The Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care was founded in 2011 with the hope of expanding what many had come to believe was a narrow and faulty understanding of psychiatric conditions. The immediate impetus was the work of journalist Robert Whitaker who had raised several critical ā and to many, startling ā questions about standard care.
In his bookĀ Mad In AmericaĀ he chronicled the history of treatment of the most severely afflicted mentally ill* people in the US, and detailed how time and again promising treatments proved to be not only ineffective but also, in many cases, damaging.
In his bookĀ Anatomy of an EpidemicĀ he raised the possibility that this had once again occurred in the modern era; that the drugs heralded as lifesaving and revolutionary were less effective than commonly believed and, of even greater concern, might worsen outcomes. At the end of the book, he discussed approaches that were less well known but had shown remarkable promise. This included Open Dialogue, developed in northern Finland in the 90s, and Soteria, developed in the US in the 70s. The frustration was that current funding sources for research were more interested in figuring out the workings of the brain ā in hopes this would lead to better treatment ā than inĀ studying these decidedly less technological approaches.
Several philanthropists came together with the hopes that EXCELLENCE might bring new funding sources to people who were interested in studying these different approaches. The hope was to fund research and develop innovative treatments that were being neglected, discounted, or ignored. EXCELLENCE was designed as a community foundation. The idea was that donors could develop their own funds and direct the money in various ways.Ā Given the many areas of potential promise, this big tent approach seemed to make sense.
Five years later, our board met to plan for the future. It is impossible to do this without looking back at our past. I had the honor of being elected chair of the board at this meeting. While I hope this post accurately reflects our discussion, it canāt help but carry my own particular take on what turned out to be an impassioned conversation. I welcome my fellow board members to chime in with their own perspectives. I am influenced by my training in Open Dialogue. This is an approach that values polyphony, i.e., not only hearing but acknowledging that there are many voices in the room.Ā So while I will try to reflect our collective voice, I also acknowledge that I ultimately can only truly speak from my personal perspective.
While we will continue as a community foundation, we felt the need to clarify our focus. After hours of discussion, we came to some clarity about the areas that were most vital to our mission. We called them our ābucketsā and will use these as touchstones to both clarify our goals and explain our mission.
Cultural and System Change/Advocacy
As noted above, we believe that it is vital to reframe the very nature by which we talk about the kinds of distress that land people in psychiatristsā offices or mental health clinics. We have a system that is predicated on a medical understanding of these problems and we do not believe this serves us well. In order to shift funding, we need to shift the conversation.
I have recently been introduced to the notion of epistemic authority. This refers to who holds the authority for knowledge, how we think about things, and, in a fundamental way, how we decide what is ātrue.āĀ Currently, psychiatrists and neuroscientists are considered the ultimate in epistemic authority in this area, and if one challenges their views one is considered suspect. We would argue that there are many valid areas that are ignored because those who have the authority have discounted their legitimacy. It is, therefore, vital that we mount a concerted effort to promote data that is ignored. This includes not only underappreciated or unrecognized research but also the many voices of those with lived experience who have found paths to recovery that are not recognized. One of our goals is to give these perspectives voice and in so doing advocate for cultural and system change.
Childrenās Advocacy/Loving Children
One of the most powerful moments of our retreat was when our wonderful board member, Giovan Bazan, made an impassioned plea for the children. Gioās own story is one of remarkable perseverance and resilience. He was placed in foster care at a young age. His painful response to the traumas he had experienced was diagnosed as mental disorder and he was medicated. At age 18, he stopped taking the drugs and he has made it his mission in life to help the children who are havingĀ similar experiences today. He spoke of friends who had been less fortunate than had not survived. He implored us to join him in his work and we have agreed that attending to the needs of children and youth remains a core value of the Foundation.
