Blogs

I came up with a tie for my "Enough is Enough" series, so I will address two articles. “Researchers identify key biological markers for psychotic disorders,” in Medical Xpress. The whole enterprise is a house of cards built on the ‘belief’ in a group of medical brain diseases, for which we haven’t found the specific proof yet. 'We are on the verge,' psychiatry says, so the belief is close enough. And if you repeat a belief often enough, it is taken as true. This is what has happened. There is no real science behind it, and at some point in the process a mistaken belief transforms into a lie.

Last month almost 30 grassroot protests of electroshock were held in nine countries around the world. I had the great honor of organizing the protest here in Eugene, Oregon, USA, even though I am a survivor of psychiatric drugs and not electroshock. Electroshock is the psychiatric procedure in which electricity is run through people’s brains. Here are eight lessons that this historic event taught me.

Just a few final words on this issue. One of the readers of the blog I posted on March 27 on madinamerica.com identified himself as...

Believing that mental disorders are reactions to life situations, are how people are avoiding pain, protecting themselves, feeling more adequate, reconstituting themselves, having the illusion of control, is associated with good treatment. It gives people the message that their symptoms are understandable, meaningful and potentially useful, that they can use them to learn about themselves, develop some compassion for themselves and learn how to manage their thoughts, emotions, intentions, perceptions and behavior in a way that will enable them to live more the way they want to live.

There is a language underneath our familiar verbal language. Ordinarily it is called nonverbal communication. It is also called body language. I came to...

I am deeply concerned that so many people reach out for help with mental health challenges and end up getting harsh treatment that is less than helpful and often harmful. I wish more of them knew about WRAP. And I wish that WRAP was a starting place for people on the journey to wellness, something they would be introduced to when they first reach out for help, rather than something they discover after they have experienced a lot of hardship and pain. In this article I have described the development process that we used to develop the Wellness Recovery Action Plan. In Part 2 I will describe the Values and eThics that have evolved around WRAP.

Many psychiatric survivors have created a gift economy of sorts in offering peer support, and this is by no means to criticize those offering their best guidance freely to those who desperately need it. In fact, the gift economy saved my life when it was threatened by psychiatric drugs. Yet, my entrepreneurial spirit, as chaotic and unsophisticated as it has been at times, has played a huge role in saving me from being a chronic mental patient with a chronic identity of “sick” or “failure” or “other”.

There are many similarities between mental health oppression (which is an umbrella terms for what this blog/web site is about) and racism. I invite readers to contemplate the similarities and differences in these pernicious forms of oppressions. Sera Davidow has begun a wonderful MIA blog-discussion on this. (Thank you, Sera.) In the mean time let me admit to my own racism. Here is what I wrote previously. I offer it as an invitation to racism 101.

Every year about this time I review my template file for new client notes. It has blank sections for name, presenting concern, history, plan, and a number of other categories. This year I found myself staring at it, considering whether a revision was in order. And the category that leapt out at me was “Diagnosis.” The truth is, I seldom use it any more.

If molecular genetic research had actually delivered the genes for psychiatric disorders promised by mainstream psychiatry and its subfield of psychiatric genetics, twin research today would be largely obsolete because focus would have shifted to molecular genetic research, and a person’s genotype and diagnosis would be determined directly from his or her DNA. Twin research, therefore, retains its current level of importance in psychiatry only because the genes believed to exist for its disorders, based largely on genetic interpretations of twin studies, have not been found.

Telling people emphatically how much I am suffering at times, asking for reassurance that my dear ones love and care about me and sense my purpose, may make me unpopular with some who pride themselves on being “more together,” yet it also fosters the intimacy, closeness and trust I feel with so many. And because of it, I don't need to ask myself if anyone will care if I die. I can experience that reassurance while I'm alive, if I have the humility to ask for it, and keep asking until my soul is met with other souls who genuinely care. That experience humbles me greatly and somehow makes all of my brokenness feel like love and open heartedness.

Every year around this time my thoughts turn to my friends participating in Burning Man. Burning Man is founded on these 10 principles. Stories I have heard over the years have often made me wonder when and how society condones public displays of madness. Stories from burners have often reminded me of some of my own emotional crises, and I wonder about expeditioning to places where what would be called madness by a psychiatrist may be completely normal, acceptable, and encouraged.

I built my entire community in the last eight years.  Eight years ago I was recently divorced, unemployed, on six psych meds, and homeless....

