwing starfish back into the sea so they would not die. The man criticizes and ridicules the boy that that his attempt to save the many starfish left to die on the beach is a futile waste of time since the task of saving them all is impossible.

As he keeps throwing the starfish back into the sea, the boy says to the man, “It matters to the ones I save.”

So, like Jonah, I am impressed with Dr. Ragins’ attempt to relate to that homeless person without forced drugging. I hope he has realized that biopsychiatry has destroyed all too many people’s careers, finances, homes, health, children and lives in general with many in middle and upper classes (see book, Not to People Like Us: Hidden Abuse in Upscale Marriages describing the consequences of all too common upscale domestic violence and child abuse). Many soldiers/military have been destroyed by biopsychiatry with bogus bipolar stigmas and toxic drugs including female rape victims being raped by the mental death profession a second time with a bogus bipolar stigma for their trauma symptoms to negate, destroy, gas light, disempower them and aid and abet their male abusers.

Thus, I hope when Dr. Ragins encounters each individual he will remember it matters to the ones he “saves” and sometimes that means doing “nothing” via biopsychiatry and everything as a fellow human being that is the only thing that matters. A recent article said that lonely people could be greatly helped just by short term encounters with various people in stores and other brief interactions. Given that Dr. Ragins is attempting to improve his own skills in relating to people, he may not realize that such a brief positive encounter expressing warmth and empathy can go a long way with the disenfranchised in society.

One final caution is that the malignant narcissist, Robert Spitzer, who created the vile, bogus DSM III for the most part by treating humans like rock specimens as he did in his real life, admitted that if the causes of the many “symptoms” listed in the DSM were ever considered like abuse for example, the whole DSM house of cards would fall apart.

This sham has certainly fallen apart big time from Day 1 with books like They Say You’re Crazy, The Selling of the DSM, Making Us Crazy, Toxic Psychiatry and many others, so the fact it is still being shoved down the throats of one and all of the 99% masses shows that biopsychiatry is only about fascist, totalitarian social power and control over the majority of citizens a la Soviet Russia and has absolutely nothing to do with any kind of health whatsoever! Dr. Joanna Moncrieff exposes this horror show in her books and articles like “Psychiatric Imperialism.”

Psychiatrists like Dr. Ragins should consider the lament that evolved from the Nazi Holocaust:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Socialist.

Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out–
Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me–and there was no one left to speak for me.

Martin Niemöller

As they say, the life you save may be your own directly and indirectly.

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From Donna’s comment Sunday, December 22, 2013 2:02 PM

“I have learned not to engage at all with certain people who have proven to be too psychopathic/narcissistic or plain evil (see Dr. M. Scott Peck’s The People of the Lie) because they are too blind, corrupt, sadistic, greedy, power hungry, well defended and deadly/dangerous to attempt to engage as the vampires of society that one astute person noted above.”

I have tried to get at this before because it really hits a nerve in me.

How can you say that there are such evil, ill-intentioned people in this world but then try to make it seem like it’s all them, never us?

What you say about “them” makes the following seem so JUSTIFIED (is their intolerance, hatred and loathing toward those any less or different than your intolerance, hatred and loathing toward them?)…

“Today’s DSM bogus, life destroying stigmas are no better than so called medical terms like “human vermin” to justify “mercy killings” or gassing to death of the so called “mentally ill” as practice for the horrific German Holocaust of the Jews, gypsies, gays and anyone else deemed subhuman, impure or powerless enough for the gas chambers.”

Pray tell, what should be done about these psychopathic/narcissistic evil people? Those too blind, corrupt, sadistic, greedy, power hungry people?

Would you like to see them jailed, imprisoned? Eradicated? Serious questions.

How can you possibly say that psychopaths and narcissists exist, but then you want to say it’s all bullshit when psychiatry and the “mental” system makes those very diagnoses.?

Which is it Donna, psychopaths exist or they don’t? Narcissists exist or they don’t? And why is it that it’s only “them” and not anyone DIAGNOSED AS SUCH by psychiatry and the “mental” system?

