Monthly Archives: November 2013

E. Fuller Torrey has a new book. While I was not thrilled to support the Treatment Advocacy Center, I was curious as to what he had to say. Where Torrey has clarity, I contend there is much that we still do not understand. I worry that a perspective that suggests the answers are clear cuts us off from inquiry into alternate approaches.

The Cornerstones of Mental Health: Jon Keyes is a licensed professional counselor working in private practice at Hearthside Healing in Portland Oregon. Jon...

An article in Biological Psychiatry that asks "Is Aberrant Functional Connectivity A Psychosis Endophenotype" inspires reflection on how new findings of brain science suggest rethinking...

If I had remained med compliant I wouldn’t understand the simple joys of caring about my hygiene and my surroundings. I’ve wanted to write about this for a long time but I’ve not done it and I think it’s because I still have shame around how slovenly I became. I hid it from others fairly well most of the time, but I couldn’t hide it from myself. The fact is the drugs stripped me of some very basic elements of human care. When one doesn’t care about their immediate environment and their bodies, they really just don’t care about themselves. It’s a very painful place to be and yet when it’s caused by drugs it’s all muted and weird and not really who we are at all and so really all that is left is horrible shame.

Researchers (including Jim van Os) find, in a three-year cohort study of 1272 people at possible genetic risk of psychosis, that "most transitions (to psychosis)...

Research on a sample of 587 patients with DSM-IV defined bipolar disorder finds that an earlier age at onset of bipolar illness - along...

Part of what has scared me straight about ever starting a patient on an antidepressant (or antipsychotic or mood stabilizer) again is bearing witness to the incredible havoc that medication discontinuation can wreak. I am half way through the first e-course of its kind (on withdrawing from psych meds), and it has been incredibly well-received. There are so many people out there, disenfranchised by psychiatry, skeptical of its promises, and who want a better way, a more thoughtful assessment of them as whole persons. We seem to be onto something here, so let’s keep the dialogue flowing, keep our eyes wide open, and reform what psychiatry means, one patient at a time.

eCPR is a public health education program designed to teach people to assist others through emotional crisis through three steps: C = connecting, P = emPowering, and R = revitalizing. eCPR recognizes that the experiences of trauma, emotional crisis, and emotional distress are universal; they can happen to anyone, at anytime, anywhere.

"My studies in this area lead me to a very uncomfortable conclusion: Our citizens would be far better off if we removed all the psychotropic drugs from the market, as doctors are unable to handle them. It is inescapable that their availability creates more harm than good." - Peter Gøtzsche, MD; Co-founder of the Cochrane Collaboration

This article is about my testimony at the Massachusetts State House hearings on September 10, 2013 supporting legal reform of rights of patients in mental hospitals in Massachusetts. The state Legislature’s Committee on Mental Health & Substance Abuse heard testimony on a proposed bill, House Bill #1806, guaranteeing patients in mental hospitals the right to get outside for fresh air breaks every day, and in the same bill is a proposal to put “teeth” into a weak existing law by strengthening enforcement powers to protect rights already granted people in hospitals. These rights may be unique to Massachusetts. It was hard to get them.

The U.K. newspaper The Guardian asked readers of five newspapers in the U.K., Germany, France, Spain and Italy to talk about their experiences of...

The journal Philosophy, Psychiatry & Psychology is calling for proposals for papers "aimed at tackling the 'hard' questions implicated in processes of user/survivor inclusion,...

ECT, or shock treatment as it's sometimes called, is a controversial topic. Adherents describe it as safe and effective; opponents condemn its use as damaging and ineffective. But it is still widely used in the US and in other countries. After shock treatment, some clients do appear to be less depressed, but this phenomenon has been interpreted differently by ECT's proponents and opponents. Proponents claim that the ECT treatments have clearly alleviated the depression. Opponents claim that the apparent improvement is an example of post-concussion euphoria, and that the effects are short-lived. My purpose in this article is to examine the evidence that ECT "is highly effective."

Research from Boston University suggests that exposure to stimulant medications such as Ritalin during adolescence may result in cocaine addiction in later life. “You...

If the US wishes to maintain its reputation as a leader in the field of disability rights, it is not enough to assist other countries in building ramps and developing accessible technology. Those are laudable aims but are at best half of what the CRPD requires. There is a new world in disability rights, and the US risks being left behind unless there is a reversal of course that commits to full domestic implementation in compliance with standards that have been set by the international community with US participation.

Dr. Terry Lynch says that "Long ago I began to question the whole categorization of normal and abnormal, which is what doctors tend to...

Professor John Nash discusses the discrepancies between the book & film "A Beautiful Mind" and his life.  While he endorses the portrayal of mental...

The New York Times reports on new research from multiple sources that finds focused attention on insomnia is proving to be a "cheap, relatively...

A Philadelphia jury yesterday ordered Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen to pay $11 million to the parents of a five-year-old boy for failure to warn...

A colleague and I have been tracking individuals who elect to reduce their dose of neuroleptic drug. The two year results are presented here.

Behaviorism and Mental Health: Philip Hickey is a retired psychologist.  He has worked in prisons (UK and US), addiction units, community mental health centers,...

Through the act of deep listening to personal stories of distress and healing, I have become convinced that even the most well-meaning mental health professionals are persistently asking the wrong questions. We are operating within a system that prizes the stability, conformity, and sedation of persons with experiences too unusual or too "disruptive" to social norms. It is a system that asks the question, "What is wrong with you?" and it is a system that defines "fixing" the problem as managing symptoms so that people aren't a bother (financially, logistically, and socially) to other people.

I learned a lot about the meaning of community in Senegal, West Africa where I lived for a few years. One day while I was still learning to speak Mandinka, the language of my village, I asked “How do I say, I am going running (alone, by myself)?” It was explained to me that there was no word for "alone" in Mandinka.

The Washington Post's Michael Gerson writes on the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities as an example of how "aspects of...

Sinéad O'Connor discusses mental health issues with TIME magazine this week, singling out the media's tendency to diagnose "without qualification," and adding that "mental health...