Yearly Archives: 2015

It is encouraging that more and more people - psychiatrists, patients, and researchers – are opposing drug treatments for depression, anxiety, and ADHD. But this is only half the battle. To oppose the level that psychiatry, my field, has sunk to comes with the obligation to right the ship. Obviously we need to recover from practices that violate the fundamental principle of “Do No Harm.” But over and above that, we have to constructively treat and heal the ‘pains’ of our patients.

-HealthNewsReview.org takes on Dr. Richard Friedman's description of a “potential biomarker in the brain that would help psychiatrists direct depressed patients towards treatment to which they would more likely respond.”

A study into prejudice, hatred and violence directed against people with mental health issues is seeking public input.

-Hurricane Irene seems to have left some community-based approaches to psychiatric care in its wake.

-A large excerpt from a post by David Healy is sandwiched between commentary by psychiatrist Allen Frances.

This week a commentary, written by members of the University of Pennsylvania Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy and titled “Improving Long-term Psychiatric Care: Bring Back the Asylum” was published in JAMA Online. The authors recommend a return to asylum care, albeit not as a replacement for but as an addition to improved community services and only for those who have “severe and treatment-resistant psychotic disorders, who are too unstable or unsafe for community based treatment.” The authors seem to accept the notion of transinstitutionalization (TI) which suggests that people who in another generation would have lived in state hospitals are now incarcerated in jails and prisons. While I do not agree, I do find there is a need for a safe place for people to stay while they work through their crisis.

-A new regular radio program from NPR "explores the intangible forces that shape human behavior."

-Neuroskeptic discusses two 20th century American surgeon-psychiatrists who believed that they could cure schizophrenia by removing parts of their patients’ intestines.

The European Medicines Agency has called for the suspension of sales of many commonly used generic drugs, including at least four widely used psychiatric medications.

The Scottish Anthropologist Ioan Lewis, wrote the book Ecstatic Religion in 1971, in which he suggested a ‘shaman is not less than a psychiatrist, he is more.’   He claimed psychiatry was just one of the functions of the shaman, and he invited comparison between shamans and psychiatrists.  Some diagnostic criteria for schizophrenia appeared rather similar to the desired conditions of shamans in an altered state of consciousness.  Other terms used (and misused) for therapeutic practitioners included: native or traditional healer, medicine man, witch doctor, soul doctor, sorcerer, magician, spirit medium, exorcist, curer, diviner and diagnostician.

The more that patients feel that they have a high-quality relationship with their prescribing physician, the more likely that they will regard their own responses to antidepressants as positive.

-A Washington Post story suggests that Centers for Disease Control researchers are worried about what they'll find if they investigate the causes of gun violence.

-How much is hoarding rooted in consumerism?

Yoga helped me explore and reconnect with the body I’d abandoned and abused for years. My pain and sadness had me living exclusively in my mind, my body nothing more than a battleground for my inner wars. Through yoga and meditation, I slowly began to love myself again, learning to treat myself with care and respect. I felt a greater sense of self-awareness, and a sense of connection to something greater. This was a drastic contrast to the days when I felt as if god had forgotten about me, or like I was a mistake not meant for this world.

A scientific review says we need to know much more about the risks of nursing mothers taking SSRIs.

--The former CEO of the UK's National Treatment Agency describes the social circumstances of people most susceptible to addiction.

-University of Queensland addictions experts challenge last year's Nature editorial that claimed there is a scientific "consensus" that addiction is a brain disease.

From 1951, a system designed for heroin and cocaine addicts – prescription-only status – was applied to all new drugs. Why? These were after all the first truly effective drugs in medicine. But the ability to do good came with a likelihood of doing harm. There was a trade-off to be made between risks and benefits. The new complex trade-offs could not be put on to the label of a drug or even captured in a forty page package insert. They needed to be individual to each person.

-What would an anti-militaristic, animal-loving, non-toxic, anti-sanist neuroscience look like?

-Was life better in the past, or is there some other reason depression is increasing?

-A neuroscientist hopes to identify the exact place inside a brain where a particular memory is held.

Janet Singer is an advocate for OCD awareness, with the goal of spreading the word that OCD, no matter how severe, is treatable. She...

The Pfizer drug has also been linked to more than 1,300 incidents of suicide attempts or thoughts, depression, and aggression/anger across the country in the past seven years.

-Chandra Bozelko has been involuntarily committed and imprisoned, and has strong opinions on which is more therapeutic.

-Anthropologist Tanya Luhrmann reflects on the British Psychological Society's "Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia" document.