This is a transcript of my keynote speech at Alternatives 2012, which a Madness Radio listener recently transcribed.

I am a person labeled with “severe and persistent mental illness,” and so I have been trying to break the cycle of oppression that comes with a label like that. At the same time, I am trying to find ways to heal and to accept things about myself that are different from others, while also seeking to raise up my brothers and sisters in this desolate and dark place. This morning, I had an epiphany upon awakening. While it's hard to put into words, it feel's vital, and I want to try and get it down.

When I first interviewed Brandon Banks, in the spring of 2008, while researching Anatomy of an Epidemic, he had recently entered Elizabethtown Community College...

I recently finished reading Joseph LeDoux’s wonderful book Anxious: Using the Brain to Understand and Treat Fear and Anxiety.  LeDoux has written numerous books and articles on fear over many decades now, with an accessible that makes neuroanatomy and neuroscience easy to understand.  LeDoux studies the brain, but readers of this site would want to know that he is dubious about drugs being the answer to ameliorating anxiety or fear.  He raises questions regarding which domains of behavior belong to the brain and which domains belong to mind.

Most people on hearing that ADHD is a "neurodevelopmental disorder" would assume that a neurological pathology is implied. But all the DSM-5 requires is that the individual be functioning below par (for any reason) in one of several areas. It doesn't take a great deal of imagination to see how individuals who are distractible and impulsive have a higher mortality rate. But people who ride motorcycles routinely also have a higher than average accident-related mortality rate. Should we therefore conclude that riding motorcycles is a "valid" illness?

The best protection against bias is rigorous adherence to predetermined protocols and making data freely available. We, like everyone, are subject to the unwitting influence of our bias. The question is whether the Keller et al publication of 2001 manifests unconscious bias or deliberate misrepresentation.

What is informed consent? Informed consent obviously means if you are being given drugs you should know the common and potential adverse affects, drug interactions, risk of dependency and addiction, and counter-indications with other substances, health conditions or health concerns. This is the baseline of informed consent (which many people don't receive) but there is an incredible amount more that is included in what you deserve to know about any drug you are prescribed or medical system you are advised to subscribe to.

For years, drug companies have sought to boost sales by hyping the benefits of new drugs while downplaying their risks. A couple of years ago the European Medicines Agency (equivalent of the FDA) set up a program to grant public access to all clinical trial results used in the approval of new drugs. The program was hailed by activists and researchers around the world as a big step forward for patient safety. Now AbbVie, along with another U.S. drug firm called Intermune, has filed a lawsuit to stop the release of clinical trials on their drugs, effectively shutting the whole program down.

This week we launched PeerRespite.net, a website dedicated to information and resources regarding peer respites in the U.S. As part of the initiative, recruitment is open for the 2015 Peer Respites Essential Features Survey.

A little more than 10 years ago, when I was 29 and 2 weeks away from turning 30, I was a patient in the psychiatric system here in Copenhagen. I am a pharmacist and I specialized in neurochemistry and psychotropics throughout my studies. While I was working in the labs at The Royal Danish School of Pharmacy I was intent on getting a job as a medicinal chemist at Lundbeck – the Danish pharmaceutical company behind Celexa and Lexapro and in their own words the only company specializing solely in developing drugs for the treatment of neurological and psychiatric disorders. We were taught that psychiatric disorders were diseases just like diabetes and hypotension.

The Ct.Post.com website ran an article yesterday titled, Sandy Hook Study Dragging, which on its face is one of the most biased and misinformed articles of “news” this writer has seen in some time. As is so typical of the reporting in Connecticut, the Ct.Post.com uses the Sandy Hook shooting as an excuse to attack the gun lobby and cheerlead for increased mental health services in the state. The problem with this self-serving reporting is that there is absolutely no proof that Sandy Hook shooter, Adam Lanza, lacked good mental health services. In fact, according to the records that have been made available, Lanza received abundant mental health care throughout his life.

Our newest conference this coming April in Michigan is the high point of a transition that my wife Ginger and I have been making for several years. The origins of the change go much further into the past to sixty-one years ago in 1954 when I was an eighteen-year-old college freshman at Harvard and a friend invited me to join him as a volunteer on the wards of Metropolitan State Hospital. I was majoring in American History and Literature, with little thought of becoming a psychologist and no thought whatsoever of being a medical doctor and a psychiatrist.