Slow Psychiatry/Psychiatric Reform
As I mentioned above, Robert Whitakerās writing on the problems with long-term exposure to psychiatric drugs was a reason EXCELLENCE was formed. In the past few years, I have written and lectured about my own evolution in this area. I have used the term Slow Psychiatry ā I first heard it used this way by our board member David Healy, MD ā to argue for acknowledging with our patients and the public the complexity and uncertainty inherent to my profession. While we are pushed to make rapid diagnoses, see more patients in shorter intervals, and base our treatment recommendations on quickly administered rating scales, I argue that the diagnostic and therapeutic uncertainty inherent to modern psychiatry requires us to slow down and spend time with people and their families so we can talk together about what may or may not be useful.
This is not a position that is anti-medication. It is a position that is pro-transparency. It is a position that acknowledges that there is so much we still do not know; we do not know who will and will not benefit from treatment, and we often do not know how to best understand the problem.
Another facet of research we are supporting is nutritional approaches. Bonnie Kaplan, PhD, and colleagues have been studying the effects of micronutrients in improving mental health for decades. This is a promising and emerging area that has also been hampered by lack of funds. This is in no small part due to the fact that nutrients cannot be patented in the way that drugs can. A foundation may be the only way to support this work since the large assets of pharmaceutical companies will not be put into this area.
Innovative Approaches/Treatments
If we move away from a drug-centric approach to treatment, what else could be helpful? This is the final area of focus for the Foundation. We are one of the largest funder of Open Dialogue studies and programs in the US. In northern Lapland, they have reported remarkably good outcomes in people who are experiencing first episode psychosis. If this can be even partially replicated, the potential savings ā in terms of reduction of long-term disability ā are enormous. But the startup costs are also high, and with the federal government backing away from supporting treatment studies, especially those with a less technological bent, a foundation remains the sole source of potential funding.
Similarly, the Hearing Voices Network has been of great value in Europe and around the world. The Foundation has funded a large program to train groups across the country including veterans returning from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
There are other emerging and promising innovations, many of them designed by people who have themselves experienced extreme emotional states. These need to be funded and the Foundation sees itself as critical in this area.
We left our board meeting energized but worried about the daunting task we have set for ourselves. Our board includes remarkable people who come to this from many perspectives ā people with lived experience, family members, world-renowned researchers, administrators, and clinicians āĀ who have become dismayed by the state of our services today. But we cannot do this alone. Please join us. We can change the world together.
*On the use of the term āmentally illā: I am challenging the medicalization of the problems we call mental illness, yet by using this term, I am medicalizing. The problem is that I do not have an alternative term that is well understood by a broader population. This is yet another challenge. Please accept my apologies for the failure of more creative use of language.
Hi Sandra,
It’s good to see this work ongoing.
Re: labels, you may see I was also criticized in a recent article for use of these terms. There are other words, but they are often more cumbersome, and no simple label does justice to the great variety of problems, strengths, and expressions of distress that are seen among different people.
Still, I think it’s good to shift away from the term “mentally ill”, as it really is a misnomer. People are distressed, have problems in a variety of ways, people suffer, but people don’t “have” discrete mental illnesses. The Newtonian, linear, concretized, all-or-nothing way of speaking about human suffering that modern psychiatry uses has run its course in terms of usefulness, if it ever had any.
For people with “psychotic” diagnoses, that term can be replaced by “extreme states” or “organizing states” (organizing referring to trying to find some coherent way to order confusing, overwhelming experience). For people labeled as “having” depression, I think we should stop using terms like “have” depression or “have a depressive disorder”, and just say people are feeling depressed at a particular time, usually for understandable reasons… understandable responses to reality challenges are not “disorders”, nor does one “have” a mental illness in the way one has the flu.
We need terms that show that people are people, that human beings have souls. Modern psychiatric treatment – 15 minute dia-drug psychiatry – mostly evidences no soul. Young medical trainees know it is not a respected field, and they largely do not want to join the field (versus other truly medical specialties).
I have recently been making the case that one should consider NOT going to a psychiatrist when one is severely distressed, because psychiatrists have little to offer that other sources of help do not. At the same time psychiatrists come with many more risks related to misuse of drugs and misleading communications about the nature of distress, and thus many psychiatrists are a threat to recovery. In the longer term, I would like to see psychiatry mostly “retired” as a profession, because I expect that outcomes would improve and distress would be medicalized much less.
