Nassir Ghaemi, professor of psychiatry at Tufts, recently responded to a systematic review we conducted on the evidence for the common claim that lithium prevents suicide.
The content and style of Ghaemi’s article, which is more of a rant than a scientific commentary, suggest he was extremely upset that this cherished belief had been challenged (Ghaemi, 2022). The manner of its publication in the Journal of Psychopharmacology implies he was not alone. As such, the piece provides an interesting insight into the importance of the medical or disease model of treatment to the identity of professional psychiatry.
Ghaemi, along with the reviewers and editors, seem to need to defend the reputation of psychiatric drugs as sophisticated and targeted agents and to shut down any notion that they might not be that special. The article illustrates the desperate measures some will take to defend this view, and the way in which a group of biological psychiatrists exert their influence over the scientific literature.
Our review of data from randomised trials was the largest to date and did not provide support for the claim that people treated with lithium have lower suicide rates or rates of suicide attempts than people treated with placebo (Nabi et al, 2022).
One of us (Joanna Moncrieff) had conceived the review because the belief that lithium prevents suicide is prevalent and influential. The main evidence cited to support this belief came from a meta-analysis published in 2013, which had excluded a large proportion of trials due to the fact that no suicides had occurred in them (Cipriani et al, 2013). The technique of excluding trials with ‘zero events’ is problematic, however, because it excludes much relevant data and makes suicide seem more common than it is. The technique was popular primarily because older statistical methods of meta-analysis could not incorporate such trials. Initially, therefore, we planned to do a simple analysis, combining the data from each trial as if it were from a single trial. Then Martin Plöderl joined the team and brought expertise in new statistical methods of meta-analysis that have been developed to manage ‘zero event’ trials. So we applied these too.
In a previous paper, Ghaemi declared that lithium ‘is the only drug in psychiatry which is proven to be disease-modifying,’ by which he meant that it affects the pathophysiology of the disease process and the course of the illness, including mortality due to suicide. In contrast, other psychiatric treatments are non-specific, ‘symptomatic’ treatments, according to Ghaemi, which have no effect on the underlying condition (Ghaemi, 2022).
Ghaemi’s categorisation of drugs in this way is misleading. Symptomatic treatments may nevertheless target physiological processes that produce symptoms. In fact, most medical treatments affect symptom mechanisms rather than the ultimate pathology of a disease. There is little evidence that psychiatric drugs do this, however. As one of us (Joanna Moncrieff) has explained in many publications and talks (including one at which Ghaemi was present as a co-presenter), psychiatric drugs can modify the manifestations of mental disorders by altering normal biological processes (the drug-centred model). There is little justification for supposing that they have any additional impact on the hypothesised mechanisms that produce the feelings and behaviours we call symptoms of mental illness (the disease-centred model) (e.g. Moncrieff, 2008; Moncrieff, 2018). These mechanisms are not established, and arguably never will be, since mental illness typically consists of complex situations that are unlikely to be explained by a deterministic, mechanical model of causation (Moncrieff, 2020).
So when Ghaemi claims that psychiatric drugs target symptoms rather than modify diseases he is not saying anything that is inconsistent with the conventional medical model of psychiatric treatment.
But Ghaemi wants to claim that lithium is special—that it does more than target symptom mechanisms, it modifies the disease process that underpins bipolar disorder.
Ghaemi is idiosyncratic in suggesting that only lithium affects the disease itself, but he joins the throng of psychiatrists who regularly and authoritatively proclaim that we know the biological basis of major mental conditions. With respect to bipolar disorder, Ghaemi claims that the ‘basic pathophysiology is known to involve biology of recurrence,’ which, he suggests, happens to involve systems that are affected by lithium (Ghaemi, 2022).
While, in contrast, most biological psychiatrists admit we do not understand the biological basis of bipolar disorder (Harrison et al, 2018) or the mechanism of action of lithium (Chokhawala et al, 2024), they regularly make similar arguments to justify the disease-modifying effects of other drugs. Those psychiatrists who protested about the umbrella review of serotonin and depression conducted by one of us (Moncrieff et al, 2022) insisted that there is some evidence of a link, despite the overall picture being inconsistent and unconvincing (Jauhar et al, 2023), and others resorted to alternative theories to argue for the disease-targeting effects of antidepressants and other drugs that are being introduced for depression (such as esketamine) (Belko, 2024). At the recent Royal College of Psychiatrists’ annual conference, it was firmly pronounced that schizophrenia is related to dopamine dysfunction, which would therefore respond to dopamine blocking drugs.
Ghaemi thinks glutamate is the culprit in schizophrenia, however, which is unaffected by antipsychotics (Ghaemi, 2022). Coupled with his propositions about the basis of bipolar disorder, this enables him to differentiate between lithium and antipsychotics in terms of their relationship to the hypothesised underlying disease.
But Ghaemi’s case for lithium’s special status as a curative agent also rests on his claim that lithium reduces mortality, including suicides. It is understandable, therefore, that he should want to challenge our systematic review. It is less clear why he felt the need to be quite so pejorative and unprofessional in his response. We will describe some of the derogatory comments he makes and then briefly set out a refutation of his substantive points—most of which had been made in another, more civilised response to our review (Bschor et al, 2022) to which we have replied (Moncrieff et al, 2022).
The title of Ghaemi’s recent paper, ‘The Pseudoscience of Lithium and Suicide: Reanalysis of a Misleading Meta-Analysis,’ gets the insults in before we even get to the paper. The opening sentence of the introduction repeats the allegation that our review is ‘pseudoscience’ and accuses us of spreading falsehoods and of using ‘metaanalysis as a tool to mislead oneself and others’ (Ghaemi, 2024).
Ghaemi then explains the meaning of pseudoscience, for those who might not know, and of the process through which ‘pseudoscientists’ deceive people:
‘Pseudoscientists deceive themselves, adhering to a set of unchanging beliefs. Then they can mislead honestly, based on their own self-deception. Self-deception is a precondition for deception.’
In contrast, Ghaemi seems to be setting himself up as the real scientist, arguing that ‘Science is a much harder task than pseudoscience, just as refutation of one’s beliefs is much harder than confirmation.’
In his conclusion he puts the boot in further: ‘This kind of article is not “research” in the sense of new knowledge: it produced not a single datum of new fact. It is social activism disguised as science. It uses scientific journals as a public relations tool, providing a patina of respectability for explicit opinion-based propaganda on the internet and in social media.’ The fact that we might disagree with his opinion is adduced as evidence that although we ‘believe’ we are engaging in science, we ‘are doing the exact opposite of science’. In the process, ‘Pseudoscientists deceive themselves first, then earnestly foist their false beliefs on others.’ Ghaemi is disabusing people of our misleading propaganda. ‘It takes some attention to understand why their meta-analysis was wrong,’ he explains, ‘but it is worth the effort if one seeks knowledge instead of self-deception.’
Ghaemi was not solely responsible for the tone of his article, however. One of us was asked to review the initial version that he submitted to the journal. Instead of reviewing it, we suggested that we be invited to provide a response to be published alongside the paper. This is also recommended by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE), which the Journal of Psychopharmacology is committed to. Although we were initially told that we would be invited to do this, in the end, no invitation was forthcoming. Instead, the editor and peer-reviewers not only facilitated the unscientific tone of the paper, but also failed to correct clear misrepresentations of our study.
In the initial version of the paper that was sent out for review, the title was ‘Lithium and Suicide: Critique and Reanalysis of a Recent Systematic Review.’ The article mentioned pseudoscience but quite briefly. In the published version, the title was changed to include the accusation of pseudoscience and two whole new sections on ‘pseudoscience’ were added to the text, one in the introduction, and one at the end. Most of the explanation about our supposed deceptive practices, criticism of our scientific credentials and pejorative language, such as references to ‘social activism,’ ‘opinion-based propaganda,’ ‘foist their beliefs’ were added subsequently. These changes presumably reflect the suggestions of referees or the journal’s editors. The main editors and editorial board happen to include several biological psychiatrists who have taken exception to other work that questions the biological narrative of mainstream psychiatry (Jauhar et al, 2023). One member of the editorial board, Sameer Jauhar, posted approvingly about the article on X: ‘Nassir writes elegantly and imo he is correct’ (Jauhar, 2024).