I know you’ve got great, great JUSTIFIED intolerance and hatred of psychiatry and the “mental” system. SO DO I.

But I keep showing, repeatedly, that we live in a SICK society where, like it or not, there ARE some people in this world, who are regular citizens, not among the “elite” and “powerful” of the world (people like Jeffery Dahmer – an extreme example but it gets to the point) whom YOU WOULD NEVER WANT TO SIT AT THEIR KITCHEN TABLE TO DINE WITH, OR SPEND A NIGHT AT THEIR HOUSE.

Did you read about how, when I was a 19 year old single mom of two kids, on my own for the first time, just left FOSTER CARE, and in two months’ time, I had been literally chased out of my apartment BY THE PEOPLE IN THE NEIGHBORHOOD, who DIDN’T WANT ME THERE? Donna, they SET THE BUILDING ON FIRE after they repeatedly broke into my apartment and kept wiping me out.

That’s HARD-CORE GHETTO.

So please, consider that. And don’t forget that cynical afrikan website I showed ya.

And lastly, I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again:

psychiatry and the “system” DOES NOT KNOW HOW to DISCERN people for who they really are. They don’t know how to differentiate GOOD people who suffer from the truly heartless, sadistic, brute animals of the world (no salvation, no redemption).

See what I’m getting at?

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Hi mjk,

You seem to know a lot about music and musicians with whom I am unfamiliar.

But, I love music and find it essential to my survival and well being. Whenever “my music dies” I know that I am dying literally. I love classic and other rock, the latest hits, classical music, etc. Some of my favorite devotional pieces are Beethoven’s ninth symphony, Handel’s Messiah, Jesus Christ Superstar, Mozart’s Symphony 40 and 41 because they are evidence of heavenly genius, Christmas carols and many others.

I like the song you cited above with the title being inspirational, but I had some trouble understanding the words from your link. What does it mean to you?

Are you near any churches or other places that have music and other Christmas program, meals and events? I’m glad you are finding ways to heal your heart and spirit right now. Libraries can be great places to see people and borrow free music, books, movies, etc. I’m a big fan of movies too. How about you?

I hope you join others over the holidays with church and other gatherings for music, worship, meals and other activities. And though holidays can sometimes be a downer, just remember “this too shall pass.”

Feel free to drop me a line over the holidays since I’m always checking my computer.

I’m glad you are placing such a big focus on your spiritual, mental and physical recovery.

God bless you.

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So a Merry Xmas to all the Bio-Med P-docs most of whom are off on their extended holidays in Bali or Cozumel or wherever their enormous salaries take them.
..
I suppose on this Xmas day they would rather be with their patients that they care so much about because those patients suffer so much. I guess because so many of them are so alienated that at this time of year Santa Shrink brings them an extra dose of medication to keep them cool.
…
To sentence a person to a living death, to cripple them for life, to get rich off it and feel so proud about it. I think we need a coin a word to describe this psychiatric syndrome that psychiatrists exhibit.
…
How about “Shrinkfluenza” – but the “afluenza” guy only killed four people , psychiatrists kill millions – so how about “Grandiose Shrinkfluenza” or “Mass Grandiose Shrinkfluenza” to cover the lot of them as some kind of Group Madness?
..
“And to all a good night” – and a special sympathy for all those unfortunates who have entered the long dark night of the pill from which they will not return.

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Hello Mark Ragins,

Since you took the time to respond to my two-sentence comment above(http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/12/enjoy-prescribing-meds/#comment-34820), I thought I would try to clarify the intent behind it, in the event that you are still reading.

Judging by your response, you seemed to have missed the intended message. My comment had nothing to do with animal abuse.

The second sentence was dependent upon the first. The point was really about context – the context of your article, and its title – and the callous disregard your writing seemed to show for the feelings and experiences of others, including your own “patients.”

I hope you write here again. Seriously. And I hope you keep writing here, at least until such time as you can see that there are legitimate reasons for people’s reactions to your words.

Thanks.

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