At the least, one should have a choice, and a psychiatrist should not be automatically involved in treating an extreme state, nor in treating feelings of depression, etc… if the suffering individual and their family does not want that. It should be about choice as your article implied. And psychiatrists should not be placed above other mental health workers in the hierarchy of authority of who-gets-to-treat, because they do not deserve such placement. They have neither the scientific basis nor the effectiveness of better outcomes to justify such a privileged position.
I may have a bias because psychiatric treatment led directly to the death of my stepfather, led my biological father to lose his capacity to work and to lose his memory, and almost killed me. With these “treatment results”, who wouldn’t be biased against the field… without psychiatric treatments, things could have been much easier for me, my dad could still work and remember, and my stepdad could still be alive.
I took a look at the Excellence Board – http://www.mentalhealthexcellence.org/leaders/board/ – and it seems it is still mostly made up of PhDs and MDs. While I like many of these people, I have to wonder how far reform can go if MDs and PhDs are leading the reform effort. I suspect not very far. I encourage the board to consider electing more non-professionals, more people like Gio.
Let me suggest one other area of research to have in mind for the future: long-term psychotherapy (2-5 years) of extreme states (commonly labeled “schizophrenia”). Gaetano Benedetti (in “Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia”), Roberta Siani (Self Psychology for Psychosis in Martindale’s “Psychosis – Effective Psychotherapeutic Approaches”), Barbro Sandin (in Cullberg and Sjostrom’s papers), Bertram Karon (in his own “Psychotherapy of Schizophrenia”) have each done pilot studies of multiple-times-per-week recovery-oriented therapy for extreme states lasting 2-5 years. Their outcomes were mostly very good, and if widely known would probably show a hopeful alternative – i.e. that getting only psychotherapeutic help, or psychotherapy with limited or low drug use, could be a viable pathway for many very severely distressed people. Also, the savings to the economy from decades of disability use reduced could be very great if such help were more available.
This idea is similar but not the same as Open Dialogue – it focuses on 1-on-1 depth therapy, of the kind therapists like Steinman were talking about at the Boston conference. While Open Dialogue can help many, not every person has a family to be involved, nor does everyone want a family or system-oriented approach. And so 1-on-1 intensive therapy of extreme states should be another alternative (and already is, if one knows where to look).
Report comment
Thanks Matt for your cogent reply and thanks Sandra for all your efforts at trying.
Having had feet on both sides of the deck I feel pulled multiple ways
I have experienced altered states due to overwhelming stress and was not helped but harmed
I fully believe my PSTD symptoms came from ‘help’
especially from inpatient so called treatment should be called for what it was and is warehousing to use and old but still important sawhorse
So much of that in some many areas of our society these days and U fear more to come before it is really turned around
The other issue is MAMI and family members
I was driven to the er by my husband sev
Report comment
Sorry finger issues again
I was driven to the er by a clueless person who didn’t know what else to do
Family members need to be educated as much as docs!
I am reminded of the first ‘Planet if the Apes’ movie where the main character sees reality for the first time with the buried Statue of Liberty
As a former LISW I feel like those words he shouted could have come from my own vocal chords
I knew and had some great respect for some of the docs I worked with
I was too ashamed to call on them when I first ran into issues
The ones that treated me for the most part did more harm than good
I was a therapists therapist What happens when the pillars are thrown into the horrirific system we have now?
We fall into the cracks like all of the others
Wat does that say Sandra?
Please take Matts words to heart and do read the late
Fritz Reidals work on treatment of children and adolescenence
He got it mostly right
On Wikipedia his notation has only been in German
Says everything
But fare forward!