Ironically, the self-deception and the promotion of ideological views that Ghaemi accuses us of engaging in seems highly evident in his own article. The fact that he can conclude that there is not just evidence but ‘strong evidence’ for lithium’s preventive properties on the basis of a selective analysis based on a very small number of suicides is indicative of his presuppositions. Even other proponents of lithium, such as Baldessarini and Tondo (2022), have acknowledged the uncertainty of lithium’s anti-suicidal properties, describing how ‘recruiting participants to such trials [suicide prevention trials of lithium] may be made difficult by an evidently prevalent belief that the question of anti-suicidal effects of lithium is already settled, which it certainly is not.’
Ghaemi’s main criticism of our review is of our inclusion and exclusion criteria. He accuses us of ‘statistical alchemy’ because he thinks we should have excluded trials with zero suicides, which we included so as not to exclude a large amount of data, and included trials conducted before 2000, which we had excluded from our main analysis on the basis of unreliable reporting (there is evidence that suicides were not reported in at least one of these trials, as explained in our rebuttal to the earlier critique (Moncrieff et al, 2022). However, we had, in fact, performed a sensitivity analysis excluding zero event trials, and a subgroup analysis including the earlier trials. Neither detected a significantly lower suicide rate with lithium. Large parts of Ghaemi’s argument are built on the claim that we omitted earlier trials, yet we presented this analysis in Figure 3 in our paper and mentioned it in the abstract. It is curious that both Ghaemi and the reviewers seemed to miss this.
Despite Ghaemi’s idea of the clear-cut nature of science, every review involves making decisions about what you will include and what you won’t. We pre-registered our protocol outlining and justifying our eligibility criteria. Ghaemi, in contrast, appears to use a post-hoc selection strategy: selecting studies and statistical methods which lead to results that confirm his preconceptions, and then finding reasons for justification. Pre-registered systematic reviews were invented to prevent these biases.
Ghaemi cites Sweeting et al. (2004) and Diamond et al. (2007) to justify his criticism of our inclusion of zero event trials, references which are now up to 20 years old. In our original paper and also in our response to the previous critique of our review (Moncrieff et al., 2022), we carefully explained why these trials cannot simply be dismissed and how modern statistical research recommends they be included. Example quotations from relevant papers include:
“To utilize all available information and reduce research waste and avoid overestimating the effect, meta-analysts should incorporate DZS [double zero studies], rather than simply removing them” (Ren et al., 2019).
“Methods that ignore information from double-zero studies or use continuity corrections should no longer be used” (Kuss, 2015).
“Including double-zero studies in meta-analysis improved performance substantively when compared to excluding them, especially when the proportion of double-zero studies was large” (Xu et al., 2022).
The Cochrane Collaboration also now provides a tutorial on how to deal with such data and is critical about dismissing it (Cochrane Collaboration, 2024).
Ghaemi decided to exclude studies with zero suicides and to include trials published before the year 2000. This just failed to produce a statistically significant difference between lithium and control conditions (p=0.07). Then he adjusted the numbers of suicides in the recent, large VA trial by Katz et al. (2022). He included a death which was an overdose but not classified as a suicide, and a suicide that took place a month after the trial had ended. We excluded this since it is uncertain that other trials would have reliably reported events that occurred after the official end of the trial. By making these choices, Ghaemi managed to obtain a statistically significant difference in favour of lithium (p=0.02).
One can always argue about selection criteria in a systematic review, but we suggest that the alchemy may be on Ghaemi’s part, not ours.
One of Ghaemi’s arguments for excluding zero event trials is that they involve people at low risk of suicide. It is true that trials that are not aimed at suicide prevention often exclude people at risk of suicide, but this doesn’t necessarily mean there will be no suicides. The correct way to look at this issue is to look at trials which are specifically designed to test lithium’s suicide prevention properties, which include people at high risk of suicide. There are only four such trials, and we conducted a subgroup analysis including these which found no effect. Ghaemi fails to acknowledge this.
In his section about the three aspects of suicidality (suicide ideation, suicide attempts, suicides), Ghaemi rightly points out that suicide is difficult to study because it is so rare. Hence it is not surprising that lithium has not been shown to have effects on it with the available data. However, Ghaemi fails to mention that evidence for suicide attempts does not support a preventive effect of lithium in any recent meta-analyses (including that of Cipriani et al, 2013). Suicide attempts happen about 20 times more frequently than suicides and thus the trial data has greater power to detect a preventive effect for lithium. If lithium does prevent suicide, a preventive effect on suicide attempts should be seen, too, and it is not.
Ghaemi ends with a strong claim: “The clinical conclusion is clear and the opposite of the pseudoscience: The anti-suicide effect of lithium is supported strongly by randomized clinical trials.” This statement is clearly at odds when considering all the evidence, the findings for suicide attempts, the large and high-quality suicide prevention trial by Katz et al, (2022), and when appropriately taking into account the uncertainty, as we have outlined here.
Given that Ghaemi’s case against our meta-analysis rests principally on our failure to exclude zero-event trials, which is no longer recommended, and that we didn’t include trials conducted prior to the year 2000, which we did (in a sensitivity analysis that was prominently presented in our paper) it is difficult to understand how his article was published. The fact that it was modified to make it more accusatory and pejorative than it initially was suggests that the editors or reviewers involved in processing the paper were not primarily interested in a scientific debate about our meta-analysis, but wanted to use the paper as a vehicle to undermine the credibility of our research. Could the unscientific and aggressive tenor of the response indicate that some sections of the biological psychiatric establishment feel threatened?
On the one hand it feels as if they have never had it so good. More people than ever are using psychiatric drugs, such as antidepressants, and seeking psychiatric diagnoses including depression, bipolar disorder, ADHD and autism. On the other hand, people who have been harmed by psychiatric diagnosis and drugs are more connected and more powerful, and ordinary people have better access to alternative views about the nature of mental health problems and treatments. Doctors are no longer the only gatekeepers of medical knowledge and although this opens people up to the nefarious influence of the pharmaceutical industry or quackery, it also creates opportunities for people to inform themselves and each other outside of the medical system. Knowledge is power, and power means the ability to make truly informed choices about how to understand and manage your own problems. People who have manic depression, bipolar disorder or manic episodes no longer need to be misled about the miraculous anti-suicidal properties of lithium. They can see the evidence for what it is and make up their own minds.
Quoted from Healthline.com – regarding “Late Onset Bipolar Disorder” (LOBD)
“Most research considers bipolar disorder that begins at 50 years old or later to be LOBD. Between 5 and 10 percent of people with bipolar disorder will be at least 50 when they first show symptoms of mania or hypomania.”
Sexism – plain and simple. The “mood swings” of menopause are hormonal. It is not a forever disease to be female. It is a blessing. It is where babies come from. Not all women are alike. Some may breeze through menopause, not even noticing. Some women contend with extreme “mood swings” or other symptoms – like migraines (whether in menopause or pregnant).
I just learned of this subcategory of Bipolar Disorder this past week. From my point of view (nearing 70 and female) – the hubris of man, knows no boundaries. There is no science to prove or disprove any of this.
Good luck to all.
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At several scientific / medical events there is a sub-title — ‘ Debate- Pro / Against the Motion ‘ which brings out the best of arguments. Official delegates offer inputs and view points. The Chair / Co Chair offer remarks, conclude with balanced and learned judgments. Many a controversy may lead to a degree of resolution. Lithium appears a sound case-situation.
