Monthly Archives: June 2012
Little Brother Big Pharma
In 1954, Thorazine was introduced as a treatment for mental disorders, thus began the modern era of psychiatry. This new drug was said to "prevent...
Crooked Beauty
Crooked Beauty is a poetic documentary that chronicles artist-activist Jacks McNamara's transformative journey from childhood abuse to psych ward patient to pioneering mental health...
Jon Jureidini – Short Bio
Healthy Skepticism: Jon Jureidini, a child psychiatrist in Australia, writes on the quality use of medicines, misleading drug promotion, suicide, medical education and child abuse.
Jon Jureidini, MD – Long Bio
HEALTHY SKEPTICISM
Jon Jureidini is a child psychiatrist at the Women's and Children's Hospital, Adelaide, where he works with ill and disabled children and their...
Our Emotions – The Sole Creators of Every Word, Voice, Symbolic Image, Bodily Movement...
The experience of hearing voices during madness, or during our "normal" and constant inner conversation that never stops, shows that we use words to...
Avoidance of Voices Can Be as Problematic as Listening Too Much
In the system of mental health “care” which is dominant today, “hearing voices” is conceptualized as an illness, and so the goal is seen...
Better Living through Chemistry?
Reading the article “Risky rise of good-grade pill” in the New York Times on Saturday once again raised the philosophical issue of how to...
We did it! Kansas’ Health Insurance Application withdrawn!
Recently one blogger pointed out how managed care systems might be a violation of human rights. I've also been recently posting about how the...
Closing Arguments Start Today in California “Zoloft Defense” Case
The trial of former California police officer Anthony Orban for rape goes to closing arguments today. Orban is pleading "not guilty by reason of...
J&J to Pay $2.2 Billion to Settle Government’s Risperdal Probe
Johnson & Johnson has agreed to pay $2.2 billion to settle probes by the U.S. government of its marketing of Risperdal and other medications,...
The NY Times: When Stimulants Are Bad
On Sunday, the New York Times ran a lengthy article titled “Risky Rise of the Good-Grade Pill,” and it illustrated, in vivid detail, how our society—and the medical community—may view a “drug of abuse” through one prism (as harmful) and a “prescribed drug” through another (as helpful), even though the drug in both cases is the same.
Doctors Concerned by Antipsychotic Prescriptions
Dr Danielle Stowasser from the Australian National Prescribing Service discusses the large number of antipsychotic prescriptions being written for elderly people.
Eye Movement and the Schizophrenia Diagnosis
Researchers from the U.S., Germany and the U.K. found they were able to differentiate 88 persons with schizophrenia diagnoses from 88 controls with almost...
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy is Effective for Current Depression
A randomized, controlled trial by researchers in the Netherlands compared 102 subjects with recurrent depression receiving mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) + treatment-as-usual (TAU) with...
CBT Without Medication is Safe and Effective For Psychosis
A small sample of 20 people with schizophrenia spectrum diagnoses who had refused or discontinued medication were given cognitive therapy by researchers in the...
Are We Not Human Beings with the Rights to be Treated as Human?
(Speech delivered by Daniel Fisher at the rally in front of the Boston State House, June 2,2012)
How can residents of Judge Rotenberg Center (JRC)...
Psychosis = Hallucination+Delusion
Drawing from the Netherlands Mental Health and Incidence Study (n=7075), researchers from the Netherlands and the U.K. examined psychotic experiences and clinical outcomes for...
Neurofeedback May Improve Self-Regulation of Emotion
A small pilot study of neurofeedback as a tool for self-regulation of emotion networks in the brain found that eight patients with depression learned...
Childhood Stress Alters Memory and Brain Structure
Researchers from the universities of Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Illinois and New Orleans collected MRI scans and assessments of executive functioning and stress exposure from 61...
The Place of Medication in a Recovery Oriented System of Care
I was invited to present a work shop with Dan Fisher, MD PhD at the 2012 NAMI-VT annual meeting. These are my comments. They reflect my long term beliefs integrated with my reappraisal of practice in the past year.
WRAP Reduces Depression and Anxiety, Improves Recovery
519 individuals recruited from community mental health settings in Ohio were assigned to Wellness Recovery Action Planning (WRAP) or treatment as usual and assessed...
Neurobiology and Schizophrenia: “The Elusive Correlation”
Despite developments in neuroscience that provide "a way to study schizophrenia in vivo ... efforts to understand the neurobiological bases of the clinical symptoms that...
Oxytocin – “The Love Hormone” – Improves Cognition in Schizophrenia
Oxytocin, which has "shown promise as a novel antipsychotic in multiple clinical trials," improved cognition in a small sample (n=15) of people with schizophrenia...
Human Behavioral Genetics’ “Unfulfilled Promise”
A review of the literature on behavioral genetics, published online today by Developmental Psychobiology, finds "powerful new methods have failed to reveal even one bona...
Children Raised in Institutions: Increased ADHD, Anxiety, etc.
Data drawn from the Bucharest Early Intervention Project show that children raised in institutions in Romania exhibit elevated symptoms of ADHD, anxiety, depression, and...