Report comment
Glad to see you paying more attention to words. Still this surprised me:
I have recently been making the case that one should consider NOT going to a psychiatrist when one is severely distressed
Only recently? I would think that even you would consider that to be something that should go without saying; more, that visiting a psychiatrist is something that should be avoided at all costs. Especially, as can be seen from the recent quote on MIA’s home page from Beth Israel Hospital, the psychiatrist isn’t even remotely associated as follows with psychoanalysis or “talk therapy” anymore, but is defined as “the one who prescribes your meds.”
The quoted sentence could be corrected by reversing two words:
I have recently been making the case that one should NOT consider going to a psychiatrist when one is severely distressed
Report comment
good post, Dr.Steingard.
Speaking as a current “mental patient” who is (Praise God!) “in recovery” from what is now termed “severe Bipolar I” (please forgive the heavy handed use of ” “), I find this sort of work exciting and encouraging.
Where I go for treatment, the emphasis is on the medications. I’m blessed in that I have ongoing, easy breezy counseling along with the med checks. I’ve been encouraged to look at my anti-madness cocktail as necessary maintenance meds, similar to people who are on cocktails for hypertension, heart issues, etc.
Since I’m currently a “mental patient,” albeit one with people with some prestige and resources behind me, I go along with this–for now (I mention my people because I’ve found that social status has been a huge factor in my treatment, even though its not generally openly acknowledged). That’s one thing I like about this approach to madness and severe distress. You and your colleagues are not staunchly anti-psych drugs, but there is more transparency, as you put it, more honesty about the limitations of current knowledge and existing treatments.
I find that in my own life I’m reflecting on what it means to “recover.” I realize now it is not, for me, a return to baseline, nor can it be such.
For a season, I reflected on the labels; am I “severely Bipolar I” because of my people? If I was a poor, minority woman, would I be on involuntary Haldol shots? Then I decided to play the hand I’ve been dealt and move forward, as best I can.
The research on nutritional approaches to these problems is fascinating. I’m on the psych drugs for a while yet, so I’ve also been doing a DIY Orthomolecular cocktail with the drugs. I don’t know about “improvement in symptoms,” but I do tolerate the tranquilizer much better than I did before and I feel the vitamins and antioxidants have made a positive impact on how I react to stress. I also sleep better and my overall physical health seems to have improved, gradually.
Your posts make me realize that psychiatrists aren’t all sinister, controlling elitists, nor are you all third rate “professionals” who simply couldn’t make a go of things in any other branch of medicine. The situation is more complicated and nuanced, just like the world of madness itself. Basically, the work you and your colleagues are doing gives me hope that psychiatry and the mental health industry in general can, in fact, facilitate a way forward.
Report comment
Listen,especially my crazy white brethren.Don’t pay any attention to any left-winged
human rights activist groups,because they never fought for our,sadly so far lost cause.
Same goes to any anti-psychiatry activist,so far.All talk,no-action!The very fact is that
few MIA writters also post on pro-mental health website Psychology Today.This and the
very mission of MIA re-thinking Mental Health,is clear sign that abolition of System which
kill up to 3 millions of people each year,isn’t real goal for MIA staff or writters.Because
same professions are in pro-Mental Health movement and anti-psychiatry movement,
you my crazy white brethren will have to re-think your very own perception of reality.
You have to understain,that Mental Health System is killer of crazy white population in
first place!This and fact that leftwinged human rights groups never even mentioned our
suffering and deaths,will give you at least reason to ask yourself,why then crazy whites
are born only to silently die,inside Mental Institutions world-wide?Who is behind this
racial hatred against us?And who support this genocide?All mentioned above,for sure!!!
And WHO,NIMH,APA,BIG PHARMA,etc,…
Report comment
I am assuming you are a person of color
If you look into your history yes folks stayed far away except for jobs from the systems
The gate is something you need to work through
In the end it doesn’t work in the long run
I have tried hard to use it and then let it go
Everyone on this site needs to read T S Eliot quartets
Wisdom
“for us there is only the trying – the rest is none of our business”
And I say this full well knowing he has been called an anti-Semite and other suff
Report comment
I am assuming you are a person of color
Sounds more to me like some kind of white nationalist appealing to his “white brethren.”