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The truth could and should decapitate psychiatry completely, and all I would say to Mad in America and it’s writers is does your work actually contain truths sufficient to decapitate psychiatry and reveal the utter cavernous vacuity of the whole grift. Otherwise you are like medieval clerks criticizing the processes and techniques involved in witchcraft persecuting rather then revealing the whole thing to be one enormously violent piece of social insanity produced by our social conditioning. And if you can’t see that fact then again, you have a bit more investigation to undergo in order to go beyond being that medieval clerk criticizing witchcraft on merely technocratic and procedural grounds. One day in the not too distant future people will start to realize this on a wide scale.
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It would be wise and fun to request that his study be retracted from the publications. Last year 2023 over 10,000 such studies had to be retracted…see below:
More than 10,000 research papers were retracted in 2023 — a new record
We need to put a stop to this…
https://retractionwatch.com/
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38087103/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesbroughel/2024/02/01/surge-in-academic-retractions-should-put-us-scholars-on-notice/
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-03974-8
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I was prescribed Lithium a few years ago for bipolar disorder. I was too afraid to take it after someone I knew told me they had kidney failure and heart issues after taking it for over 20 years. I have had many different diagnoses, depending on which mental health professional I saw. In my late teens I had an episode of psychosis and was prescribed high dose anti-psychotic meds. I managed to wean myself off them after 5 years of taking them. My psychosis did not return. Since then I have tried various other meds at low doses due to other mental health struggles, mostly mood related, but always found them to be lacking and I always seem to get physical side effects. Therapy has also been a hit and miss thing and I can’t say it really helped me all that much either. I have trauma from being in the very mental health system I looked to for help. Professionals don’t tend to understand this or want to acknowledge it. My trauma is not just because of the medications/psychiatry, but due to my life changing due to what happened to me and because my self esteem was badly affected. It affected my social life/chances of getting into work. I am now trying to carve out my own path. I reached a decision last year where I decided to never got back to the mental health services because I always got the same sort of help that I actually found quite harmful. I would not say I am mentally well but I am not mentally ill anymore. It’s hard to know what to do when you don’t find conventional treatment helpful, but you can’t really flourish either. I wish psychiatrists and even psychologists could take a broader view of mental health issues and that people listened to different perspectives…maybe that way we would reach some more answers. I still think survivors who go through the system know the most about themselves and about what works best for them…I guess this is a very individual thing. In terms of the Lithium, psychiatrists do seem very keen on it for bipolar disorder and it seems to work for some people. I just think there’s a lot we don’t know about mental health and the treatments are not ideal yet.
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Thank you for sharing your journey to hell and back. Only the people who have lived through their own personal experiences of trauma truly understand. Our mental health care system is failing. Synthetic drugs are poisonous to our whole body, mind and souls. I believe it’s a matter of healing all of the traumatic experiences we have gone through in our lives. And that is a spiritual matter at the core. . Requiring a spiritual ancetdote.
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“I believe it’s a matter of healing all of the traumatic experiences we have gone through in our lives. And that is a spiritual matter at the core. . Requiring spiritual antidote.”
Agree 100%.
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My profound thanks to the good Dr.’s Moncrieff & Ploderi for never giving up the fight to save lives.
The following comments are for Ghaemi.
He’ll read this.
This article reports…
“The opening sentence of the introduction repeats the allegation that our review is ‘pseudoscience’ and accuses us of spreading falsehoods and of using ‘metaanalysis as a tool to mislead oneself and others’ (Ghaemi, 2024).
Ghaemi then explains the meaning of pseudoscience, for those who might not know, and of the process through which ‘pseudoscientists’ deceive people:
‘Pseudoscientists deceive themselves, adhering to a set of unchanging beliefs. Then they can mislead honestly, based on their own self-deception. Self-deception is a precondition for deception.’
In contrast, Ghaemi seems to be setting himself up as the real scientist, arguing that ‘Science is a much harder task than pseudoscience, just as refutation of one’s beliefs is much harder than confirmation.’
Dr. Ghaemi, I am an expert on bipolar disorder, lithium, antipsychotics, anticonvulsants, benzos, & a longer list of ‘mood stabilizers’.
I am THE expert on ‘pseudoscience’ and the “…self-deception (that) is a pre-condition for deception”…and the “…refutation of one’s beliefs is much harder than confirmation”
Following the DSM-IV’s Pharma-guided expansion of bipolar symptoms, my initial appointment for some encouragement following a business closure & the resultant insomnia was doomed.
I was branded a lifelong SMI in minutes and given an addiction to psychotropics that lasted 12 years.
I knew it was dangerous for me to push back , for as you so accurately describe, ‘the self-deception of the industry that included my ‘caregivers’ was a pre-condition for deception…and they were dug in. I would have been viewed as ‘in denial’ or psychotic, adding additional diagnoses & their attendant prescriptions to my 4-drug/24-hour regime. That regime immediately rendered me unable to work effectively causing bankruptcy and homelessness…along with serious ADR’s that were relentless; cardiomyopathy, akathesia, occular tardive dyskenisia and on and on. Oh, there was a rare brain lesion also, identified causally as either MS or the effects of “exposure” to antipsychotics.
Finally, following a 1st year med-school prescribing mistake, I ‘negotiated’ a complete, Dr-guided withdrawal and a WRITTEN vacation of the SMI diagnosis and state certification. They agreed right away…and 2.5 years later I was ‘drug-free’…for 3 months when the seizures began for 3 more years. Possibly organic AND PNES.
Who should I have seen about them? A Mental health pro? Every other specialist wanted nothing to do with another ‘guy’s’ mistakes.
Liability is kryptonite.
Please pay attention to the question that upended this entire real-world situation…not the academic, theoretical positions you toss around over at Tufts…and further…
*Why would a leading CMO/VP, published, Distinguished Fellow of the APA, with an education that includes the Albert Einstien College of Medicine/Montessori Medical Center…be willing to erase EVERY ABSOLUTE regarding YOUR (and his) beliefs in the doctrine of Psychiatry…because his minion flipped me into anaphylaxis and it was identified and treated at an independent hospital. As you know, Tufts is ranked just about equal in the academics beauty contest with his alma mater.
To prevent me from engaging an attorney (never mentioned) and disturbing his impressive career arc upwards…every single tenet held by your industry was swept off the desk & into the trash…to provide a distinguished psychiatrist cover.
No Big Deal.
As you know…
“…the refutation of one’s beliefs is much harder than confirmation”.
So how about it, doc?
Hit me up @ [email protected] and let ME help YOU.
Paula Caplan, PhD, HARVARD (1947-2021), psychologist, activist, writer, and artist was engaged with the facts of my lost 15 years and the damages and losses caused by the industry’s ‘self-deception’, driven entirely by money and lack of character & ethics…despite a long history of failure after failure. Sacrificing trusting patients is O.K as long as your careers remain intact…and she knew it.
I could always smell the desperation from the sweaty effort defending the ‘pseudoscience’ across every prescribers desk, in every single appointment.
“Pseudoscientists deceive themselves,
adhering to a set of unchanging beliefs. Then they can mislead honestly, based on their own self-deception. Self-deception is a precondition for deception.”
That’s YOU, Chief.
And BTW, Harvard Med is ranked #1.
Let’s chat soon. I want to help you and your career.
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His study should be retracted by the journal. Send them a letter stating the issues discrepancies data manipulation….force them to retract this crap.
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Lithium at high doses is a toxic tranquilizer. Lithium at commonly prescribed doses creates a state of apathy and numbness that seems to be surpassed only by the neuroleptics…
Which are often prescribed along with lithium.
Simply because the body requires minute amounts of lithium does not make commonly prescribed amounts of lithium genuinely therapeutic any more than orthomolecular use of high dose B3 and c vitamins somehow proves that megadoses of those vitamins is a genuine cure for so called mental illness.
