Blogs

Recently, This Morning featured a story on depression, in which Dr. Chris Steele advised participants that their depression was due to a 'chemical imbalance' (despite obvious environmental explanations) and that antidepressants - possibly for life - were the solution. However both the 'chemical imbalance' notion and the medical solutions it implies, for which there has never been any evidence, are outdated and now known to be harmful. Our letter asks Dr. Steele to refrain from using information that cannot be scientifically substantiated, as doing so has serious implications for the health and well-being of the viewing audience - which may be in violation of broadcasting legislation.

Depression and anxiety can be symptoms that are like a throbbing toe. Did you just drop a hammer on it? Is there a string wrapped tightly around it? Is the toenail infected? There’s pain, but what from? What might it mean? If you ask why, psychiatry has a well-rehearsed answer for you: it’s your broken brain and your misfiring chemistry! Despite efforts to focus on the danger of our emotional experiences, the finger is now being pointed back at psychiatry to explain why violence and self-harm are documented effects of treatment.

The faults of modern psychiatry are numerous and profound, and many readers here know firsthand about its destructive force. But are these faults so vast that there is nothing worth saving?

The winding path is very often the only path that a human being can follow. It has to become an acceptable path. We have to stop pushing young kids because WE want them to be somewhere without regard to what they are ready for.

DK Law Group LLP has just filed a class action in federal court in the Central District of California against the manufacturers of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) devices on behalf of every person who has been injured by electroconvulsive therapy in California since May of 1982.

In the March 1 issue of the New Yorker, Louis Menand surveyed the topsy-turvy world of treatments for depression, writing in part of the...

As the 60 Minutes episode featuring E. Fuller Torrey comes to air, I feel moved to ask: when will the lies that robbed me of my late teenage years and young adulthood stop? When will the false notion that professionals can predict who - and who will not - be violent give way to the reality - proven over and again - that they are no better able than chance to make such predictions? When will we see the reality that forced treatment is actually, statistically, more harmful than helpful? It certainly was not helpful for me.

As I write this, the New York Times is asking readers to respond to the question “What should be done to prevent mass shootings?” The more responses the New York Times receives from people who understand that the answer is gun control — not misguided legislation that would only harm those it purports to help — the more they will take notice. Please write!

I am participating in World Benzodiazepine Awareness Day today, and you should too, because you know somebody right now who is taking a benzodiazepine and that person might just be dealing with chronic health problems, unaware that they are result of taking the medication as prescribed.

Secret court proceedings against someone certainly justifies the feeling that people are out to get them. Expressing this sentiment is characterized as paranoia. If people felt they had a fair legal process they are likely to be less upset.

A career update for members of the “Psychiatry Hall of Shame,” including the group excoriated in the 2008 Congressional investigations, and another psychiatrist who conducted studies aimed at inducing psychosis—experiments that appeared to run counter to the Nuremberg Code of research ethics.

I want to begin by thanking Bob Whitaker for the invitation to blog on this site. I am honored to find myself amidst this...

An astounding development is the explosion in the numbers of substance abusers being diagnosed with Bipolar. I teach a class in Substance Abuse at...

During the past 29 years I have been diagnosed with anxiety, depression, PTSD, Biploar II and complex PTSD. I have tried numerous drug combinations and have been through ECT several times. None of this helped me. My road to recovery started when I decided to rebel against conventional psychiatry.

In the face of concerns that large numbers of children were being incorrectly diagnosed with pediatric bipolar disorder, the DSM–V introduced Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD). In the scramble by drug companies to produce evidence that their drug should be prescribed to this new population of mentally ill children, the manufacturer of Risperidone paid to test their drug on a group of children. The study does not investigate whether treatment with Risperidone has any therapeutic benefit to the children, whether it cures or treats DMDD or ‘rage outbursts.’ It is quite open that Risperidone is being trialled for its efficacy as a chemical restraint.

I hadn’t seen this psychiatrist or any other now in several years. I chose to make this visit to the man who prescribed the drugs for my 6-year-long psychiatric drug withdrawal for several reasons. Upon reflection, I think the primary one was ritualistic. Something to mark the end of that phase of my life. A goodbye to psychiatry, concretized.

For Mother’s Day this blog will not address the pressing issues of psychiatry today. Suffice it to say that the harm done by the twin traumas of deprivation and abuse generate all the psychiatric struggles we are all subject to. This is the other side of the story - in appreciation for what I have learned about love from my wife.

When the ADHD literature speaks of scattered attention, it uses terms with historical resonance. Ever since the Puritans, reformers have attached high importance to the regulation of attention. But the standard treatment of ADHD is designed for immediate, not eventual, benefits. It conflicts with its own rationale.

It looks like a great event:  The Hearing Voices Network 25 Years On: Learning from the PAST, Practicing in the PRESENT, Visioning the FUTURE. ...

The Collaborative Pathways project at Advocates, Inc. in Framingham, MA has received an FEMHC grant to develop and evaluate their highly innovative new program....

A recent meta-analysis published in Molecular Psychiatry claims to have settled the debate on whether the slight superiority of antidepressants in trials is due to side effects breaking blind. The principle author was quoted as saying: "once and for all, we've answered the SSRI question." Have they?

It is Christmas Eve of 2008. I am leaning against the kitchen counter of an old friend’s house, arms tucked tightly across my stomach,...

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.

People with mental disorders or differences are often experienced as “hot stoves” in society — at work, at school, at home, in friendships. In addition, providers and consumers who embrace the medical model and those who don’t are often “hot stoves” for one another. The result of arguments for and against those and other divisive perspectives is interference with empathy, understanding, creative solutions, and forward movement as a mental health community.

The Hope Concept Wellness Center + HOPE Project just held our first national conference in the City of Freedom (Philadelphia) much to everybody’s and to our amazement. Here is some of what I learned from producing Wellness Solutions 1.0 Uncensored Innovation.