Report comment
Borut, what do you mean by “pro-mental health”? Is it good, or bad?
Report comment
Fingers issues again!
Edit tool doesn’t work for me
So I am fully aware I am reccomeding reading a white privileged male who had a breakdown in his twenties but was really never treated in the usual wa
His first wife had tons of issues
He would have been a NAMI poster child
But his words sill carry weight for ALL
Use that wisdom you have to do something
I am trying but sometimes it is hard to get fear to strike out!
Hope someone gets the reference!
Report comment
I’d love to see a “bucket” for the research on post-psychotropic drugs problems, which are common, often severe, and just as valid as any other medical problem. They have symptoms that make them seem like disorders of the psyche, but they are caused by chemical injuries to the nervous system and heaven knows what else (hormones seem to be affected, too)
The ICD diagnostic system includes a code for “post-psychiatric illness personality disorder,” or something similar. It’s regarded as psychological. It sounds like post-psychotropic brain damage to me.
Report comment
Great post. Good initiatives. May I suggest that the Foundation consider a “family” bucket. Families function as 24/7 psychiatrists, nurses, and social workers. Most people going through extreme states begin doing so while they are the most dependent on us, those in the 15 – 25 age group. Many of us perform our function poorly because we are untrained in the art of good communication in stressful situations, leading to poorer chances of recovery for the family member. Families are the elephant in the room. We can make or break recovery. Work with us.
Report comment
I also love this post and love the initiatives. I too think a “family” bucket is so important for the reasons rossaforbes describes. In addition, I think that there is such a wealth of information that the families of people going through extreme states carry, that is not being tapped and which could go a long way towards providing information about the different ways, different people go through extreme states, and what recovery can look like (with and without drugs). If there was some kind of anonymous, online way for families to provide detailed information about, say, the progression of the participation in simple daily life activities, and different things tried, etc., etc, it could (after years) eventually provide great help, hope and information for future families. Of course this kind of information is most powerful coming from the survivors themselves, in their personal narratives; but I am talking about something a little bit different than that. I am talking about recording things that could be compiled to provide objective data, for all sorts of things. I am also talking about recording things during the times when people are so out of contact they are not yet speaking for themselves. This could provide quite a different narrative that is currently provided by the mainstream psychiatric community.(You know all those gloomy predictions about what it means if ‘the state of ‘psychosis’ lasts for 6 months’ etc.) To give just one example: If one knew about other people who had remained lying down in bed pretty motionless for about 21 hours each day, and that this went on for months, and yet the person then recovered from that state without being forced to take the drugs (which seemed to have preceded so many of the problems in the first place), one would be able to function with much less stress when supporting a loved one in extreme distress.)
Report comment
I had wanted to also say that having a huge wealth of data like this from families (which could include recording drug use, resulting behaviours etc. ) could also help with finding answers to questions such as which people in extreme distress (and when) might benefit from the short term use of neuroleptics, and which people in extreme distress are further harmed by using these drugs, EVEN in the SHORT term.
Report comment
So The Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care has Dr. David Healy as a board member?
Healy is an an advocate of ECT and a doctor who administers ECT. The victims of this electrical lobotomy have organized in groups to have their voices and stories of heart wrenching damage heard. They are survivors with lived experience who often work to warn other potential victims of the dangers of this assault.
There is no “excellence” to be found in assaulting people with closed head injury concussions (craniocerebral trauma) that decimate personality, memory, and intellect. One of your “buckets” should include working to specifically ban brain damaging and PTSD inducing ECT.
Report comment
Yes.
Report comment
Is it true that Healy administers ECT? I know he claims it is the lesser of two evils, the more evil being the drugs. Of course, having had ECT and knowing others who have been through this horrific and barbaric, um, “treatment,” I disagree. But I never knew he was a practicing clinician. I thought he mainly did research.