Szasz writes about psychiatric dogma. Current psychiatric dogma is that lithium is a powerful genuine treatment for a biologically rooted condition. Szasz also writes about psychiatry as the science of lies. These are simply the current bigger lies held by many in the guild.
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*Spellcheck messed up…Montefiore Medical Center…NOT Montessori
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Sometimes the easiest way to spot perpetrators of wrongdoing is to call them out on their shit. You’ll know you’ve hit your mark once they start using the good ol’ DARVO routine: Deny, Attack, Reverse Victim & and Offender. It’s the typical defense used by most perps.
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Invent a Teacup Exploding Breast Machine or else we’ll manufacture nothing but stuffed toy versions of ourselves, or otherwise just churn out inflatable Hilary Clintons, whose artificially propagated citreous explosions are a potential source of renewable power and answer to our enduring energy security problems. And it is renewable only because in America, weight lifting purple shirtless police officers with electrical executioner masks are also a renewable resource. It is a task to find someone that is not a weight lifting purple police officer unless they are a bench pressing demonic evangelical Christian who worship the flag and guns instead of God. But not even a callous calcification process could reproduce the dentists and architects with their electrical smiles and electrical lives. They are like nasty, buzzing street lamps that run on our own life energy and do nothing but fizz out into the empty night, casting confused shadows on the grim and wet cement of our lives which still contain neolithic fragments that eluded and were undiscovered by human kind. Those fragments will one day fizz and pop themselves and recreate the lives that used to be.
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Think of the misery involved in that one loaf of bread sitting on your kitchen counter. Admittedly this is not a recipe for suicide prevention. Think of the miserable, faceless jobs involved in harvesting a monoculture of wheat on a land that used to be free and wild nature, including the free and wild human beings that lived a bliss of natural existence we no longer understand. Think of the empty profit motive squeezing down on the wages of the exploited workers in the factory, who less and less can afford to put food on the table while standing all day on the production lines conveying endless loaves into boxes onto pallets from 9 in the morning to 5 at night, and still, even as a married couple, they can barely cover there rent and bills and are without healthcare therefore living in perpetual insecurity. Think of the emptiness and depravity of the sense of bliss and power enjoyed by the business executives at the offices of the agrobusinesses and the food manufacturers whose activities have destroyed the Earth and turned much of their fellow citizens into production line human beings, and who in return convert the sweat and tears of these impoverished workers into cash, cocaine and clit0ris after the strip club. The girls attending the strip club are the class of the exploited among whom include the employers, the makers of his wealth, the makers of that loaf of bread. And your fridge is stuffed full of goods, as is your house and your meaningless social existence. The same mass of death swamps the brain and existence of each subsequent generation in more and more metres of this impenetrable and inescapable mire. It is the vomit of social history, and so are we.
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Great comments, MiA commenters, and many thanks to Drs. Moncrieff and Plöderl for their honest medical reporting. And let’s not forget that the ADHD drugs and antidepressants can create the “bipolar” symptoms, and millions were misdiagnosed with that “invalid” “disorder,” for decades.
https://www.amazon.com/Anatomy-Epidemic-Bullets-Psychiatric-Astonishing-ebook/dp/B0036S4EGE
https://psychrights.org/2013/130429NIMHTransformingDiagnosis.htm
Not to mention the antipsychotics / neuroleptics can create the positive symptoms of “schizophrenia,” via anticholinergic toxidrome. And they can also create the negative symptoms of “schizophrenia,” via neuroleptic induced deficit syndrome.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxidrome
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroleptic-induced_deficit_syndrome
Which means the two “most serious” DSM “disorders” are likely iatrogenic illnesses, created with the psych drugs.
Wake up, Dr. Ghaemi. “It Is Difficult to Get a Man to Understand Something When His Salary Depends Upon His Not Understanding It.”
Oh, but I will add, I did recently help a loved one heal from possible alcohol encephalitis, likely brought on by the appropriate withdrawal from two bad drug interaction creating heart meds, without giving a better heart med replacement, with a low dose of lithium (a short dose of 600mg/day) alone.
So I do think lithium has a medical value. It probably should be a first line treatment for, especially, a drug withdrawal induced or sleep deprivation induced or alcohol encephalitis induced “psychosis.”
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Thank you Professor Moncrieff and colleagues for your meticulous scientific method, and for your professional integrity.
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“Could the unscientific and aggressive tenor of the response indicate that some sections of the biological psychiatric establishment feel threatened?”
Heck, yeah. The response sounds like one big DARVO dump to me.
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If psychiatrists were to agree with the authors it would put them out of business. They know damn well their careers have been ruined by big Pharma. The researchers come up with behavioral paradigms based on their own theories crunched by sometimes dubious manners in order to make a living through research funded and sponsored by big Pharma and the government often in tandem. The practitioners become the drug pushers for big Pharma and some older or retired psychiatrists have faced this fact and admit it freely. Psychiatry has become an obsolete field. What our mental health playbook needs is human-based treatment that starts with ideas mined from getting one’s hands dirty by rubbing shoulders with real people and trying to gain deeper insight into what factors develop into what becomes an unbearable life because their lives have become unbearable. You don’t do this with drugs developed worlds away from the people you profess to want to help.
Ideally, for the time being at least, psychiatry, psychology, neuroscience, and neurobiology should all be blended into one coherent curriculum and perhaps renamed as existential pain relief. Though, in truth, this is not what clients in the large part are receiving. Sometimes I think I’d be better off with a bot that has no narcissism, plenty of genuine EQ, lots of IQ, compassion and sensitivity as an excellent listener that could keep its own counter transference out of the way! Perhaps it will come to that one day and we may well be glad of it. As a postscript to this I would add that candidates for any Psych. field must be screened out for Narcissistic Personality Disorder. It is well known that these fields attract individuals with this disorder and they do only harm to their various fields and worse off, to their clients. Having been abused by one for quite a number of years myself, I can speak to this first-hand. That’s not “anecdotal” evidence, it’s experienced fact.
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“They know damn well they’re careers have been ruined by Big Pharma.”
What “career”? If labeling people is a “career”, you can call me an astronaut.
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“Space Cadet Birdsong”?…..
lol, jk….
I always greatly enjoy your comments, Birdsong!
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Thank you, Bill Bradford! 🙂
Someone once called me a space cadet, a remark that left me not knowing whether to feel amused or confused…
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I completely agree with the need to go in a “human-based” treatment direction. It amazes me how many people I’ve met not only in my cohort for my master’s in counseling, but in my own quest for mental well-being (psychiatrists, therapists, nurses and case-managers) who don’t spend time with, or even talk to, people with mental conditions/illnesses, and yet claim to know what’s best for them. Personally, I find that while psychiatrists tend to be terrible in this regard, it’s the therapists who push Cognitive and Dialectical Behavioral Therapy that are the worst offenders.
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Barbara, don’t deflect blame to Big Pharma. They aren’t the ones teaching psychiatry residents.
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Actually, they provide a LOT of “education,” even at official institutions. It’s kind of sick!
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This is true, but I think it’s the psychiatrists’ responsibility to question the information supplied by Big Pharma.
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I agree 100%!
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Check out the annual convention of the “American Psychiatric Association”, which is HEAVILY SUBSIDIZED by PhRMA….
Drug company logos, & psych drug brand names are UBIQUITOUS….
Psychiatry is nothing more, and nothing less, than a marketing & distribution arm of PhRMA….
How is THAT “healthcare”?….
To get back squarely on-topic, I DEFY Dr. Ghaemi to describe the biological, physiological, & chemical mechanisms by which lithium SUPPOSEDLY “protects against suicide”….He CAN’T, because IT DOESN’T….
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As a fan of both Dr Ghaemi AND MIA. I appreciate the discussion and support the ongoing and high level dialogue minus the rancor. Am also a fan girl of Dr Moncrieff.
