Blogs

My son is dead. He hanged himself at 17 but meh… whatever… that’s yesterday’s news and I’m totally over it now. I don’t long for...

Nobody is denying that inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity can be real problems. The issue at stake, however, is whether it makes any sense to conceptualize this loose cluster of vaguely-defined problems as an illness.

This piece is the first of a two-part essay about suicide, diagnosis, what doesn't help, and what does help. This part is about suicide, diagnosis, and some of what fails to help.

What do I tell my patients about diagnosis? I try to explain what a diagnosis is and is not. It is a label that reflects that the person has reported certain symptoms. It is a label for the symptoms not for the person.

How persistent, unbearable suffering, due to prolonged withdrawal from antipsychotics prescribed as a sleeping medication, led to euthanasia.

The World Psychiatric Journal has published an interesting article, Uses and Abuses of Recovery: Implementing Recovery-Oriented Practices in Mental Health Systems, that outlines "7 Abuses of the Concept of 'Recovery.'"  This effort to identify problems in the use of the term "recovery" is important,  and it is good to see the many issues they raise being discussed in a major journal.  I encourage people to read the article, as I won't be able to touch on many of its points here.  Instead, what I want to do is to add some to their list of abuses of "recovery" and to critique  some of their reasoning about what alternatives should be supported.

Perhaps the most alarming current trend in psychiatry, documented by Domino and Schwartz (2008), is the rise in prescriptions for the class of drug...

Nothing matters more than cultivating the most loving bond possible with those we love. How can stoicism help?

I’ve just finished reading Michel Foucault’s book History of Madness.  It is a tour de force that is at times almost impossible to understand, but I find if I am patient the loose ends usually are brought back together.  It is also highly upsetting to read for me as someone who has been locked up as mad.  The layers of history that Foucault uncovers demonstrate conceptual as well as legal and social forms of exclusion that are with us to the present day, although some of them have become transformed over time.

My research into psychiatry began in late 2016 after being admitted to a mental "health" facility. There was nothing healthy about that experience!

Some things are floating around in my mind to try and make sense of. A big part of it is the connection of coercive/biopsychiatry to both race and gender politics. This is connected in my mind to the politics of healing in a larger sense than the singular healing any person might seek through therapy or personal search for wellness. It is a healing that is throughout the individual and society.

Published in the peer-reviewed journal Advances in Mind Body Medicine, this case series is the first of its kind to document the methodology employed in the successful discontinuation of a range of psychotropic medications, with holistic support interventions providing long-term mood support.

This anecdote is offered as a story in praise of families and a recognition of their importance to the process of recovery.

Women’s issues and mental health were embedded in radical mental medicine fifty years ago. Feminism and sexual politics in the late 1960s and 1970s led to a reassessment of gender-based hierarchies in the mental health establishment, and transformative change was the result.

In many respects, resilience is the most important sign of health. This is true in physical health, and even more so in mental health. Resilience is what I spend my working hours trying to help others achieve. Resilience is what I have spent my own life discovering, harnessing, and finally thriving with. Quite simply stated, resilience is the ability to bounce back or recover from the trials and tribulations that living as a human being inevitably comes with.

Essentially what Choy et al are seeking in their editorial is the total suppression of information concerning the harmful and often permanent effects of high voltage electric shocks to the brain, thus implying that the very large number of individuals who report more extensive and persistent damage are not worth listening to.

We are immersed these days in the erroneous idea that only randomized placebo-controlled studies (RCTs) constitute scientific data. We will discuss the origins of the over-reliance on RCTs in a future column. For now, we shall simply assume that many of our readers understand that a well-documented case study can provide information relevant to many. And so, we would like to tell you about a Calgary-based child who we refer to as ‘Andrew’.

Once biochemical psychiatry is discarded, which will inevitably happen, what will replace it? The approach I will describe here is consistent with the nature of consciousness itself, with the neuroscience of the brain, with child development and attachment.

On April 24, I had the pleasure of attending the conference “New Directions & New Hopes Call for New Practices in Clinical Psychiatry.” Jointly sponsored by the Yale Program for Recovery and Community Health, the Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care and the Connecticut Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, this was a rich experience.

This is the world that lies in store for us. It is not the world of traditional medicine, where drugs treat diseases to restore the social order. It is a world in which medical interventions will potentially change that order.

Dutch investigators will soon publish an article in Neurochemistry International that sheds light on how SSRI antidepressants affect the serotonergic system over the longer...

Your next move will be an amendment to another measure. Do not attempt. You've pulled bogus crap with this since the beginning. You've lied about task force recommendations. You've pulled suprise buttsex scheduling, when proponents somehow got the message, and opponents were left scrambling to get there. Twice. You basically filibustered us on Wednesday, which was also scheduled without notice.

Since the 1950’s, we’ve been told that eating fat makes you fat and that avoiding traditional fats (i.e. butter, animal meats, lard, eggs) in lieu of industrialized, man-made fat substitutes is highly recommended. Why did we agree to disavow several millennia of instinctive eating in favor of a high carb and sugar diet, deficient in this staple?

It was exciting going back to my old stamping ground. Years ago I’d worked in one of the local community mental health teams and had referred many women to the Drayton Park Crisis House. Walking up the steps of the house brought back memories of standing there with desperate and suicidal clients, some of whom had told me that they would rather die than go back into hospital. As you can imagine, to say I had been glad that there was an alternative would have been an understatement.

About healthcare's focus on back end treatment rather than front end treatment: treating the symptoms rather than the causes of the health condition.