How can drugs be less evil if it’s possible actually to purchase chemicals in bars, AKA alcohol, and self-administer and control your intake, choose how many drinks you have, and say no when you decide you do not want any more? Most can. I happen to dislike alcohol. You can purchase many drugs in CVS or grow herbs and decide to put them in your body, or not. Or put things like basil on your salad. When it comes to prescription, well, that’s coercion and control, no thanks.
Who would self-administer ECT? I hear they do much lower voltage recreationally, like from batteries, but other than that, again, no thanks.
Please note my sarcasm.
Report comment
BetterLife
Pro-mental Health means for Mental Health.It’s very bad and also is very sad,that MIA is
for Mental Health and with this support existence of Mental Health System and to be only
against psychiatry and not against entire Mental Health System,is very absurd and insane
mission.Which certainly won’t make any difference,for us who are crazy.And it won’t save
single life!
Report comment
I see. Thank you for explaining. What you said about the Left/Liberal participation in the “mental health” enterprise is quite true. Their governing philosophy is “tyranny with benefits,” which appeals to those who like tyranny, whether they want the benefits or not, and those who accept tyranny because they want the benefits. As tyrants, Left/Liberal legislators and their cronies find it convenient and lucrative to imprison troublemakers, which is why the USA has the largest percent of its population in prisons (many of which are run by for-profit private concerns, with publicly-traded shares listed on the New York Stock Exchange), and the highest rate of individuals incapacitated by a for-profit mental health system (encompassing “medical” “care” and drug sales) on earth. The imprisoning and mental-healthing of difficult people also enriches attorneys (who are mostly Left/Liberal, and worthless in assisting us in the fight against the mental health enterprise*) and the public purse.
*http://abovethelaw.com/2015/09/the-mostly-liberal-political-ideologies-of-american-lawyers-law-schools-and-firms/
Report comment
Let’s not go overboard here. “Left/liberal” is a meaningless term in my book. Despite Sean Hannity, liberals are not “leftists,” and neither are Obama, Clinton, Schumer and their ilk. For me the true left has always represented the movement in the direction of socialism or anarchism, and has nothing to do with corporate rule. While the Democratic Party is extremely corrupt, the neo-cons are just neo-libs in different clothing, I’m not even sure what the differentiation is supposed to be at this point. The corporate power structure, however, is a joint project, and the differences between the two capitalist parties a matter of mere style. As far as anything important to us is concerned, both still act in lockstep against us.
Report comment
Agreed.
Report comment
Well, I really meant the actual human beings, the Pelosi, Feinstein, H Clinton, Obama types, whatever they are called. I don’t think anything regarded as socialist has been anything like anarchy in recent centuries. Don’t forget the Bolsheviks. That’s a flavor of socialism that was nowhere near anarchy. Something closer to anarchy, in recent history, was the very people they were bent on killing, the Cossacks. Rumor has it that they didn’t have centralized government, and to the extent they were organized, it was for military might, not control of production. What they had was enough land per capita, and a suitable climate to be self-sustaining as individuals and as a culture. What they lacked was outside support, which mattered, because their productivity on the land was too desirable to be left alone. They thought they could do their thing indefinitely, but by the mid 1850s, globalism was crowning, and their way was anachronistic. It was crazy, actually. When they ran out of bullets, they were done.
Isn’t that was crazy is? Doing your own thing, or wanting to, in a context where someone else with an unlimited supply of bullets wants you to do their thing? When you read about the goals of those who would “treat” what they call “schizophrenia,” it always boils down to “independent living.” Well, being homeless *is* independent living (while lacking outside support). Independence is not the goal of mental-healthing. The real goal, which isn’t really a secret, is that everyone be a “productive” member of the collective, er, society.
Report comment
I think this is the wrong place for such an endless discussion. But I will submit that alienation from the product of one’s labor is the essence of capitalism, and also of “craziness.” This plays out in many forms.
Report comment
I donāt think anything regarded as socialist has been anything like anarchy in recent centuries.