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From close up observation with a family member, lithium was stabilizing until a major negative life event happened. Then it wasn’t. The neuroleptics, however, were simply
either ineffective or had side effects (including suicidality) that were devastating.
In the end effects on the metabolism (olanzapine) were life ending.
Anecdotal, yes. But lived, yes. One never gets over such a death.
I appreciate Moncrieff’s diligence in rooting out truth from what appears to be desperation on Ghaemi’s part.
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The genetic theory of Bi polar can be misleading cause I was adopted when first saw psychiatrist Dr Tony Lee did not know about adoption that means asking patient a question can be false information “does Bi Polar run in your family?” The trigger theory is not backed up by any isolated gene. Syndromes overlap, I have seen reports on same person not giving same diagnostic data. It gets worse, you can go to the same psychiatrist (this happened) in my case several years later receive another disorder not consistent with first diagnosis. You can repeat process another 3 years goes past leaving medical centre with third diagnosis together with different medications to take home with review.
I can identify with people reporting memory loss cognitive deficits decline it gets worse blackouts while heavily under influence of anti psychotics 750—100 mg Seroquel, driving around aimlessly falling over a common complaint? A doctor suggested for me to go to private hospital there was no sorry instead her reply “oh yes…But we have new medications now”. That means more experimental treatments not knowing long term side effects while “the community” left to suffer consequences of side effects not known. FDA data shows for some psychiatric medicine small samples together with a push to get pills on market while advocating “it’s safe”.
12 June 2023 psychiatrist Sydney Australia supported myself to come off Seroquel lasted almost 12 months. Used Cannabis oil yet expensive for withdrawal & long term usage.
For myself legal medicine worse than illicit substances as far as withdrawal was concerned. It is illegal to drive while under influence of cannabis yet you can drive legally while taking medications endorsed by drug manufacturers.
Now taking 25mg Seroquel because of some explained sensory overload. It remains unclear if this is a long side effect if anyone can comment.
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Ghaemi’s other nonsense and pseudoscience can be found in this book: A First-Rate Madness: Uncovering the Links Between Leadership and Mental Illness! His claims flow from putting the cart before the horse at all times and diagnosing people who are deep in the grave and have decomposed- just like is sacred GOD psychiatry.
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“His [Ghaemi’s] claims flow from putting the cart before the horse at all times…”
This is why I find having any kind of meaningful conversation with people who work in the “mental health” field impossible; most have a one-track mind that causes them to see everyone and everything through a pathological lens; for most, their indoctrination into psychiatry’s disease model is complete.
Psychiatry and even “clinical psychology” knows it’s losing converts, so lately both have resorted to adopting buzzwords like global, adverse childhood experiences, social detriments of mental health, trauma, abuse, gaslighting, etc. to make people think they’ve changed. But this is far from the truth; for the most part, these words are now being used to gain people’s confidence, to make it easier for them to talk people into to accepting a DSM “diagnosis” and/or filling their prescriptions pronto – anything to make people “compliant”, anything to keep psychiatry’s disease model alive. IMHO.
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For all his diagnostic fervor, I doubt Ghaemi’d ever consider turning his medically distorted lens on himself.
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I genuinely enjoy and appreciate when Mad in America conducts systematic reviews of psychotropic medications and claims about their efficacy. I myself am a survivor of 15 years of psychiatric abuse, and I wish I had access to this information when I began my mental health journey at 17.
However, I am continually disappointed by the subjective, disdainful and aggressive tone that seeps into these types of articles—a tone that I would understand in an opinion or autobiographical piece, but not in one aiming to present impartial evidence, and counter criticism. For example:
“The content and style of Ghaemi’s article, which is more of a rant than a scientific commentary, suggest he was extremely upset that this cherished belief had been challenged (Ghaemi, 2022).”
Why are these opinions on Ghaemi’s style of writing, and conjecture on his emotional state necessary? Please present and explain the findings related to Lithium’s efficacy, MIA’s responses to specific criticism of the meta-analysis, and let the results speak for themselves—which they do beautifully unaided by any interpersonal venom.
Maybe this article’s approach is in response to Ghaemi’s own tone in his meta-analysis, “The Pseudoscience of Lithium and Suicide: Reanalysis of a Misleading Meta-Analysis,” but I only have access to the abstract, and while the language is definitely critical, it does not throw direct personal insults, or make wild guesses as to MIA’s motives.
Again, I only have access to the abstract, so please someone correct me if I’m wrong here!
However, even if he did attack each and every researcher/author of MIA’s meta-analysis with wild, baseless accusations, are we really going to be the publication that stoops to those levels in a scientific article? By all means: If he deserves it, rip him to shreds in an opinion piece, or in a biographical article. But I feel by adding these personal digs in an article meant to present findings, and counter criticism of those findings, our message weakens and our credibility with/influence on the public is lost. MIA’s continuation of systematic reviews is important work, and I would hate to see it not be taken seriously because their authors are unable to withhold their own (completely valid) outrage, feelings of betrayal, and frustration with the psychiatric machine. This movement is bigger, and more important than all of us. We have to be smart about how we proceed.
This last point is something that disappoints me greatly about certain Mad in America pieces, and the anti-psychiatry movement in general. I feel that our anger at the psychiatric and mental health systems due to the horrible trauma we have endured, although completely justified, spirals out of control and ends up ultimately hurting our true end goal: to have a system in which people are seen/heard, respected, taken seriously, given agency in their care, accepted for who they are, not forced into a neat catagorical box, and not used as pawns to push certain career-defining treatments/prove the efficacy of the status quo at all costs. Again the work this publication does is so important. We need to be thoughtful and strategic in how we choose to lead this movement.
A final note: While Lithium absolutely destroyed me, having no effect on my suicidality and turning me into little more than a zombie unable to engage with life (and I tried it at various doses, at various times in my life for a cumulative total of 4 years), it helps my partner immensely. Do I think that justifies Psychiatry’s obsession with pumping out medication to everyone that experiences even the slightest moments of expansiveness? Absolutely not, but we do need to acknowledge that everyone is different, and that our paths forward to our best lives will similarly not be the same. What will help us all is honest studies/clinical trials, defusing with this need for our hypotheses to be correct, and calm, rational (yet unforgiving) reporting and muckraking.
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Ms. Shorts,
“…are we really going to be the publication that stoops to those levels in a scientific article?”
Please explain the “…we…”.
Especially when grouping MIA in the same sentence with ‘antipsychiatry’…”This last point is something that disappoints me greatly about certain Mad in America pieces, and the anti-psychiatry movement in general.”
While I certainly respect your opinion, especially as someone who describes a
personal experience, I am dismayed by your detailed scolding of Robert Whitaker and Joanna Moncrieff’s unrelenting, but, according to you, imperfect & perhaps harmful (!) efforts to protect future targets
of exploitation, damage, and premature death by the psychiatric industry’s acolyte(s).
Specifically, these two individuals have relentlessly stood fast, publicly calling out dangerous, immoral claims and defenses of the psychiatric industry, ostensibly cloaked in science with a messaging spin professing a SAFETY mission for the public good.
The immorality of THAT relentless, economically-driven marketing is often ONLY
called-out and refuted by a few, like Whitaker and Moncrieff.
Being occasionally human in their response, in these ‘pages’, to the massive forces targeting THEM doesn’t dilute their credibility…to me.
Psychiatry…in my past experience…and as I have learned since escaping, has represented the most obscene, personal attack on my life, while ALWAYS stating the
opposite. They immediately and comprehensively snuffed out my credibility, like smothering a baby in a crib. Without credibility, I was without autonomy, personal power. And that was intentional. There was nothing science-y about that attack and entombment.
Sometimes ‘scientific’ style points aren’t sufficient to push back on such an enemy.
One more thing…I support folks who get ‘comfort’ from a drug. I also support the full disclosure of ‘scientific’ AND personal results, short and long-term prognoses, and
‘exit’/withdrawal strategies from those drugs.
And full, ENFORCED reporting of financial conflicts of interest of all ‘scientific’ sources involved. That topic has evolved into easy ‘work-arounds’ for powerful academic influences and ‘scientists’.
Finally, Ms. Shorts….seemingly being the most (self-described) moderate, rational, even-tempered, mission-focused, science-minded, balanced, effective messenger…adult-in-the-room… regarding this topic is, well…gosh… Congrats.
For myself…I don’t care for the scolding of people who are working to safeguard a completely vulnerable population that used to include me…for what amounts to ‘style points’.
There is scant evidence that illustrates ‘pure’ science-reporting gains any ground with ANYBODY….in science circles or the public. Ask Marcia Angell for starters.
With respect for your academic journey, in the real world Huffpost has more influence on this topic.
I applaud MIA for existing at all…for trying, consistently, to bring essential viewpoints and SCIENCE to a dark subject cloaking itself in pseudoscience….with endless financial power and influence…. and am massively grateful.
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Nicole, this article is not a research article per se. It’s a commentary about a commentary, a reasonable response to an unreasonable response, imho.
P.S. Intuition and discernment are important faculties that, more often than not, point to the truth.
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If that’s the intent of the article, then fair enough. I just worry that our whole society, not just this community, is so quick to throw around lame insults, and disrespect one another that we get distracted from the ultimate goal, which is to help uplift, empower, and connect with each other to build a world that allows us all to thrive. I think we really look like assholes if we degenerate others, and people tend not to listen to what assholes have to say, even if they have a point.
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That is your opinion, but others have theirs as well.
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Ms. Shorts,
I’m a huge fan of irony.
“I think we really look like assholes if we degenerate others, and people tend
not to listen to what assholes have to
say, even if they have a point.”
And there’s that “we” again.
Pot… meet kettle.
*a spellcheck mistake-‘denigrate’ was perhaps replaced by “degenerate”?
Also, …….? replaced by “assholes”?
It’s O.K., Sis.
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Sorry, but the “ultimate goal” of TPTB is MONEY, POWER, & CONTROL….
hence, psychiatry…..No, TPTB really don’t care about the 99% at all….
i think that you need to think long and hard about that reality….
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Nicole, I agree.
We cannot truly hope to resolve the mess at the same (egoic) levels of consciousness at which it was created and has been perpetuated, but only from higher/deeper, more evolved levels.
I wonder if you have any further suggestions to make about what such endeavors might look like, please?
Many and heartfelt thanks.
Tom
“There is no coming to consciousness without pain.” – Carl Jung.
“If you had not suffered as you have, there would be no depth to you as a human being, no humility, no compassion. You would not be reading this now. Suffering cracks open the shell of ego, and then comes a point when it has served its purpose. Suffering is necessary until you realize it is unnecessary. – Eckhart Tolle, “Stillness Speaks.”
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Having been in the madness business for more than 35 years, I’m not surprised that Biological Psychiatry is invested in the justifying the pseudoscience that is psychiatry and not in the science of explaining the facts of human behavior; how else could they stay in business?
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My father had bipolar disorder. To this day, I’m annoyed about how secretive he was regarding his mental illness. He never told me his diagnosis, my mother did. I learned he was on lithium through bits and pieces of conversations about his thyroid when he was in his 70s. From what I recall, he developed some tumors on his thyroid that were successfully removed. If I had to guess when he began taking lithium, I would say the mid to late 1970s. My father died of COVID in late 2020. I can’t say with any accuracy exactly when he stopped taking it, but the last several years of his life, Parkinson’s plagued him.
I accept the theory that my father passed the bipolar disorder disease to me genetically.
For decades, I’ve suffered with depression, anxiety, and panic attacks. The VA has diagnosed me with bipolar 1 disorder, C-PTSD, and BPD. Intense suicidal ideation has become ingrained into my thinking. I think all the diagnoses are accurate. And I’ve been on more medications than I can recall without digging into the pharmacy records. Anti depressants. Mood stabilizers. Antipsychotics. Benzos. Etc. Etc. Hands down, the antipsychotics are the worse. The side-effects ranged from facial twitching, lip smacking, to constipation so bad that I had blood coming out of my rectum. My saliva literally got turned off.
For years, the doctors have been urging me to take lithium, especially after my hospitalizations for suicidal ideation. I have five to date. But I’ve resisted, fearing the side-effects to my kidneys and thyroid. I’m on Descovy to prevent HIV, so the kidney risks are even higher. Before now, the furthest I ventured into lithium for a brief period was when I agreed to take 225 mg. That wasn’t therapeutic.
After my last hospitalization in May of this year, my psychiatrist and I had a heart to heart talk about revisiting lithium. I argued against the side-effects. He reminded me I’m at high risk of killing myself. I’m 60, if it takes lithium two or more decades to kill me, what’s the tradeoff? I agreed to take lithium and began with 600mg on May 31. Blood work revealed I was under the therapeutic dosage and I’m working my way up to 900mg. I’m at 750mg as we speak.
I can’t lie, the results have been interesting. And I would argue that lithium does in fact have anti-suicidal properties despite the risks. It’s as if each time my mind tries to delve into suicidal thoughts, it can’t access them for more than mere seconds. If at all. Whereas before, I was prone to having daily suicidal thoughts, and at times venturing into having a plan. I chalk up my resilence to not owning any firearms and not allowing any meds stockpiles to build up high enough that I can kill myself with them.
This is likely not what many want to hear in an article like this, but it’s my experience. Let’s not accuse lithium of being “big pharma” either. The stuff is dirt cheap.
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I was on 900mg of Lithium for fifteen years, along with 450mg of venlafaxine and 450mg of bupropion. I was suicidal the entire time. In January, after titrating lithium, venlafaxine, and bupropion too fast, I was put back on lithium.
I tried to hang myself three times, so much for lithium, protecting against suicide.
I know I am a case study of one. However, following the suicide attempts, I was titrated off lithium, and I am now completing the remaining titration. All of this was under the supervision of four different doctors. I am currently the best I have ever been.
In my experience, lithium, SSRI, and SSNRs”s retard cognitive function and blunt emotions to such an extent that addressing the underlying trauma that is the cause of the depressive symptoms is impossible.
I lost everything a person can lose, including my freedom, and I almost lost my life. My focus is doing everything I can to ensure others do not suffer as I have.
I am building a new life. I will never get the fifteen years I lost back, but at least I have a little time to do what I can.
Thank you to Mad In America and all who contribute to this fight.
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Wow your story is very concise for myself many years lost because of heavy sedation for no reason it seems that if you tell a psychiatrist anything about dreams or something unusual you can be a victim of higher doses. For yourself I am sorry to hear that despite a consistent medication regime and compliance you were still suicidal my Facebook name is Peter Csiki (victim of forced adoption) if you like to connect. Glad you are getting your life together.
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Thank you for a magnificent story, wonderfully told, David.
It is through such stories, I believe, that MIA is doing massive, noble, PRICELESS work in transforming our worlds.
The fact that you seem to somehow manage to tell your story without bitterness or hatred seems to me to make it immeasurably more powerful.
My story is similar to yours. If I can find the wherewithal to tell it without bitterness, too, I now know that it can have maximal beneficial effects.
What endlessly strikes me about any of Bob Whitaker’s work I have read or seen is its seemingly utter lack of bitterness, ego, malice or grudge.
Thank YOU!
Wishing you ever increasing and deepening satisfying joy,
Tom.
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If Ghaemi & Co. felt truly secure in the quality of their research, I doubt they’d have responded at all.
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Agreed!
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🙂
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The house of cards graphic chosen for this article is the perfect visual metaphor for “psychiatry”.
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Agreed Birdsong, it is brilliant.
‘A Picture is worth a thousand words’.