I meant true marxian socialism, not western European socialism. I consider anarchism and communism to be in pursuit of the same goal, i.e. a stateless cooperative society; the main difference between the two being how to get there — presto change-o, or by going through a socialist transition in which the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie over the working class is reversed on the way to the complete elimination of classes.
Report comment
I have met Gina Nikkel and heard about the Foundation that way. I was never aware that David Healy administered ECT. I don’t see that in his blog anywhere. I wasn’t aware that he did clinical work and saw patients.
I have been looking at ways to develop a “safe place” for people with eating disorders. I see the interest in ED is very minimal all over the movement even though I keep screaming that the human rights abuses in ED “care” are the worst in all of mental “health.” When will someone listen?
I believe that the folks from the UK who developed Family-based treatment are onto something. It’s also called the Maudley method. The stats look good, but what I need are STORIES. Human stories. Stories that tell me how it works. I know a few people who went through it and I do not see any evidence of cruelty. In fact, when done right, families become more whole. What a contrast to traditional MH “care”! Is anyone listening? Traditional care for eating disorders KILLS!!! This is why people are dying, children are dying at an alarming rate.
Not all families and not all patients can do Maudsley, simply due to financial status and age. If a patient isn’t living at home anymore or the family simply hasn’t got the time/resources to devote to the method or isn’t willing, it can’t be done. My idea is Community. That this can be implemented in a small setting, in a community, in a safe place that isn’t “lockup.”
Maudsley works best when lockup is avoided. When force is avoided. Force is bad for you. It kills. Safety means no force, no locked doors, no taking away human rights. Because when there’s force, it’s not safe.
This would be totally peer-run. We ARE the professionals. Ever sit in an office with some stuffy dude trying to tell him what it’s like to self-starve and get that idiotic, blank stare?
Trying to get this off the ground, trying to get someone to take interest and care.
If I can, if I get something started i would love to try to write up a proposal to the Foundation.
Thank you.
Julie
Report comment
Sandra Steingard, M.D.
3-4 years ago, after working with many people who claimed “depression,” I had developed and used many effective strategies that enabled people to become “undepressed.” I wrote these down in Healing Personal Depression For Good and published it as an ebook. A review of the book is at http://www.relatedness.org/Anxiety_Depresion_ebook_Review.html
If interested in a coupon for the book, please let me know at [email protected]
Report comment
Mental Health System will continue with it’s rampage and even get far more
people under it’s allmighty juristiction.With dopamine and serotonin blood or
urine tests.I wonder how many normals will be turned into crazies,indeed they
deserve our fate.Charts for naturals levels of both substances already exist,so
BIG PHARMA will only get more consumers.In USA,where allmighty outpatient
commitment exist-there will be no argue about,what means,if you won’t fitt
into charts natural levels!This information was posted in one of blogs here.
Sadly MIA didn’t hit alarm switch,because of this,so far.And you still think,
that you are superior as Americans,first at least monitor your own blogs
and don’t moderate ME,even if I wrote something what may upset some
people or any interest groups here,then.
Report comment
Why would anyone ever want to see a Psychiatrist, a Psychotherapist, or go to a Recovery Group?
None of these things will ever do anything to help change the objective circumstances of your life. All they are is taking advantage of those who have already been abused.
If you or I feel distress, that is because our social and civil standing have been compromised. Unless we have done something to really earn this, then we are the victims of injustice.
So the remedy for this is political and legal action. And for this we need to find comrades and organize.
Psych meds should be off the market. Giving them to children should constitute a felony.
Performing psychotherapy or psychiatry on a child should be seen as subject to mandatory reporting, otherwise the doctor is an accomplice child abuser. So either report, or be prosecuted for a felony.
And parents must be held financially accountable for all child abuse and disinheritance must be prohibited. Take the profit out of middle-class child abuse, and shut down the FixMyKid industry.
Nomadic
Move from Talk to Action, Please Join:
http://freedomtoexpress.freeforums.org/fighting-to-eradicate-the-mental-health-system-and-incarcerate-the-practitioners-f2.html
Report comment