It would seem appropriate for a framed copy to be given to every medical student on graduation.
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It would indeed. 🙂
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Apart from inestimable placebo effects, some of which may be generated by actually having hope rekindled by a helpful chemical responses to lithium or to any of its salts, some apparently positive/desirable effects from having lithium added to one’s diet may follow because lithium may be able to partially substitute for magnesium.
What amount/s of daily lithium, IF any, an optimal human diet might contain and in what forms may vary greatly from individual to individual and time to time, of course.
What an optimal daily intakes or ranges of intake of magnesium might be and in what forms may be tremendously difficult to know, also.
What “optimal” might mean is also open to many questions.
It might mean whichever dietary and serum and brain and other tissue levels are most compatible with our highest levels of consciousness – or with our destiny, or both?
Bottom lines, perhaps:
1. It might be AWFULLY to helpful to learn whether, and, if so, how and to what extents Li may substitute for Mg in our diets//brains/bodies.
2. “If this world was [or was that “were?”] perfect, it wouldn’t be.” – Yogi Berra.
3. “When you come to a fork in the road, take it.” – Yogi Berra.
4. Safety fourth!
5. Compassion third!
6. Comfort second!
7. Humor (or whatever passes for one’s sense of humor or highest level of consciousness) first!
Please pass the salt.
Tom.
If everything is Destiny/Divine Providence/the Will of God, and Her last big bang, then so is my will…so why ever worry, like – EVER?
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It seems to me that empathy for all parties is a good place to start. If we want scientists and doctors to stop hurting people we need to understand why they believe they are doing the right thing.
Sure some do it for the money but they’re broken people just like us. If we want to change them we need to understand them and that starts with empathy.
If humans can find empathy for their fellow humans we might just get rid of mental health problems for good.
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Spot on…and a great starting place…
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Not so fast, David and James. Believe it or not, there really is such a thing as misplaced empathy. Just look up the term ‘trauma bond’.
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Trauma bonding is empathy distorted to heightened awareness of the threats presented by one’s environment.
It makes one prone to experiencing the “other” the mechanism can be used to enhance the experience of a loving bond present by a therapist and other loving and truly caring people in one’s environment to enhance the empathy response.
The empathy modeled by the loving and none judgmental therapist, becomes one’s own empathy for the self, rapidly increasing the healing.
The brain heals itself!
Organic, lasting, nontoxic, noninvasive and relatively quickl if aided by other empathy enhancing techniques.
A cure, not a treatment.
Every person with enhance empathy increases the empathy of those in her environment, leading to a positive feedback loop that accelerates the healing.
The more people one comes in contact with the faster the healing process proceeds. The more diverse the people in ones environment the more expansive the experience of empathy becomes, until it encompasses everything.
This is my experience and I have fully researched it and it is backed up by the most current science.
It is simply the psychotherapy model enhanced. I’ve been lucky enough to find my way to readily available tools that can relieve the burden on therapist and can be done at home by the sufferer.
I hope to publish shortly.
I welcome any comments.
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David, adults caught in a trauma bond need correct information, not lullabies. I’ve read several definitions of trauma bonding, but yours I’ve not seen anywhere.
This is my experience and I have fully lived it and it is backed up by my most current memories.
It is simply the self-help model enhanced. I’ve been lucky enough to find my way to readily available trauma-based YouTube videos that can relieve the burden of having to pay an oblivious therapist and can be done at home by the survivor.
I hope this publishes shortly.
I welcome any comments.
P.S. In plain English, trauma bonding is an unhealthy emotional attachment to someone who causes you physical, emotional and psychological pain. It is a cycle of abuse when you’re psychologically and emotionally attached to an abuser based on an imbalance of power. Women in particular need other women who’ve survived it, not grandiose male therapists who only theorize about it..
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I agree with everything you’ve written. I’m sorry you have suffered so much. No one should sufferer like that.
I have experienced the kind of bond you are referring to. I believe it flows from deep empathy. Maybe with love I can release the tendrils that tie me to the trauma and embrace the humanity of the other, I’m trying.
Nothing I have written was intended to dispute or minimize your pain.
The courage to face such suffering inspires me every time I see someone playing the hand they were dealt with such grace.
I am not a therapist in anyway, just a man with lived experience like you reference to. I was sexually assaulted by a teacher in my teens and then sex trafficked for the next two years until I ended up in the hospital at 18.
I was lucky, getting arrested and hospitalized broke that bond for me. I could not have done so on my own.
Breaking the bonds that lead me down that path continues to be a daily struggle. For me and only for me, when I can find empathy for the person who victimized me the trauma no longer needs to be dealt with, it goes away.
My trauma caused me to traumatize others. What I want most in this life is to stop the trauma with me. I have a lot of work still to do but it feels less like a burden and more like a labor of love.
I wish you peace and good health all your days.
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And in case you didn’t know, preaching empathy for abusers keeps those preyed upon TRAPPED IN THE ABUSE —
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It is my hope that the love that flows from true empathy can break that bond.
For me empathy flows from seeing the other and understanding that they are who they are because of their biology and their environment just like me.
It doesn’t not mean placing myself in harms way. The best thing for me is that the process of truly understanding that no one “chose” to hurt me, they simply did as all of who they are made them do, is allowing me to release my anger and I can heal.
The woman twice my age who sexually assaulted me and then introduced me to people who would traffic me for the next two years, she and all of the other adults were not trying to destroy me.
They were damaged people. Damaged people damage people. I went on to be a victimizer myself, though with enough understanding that I did not cause the same kind of suffering she did, but I caused suffering.
Seeing the wounds of the other did not pull me back in but let me begin to see my own wounds more clearly.
I am sorry if anything I have written has been harmful in anyway, I try to write with love and understanding. I don’t always get it write. I’m sorry.
I hope your life is filled with joy and peace.
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You having given me wonderful gifts in your comments, thank you
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David, thank you for your kind words. You sound like a lovely person.
Here’s what I’ve learned: sometimes the harder we try not to feel our feelings, the harder it is to let go of them. And it’s also okay if we can’t.
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Yes, I agree.
Thank you for your kind words.
I hope you live in peace and good health always!
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…”but they’re [doctors and scientists] are broken people just like us.”
David, I suggest you speak only for yourself.
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Point taken, broken people like me.
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Though I do believe that in our society we are all broken to one degree or another, but that’s just my opinion.
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Well said, James!
And gloriously written, thank you, David!
“La folie c’est de n’avoir aucune norme que soit-meme.” – was that how it went, in a language which, I believe, happens to have no equivalent word for English’s “mind,“ “madness” or “evil,” if one suggests “esprit,” “folie,” and “mal?”
Empathy: possibly THE only starting AND finishing place, ever…and possibly articulated by David in the spirit of Terry Fox, too, and of the very best of Victor Hugo and of Les Miserables:
“In résiste à l’invasion des armées; on ne résiste pas à l’invasion des idées.”
“One can withstand the invasion of armies but not that of AN IDEA WHOSE TIME HAS COME.”
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2023/11/05/powerful-idea/?amp=1
“And then the Bishop, knowing that Valjean is in desperate need of an act of mercy, tells the police, He didn’t steal that silver, I gave it to him.”:
https://medium.com/@spencerbaum/6-reasons-why-you-should-read-les-miserables-386b468b29d2
Merci BEAUCOUP!
“I GAVE it to him!”
Tom.
“The human condition: lost in thought.” – Eckhart Tolle in “Stillness Speaks.”
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What a beautiful reminder of what living empathy looks like. The trauma ended there and the healing began.
That is the world I want my children to live in.
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David, I think it’s important for children to learn that it’s okay to stand up for themselves, that being a doormat isn’t okay, that the real world isn’t always so nice, that while ideals are good to aspire to, empathy without limits is a dangerous thing.
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I agree with you completely
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I believe everyone can use a little help understanding the power of empathy to empower great and wonderful good and tragic life threatening distortions.
I believe empathy is neither good (what the word seems to imply) nor bad. It is a human ( maybe other species as well) characteristic that is formed the same way the rest of the self is formed.
Empathy can be used to spread trauma just as easily as it can be used to spread love.
A hand can reach out and save someone or it can be made into a fist to punch someone in the face.
Empathy is incredibly powerful. I believe the lack of knowledge regarding this essential human trait lies at the root of many of societies problems.
Empathy is used to manipulate entire societies often in the pursuit of profits and self interest without any real knowledge of what is happening.
Fortunately empathy developed to spread love is far more powerful and I believe has the power to heal the world.
It spreads as quickly as any other virus. We think of viruses as only being negative when in fact many are just part of our evolutionary heritage.
The empathy virus can indeed cause great harm. However, when spread by love and understanding those infected can truly thrive and pass it on, ultimately given enough mass, changing the whole world.
Neuroscience has made it clear, empathy is a real biological component of the brain that, can and has, been manipulated, by individuals and self organizing systems, like capitalism, to the detriment and benefit of all.
Just think of medicines that don’t work and actually make us sicker. This is the systems way of using empathy in pursuit of profit. No one planned it, the system is simply pursuing its goal of making a profit.
We need to change the objective to one of healing humanity and the distruction we cause, empathy , real biological empathy will do the rest.
That is the basis of my theory and all the science exists to support it. I hope with all that I am, that it is correct.
Otherwise I despair for my children’s future.
Thank you for sharing yourself with me. I am better for it.
David
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David, spiritual bypassing is a form of escapism.
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David, overemphasizing the positive is harmful, especially for kids.
“The Impact of Toxic Positivity in Parenting on Children’s Well-Being”, by Delia Ciobanu from the International School of Bucharest
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“I believe everyone can use a little help understanding the power of empathy to empower great and wonderful good and tragic life threatening distortions.”
David, I believe some people could use a little help understanding the difference between preaching and healing: one is grandiose, the other is not.
IMHO.
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“Trying to move beyond our psychological and emotional issues by sidestepping them is dangerous. It sets up a debilitating split between the buddha and the human within us. And it leads to a conceptual, one-sided kind of spirituality where one pole of life is elevated at the expense of the opposite: Absolute truth is favored over relative truth, the impersonal over the personal, emptiness over form, transcendence over embodiment, and detachment over feeling.”
“On Spiritual Bypassing and Relationship”, by John Welwood, from Science & Nonduality
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Hey, Guys, did you hear the great, great, GREAT good (gospel God’s Spell) news?!
Seemingly, if he ever even lived and breathed and ate and drank and all that flows and follows, and scratched himself, and (even) if he truly succeed if, as he admitted towards the end, he came to turn brother against brother, sister against brother etc., and “not peace, but fire and the sword” – at least for a couple of thousand years or so, if he lived and if he spoke and if he preached if not in King’s or Queen’s English or Hiberno- or American English, but ancient Aramaic or whatever…apparently, he probably would not, could not and did not suggest:
“SEEK first the Kingdom, “but “FIND first the Kingdom,” which is within us all, after all.
And, similarly, apparently, he probably could not possibly have said “I am the Way,” but insisted “I-AM IS the Way,” or “The I-AM [the same before Abraham- and not Abram – was, I am, the Before you were in your mother’s womb I-AM, the “You are the Light of the World I-AM, the “I-am that I am I-AM – THAT eternal, essential I-AM] is the Way.”
When he arrived to service the pool on the property where I was working ten days ago, I asked him (again) what name they had chosen for their infant daughter.
“Fallon.”
“Oh, my God, how could I POSSIBLY have forgotten?! That means “Destiny,” in Gaelic, you know?”
(Apparently, we Gaels, Gauls et al had an understanding of Destiny before “Christianity”/Judeo-Paulianity came and conquered us…)
“Yeah, we knew that.”
“So, do you believe in destiny?”
“Uh……………….guess so. You?”
“Oh, yeah. You sure you do?”
“You know, after my wife died, I was so devastated, I wasn’t interested in anything. And X [mother of his new baby], she was my neighbor. And she moved away to R [a town some ?20 miles away. And then, a while later, I moved there, too, and she was my neighbor, again!”
“You mean, nearby?”
“No, next door! Again! And we got to know each other then, and, and…!”
“Some decisions are so important I toss a coin. If George Washington comes up, that’s a yes.”
“And what if it lands on its edge?!”
“That actually happened to me, twice, last Friday morning, a week ago today, in that garage over there! I’d been thinking about the Dalai Lama and his “Be kind whenever you can. You can ALWAYS be kind!” And I decided to flip a coin and see if he was right. First time, it rolled over and got stuck in the crack between two concrete slabs. So I flipped it again. Rolled over into the same crack and stood upright again, but slightly to one side. I pushed it over so it was George up! I reckon we – or I – CAN be kind, ALWAYS – but only if I want to, enough?!”
I certainly do not believe that Jesus was always kind, but I do believe he said we could exceed his works, and I believe we can, not because we are superior to him, but because we are all equal, and we can all realize this.
I believe this is the only way our species can and will survive, and thrive and thrive AND thrive. And I believe it is our destiny to do so, at least in any of the worlds I want to be in – ENOUGH, and so in any of the worlds I will be in.
But I suspect there may be at least an infinitude or worlds for each one of us, all originating in our latest big bang. And I am awfully, awfully, awfully grateful for having MIA and ALL you guys for my nextdoor neighbors right now in at least one of mine..
“I GAVE it to him!” – Monseigneur, the bishop, of all people.
Thanks, everyone.
Tom.
“Every life is in many days, day after day. We walk through ourselves, meeting robbers, ghosts, giants, old men, young men, wives, widows, brothers-in-love, but always meeting ourselves.” –
James Joyce, ”Ulysses.”
“While you have a thing it can be taken from you…..but when you give it, you have given it. No robber can take it from you. It is yours then forever when you have given it. It will be yours always. That is to give.” – Joyce James.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qbjggf6ddb4
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Empathy is neither good nor bad. It is aspect of human biology, as routed in our biology as the color of eye.
Empathy birthed in trauma will be traumatized often expressing in the same way as the person who transmitted it, cause us to seek relief from this inherited trauma, often resulting heightened awareness, which then results in the experience of trauma from those in our environment, sending the sufferer into an endless negative back loop.
Empathy birthed in love is just as viral, but love is a much stronger bond then trauma, much stronger. Change the initial conditions, change the outcome.
The only way to change the initial conditions enough is for all enough of us who suffer to heal before passing it one, the only way to do that is to reprogram our brains, so to speak, to heal.
I believe this can be done.
I’ve taken up a lot of this thread, this will be my last comment here.
Thank you birdsong for your engaging comments and thank you for all your wonderful comments, especially be mentioned in the same post with Victor Hugo.
I don’t know is this appropriate if not please don’t approve it, if anyone wants to chat further I came be reached at [email protected]
Moderator please remove if in appropriate.
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Emotional healing is personal journey that cannot be dictated.
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Agreed, each of us has our on time line. My goal in life is to alleviate as much suffering as I can by sharing my journey, as you have done for me.
Thank you,
I guess this is my last post
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Here’s a few things worth keeping in mind: your journey is yours alone, subtle coercion is coercion no less, and finally, who’s emotional needs are you really fulfilling?
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Thanks for sharing. After years of Bi Polar now it’s cognitive neuro disorder there is Quora for sharing. The next disorder is sensory Lol Ai on Facebook said to stay away for those interpersonal interactions. Do you have any ideas about that ?
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I am delighted to answer any questions that I might have experience and research sufficient to offer an opinion.
I do not want to take up any more of this thread.
Feel free to email me at the mail address on a previous post.
I wish everyone peace and good health.
Thanks for letting me share,
David
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