Psychotherapy is THE Biological Treatment
Psychotherapy addresses the brain in the way it actually develops, matures and operates. The process for brain change involves deactivation — disuse, not utilizing the old brain map; and then creating a new one. Psychotherapy can deactivate maladaptive brain mappings and foster new and constructive pathways.
New Book Takes Aim at the Mental Health Industrial Complex
I’ve been around the block a few times, so I was not shocked by the revelations in Art Levine’s absorbing and well-researched new book, Mental Health, Inc.: How Corruption, Lax Oversight and Failed Reforms Endanger Our Most Vulnerable Citizens. But I was certainly appalled.
From “Recovery” to “Transformation and Recovery”
Just “recovering” one’s previous way of functioning is not so likely to work, because usually something wasn’t working prior to the psychosis. It was that which set off the psychosis, and if that isn’t changed, any “recovery” may not be worth much, as the problems, and so the need to transform, will likely still be present.
A Massachusetts Benzo Bill That Mandates Informed Consent
H. 3594 would require pharmacists to distribute pamphlets containing information on benzodiazepine misuse and abuse, risk of dependency and addiction, handling and addiction treatment resources. This would be a major legislative response to the prescribing patterns for these drugs today.
The Disillusioned Psychiatrist
Many of us have become disillusioned with our profession. We have experienced a loss of meaning, purpose, connection, and hope. As the field has moved away from the wonder and pathos of human existence, and taken on a model that reduces life to tick boxes and pill dispensing, we have lost touch with what makes us human.
Stop Shock Now: Psychiatry’s War Against Women and the Elderly
As a movement strategy, electroshock must be clearly framed and understood as a blatant human rights violation — a profound and devastating crime against people’s health and lives. Here are three possible action proposals in our continuing struggle to abolish electroshock.
A Call for Obligatory Diagnostic Reporting and Appeals Mechanisms
Psychiatric diagnoses are ballooning in scope and in numbers, many have dramatic and life-changing consequences, reliability levels are poor, co-morbidity levels are high, and the validity of many are doubtful. Despite all this, they have escaped any kind of regulation. It's time for that to change.
Real People, Real Side Effects: Stories of Sexual Dysfunction
Research shows that psychiatric drugs seem to have an impact on libido, so I decided to collect personal stories to complement the evidence of side effects from psychotropic medication already available. Libido can be directly linked with wellness, and patients need more information to make the choice right for them.
Rebranding Psychiatry
In November of 2017, the British Journal of Psychiatry published a guest editorial titled "Shrink rethink: rebranding psychiatry." The central themes are that psychiatry can be sold to potential recruits and customers using the same tawdry methods found in ad campaigns for soft drinks and shampoo; and that every psychiatrist needs to embrace this perspective wholeheartedly.
How Psychiatry Evolved Into A Religion
Biological psychiatry has managed to stealthily become America’s first state-sponsored religion, by disguising itself as a helpful, scientific medical field. Millions have been led astray by its lies, and enslaved by its labels and drugs. It will take ten plagues to free them. Psychiatry’s tenth plague has only just begun.
Are Mental Disorders Brain Diseases ‘In Waiting’?
Proponents of the idea that mental disorders are brain diseases argue that even though we may not have discovered the underlying pathology of mental disorders like schizophrenia or depression yet, surely we eventually will? Mental disorders, on this view, can be thought of as brain diseases ‘in waiting.’
Psychiatry: The Brain is a Malignant Tumor!
We have persistently failed in trying to influence psychiatry with scientific argument because we view the brain as normal and they think it is a cancer. Imagine how weird it must seem to them: We are talking about an organ inside our heads that we treasure, and they are peering at it the way a surgeon studies a neuroblastoma.
Steps Forward: Integrative Mental Health is Gaining Ground
In September 2017, a gift of 200 million dollars was given to the University of California, Irvine, to create new buildings and new programs dedicated to forwarding the model of integrative healthcare. This large donation is bound to lead to changes in both the training of psychiatrists as well as the delivery of mental healthcare.
The Angry Congressman: Tim Murphy’s Lack of Insight
The most spectacular part of Rep. Murphy’s hypocrisy has nothing to do with abortion or reproductive rights. Allegations of his dangerous behavior and his lack of insight into his own actions would be enough to commit him, involuntarily, to psychiatric treatment under the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act that he championed.
The Orwellian New Digital Abilify Will Subjugate Vulnerable People Across the US
The FDA approved the prescribing and sale of a new hi-tech compliance-monitoring “antipsychotic” drug this week. A new chapter in human darkness has descended — one that is applauded by the alliance of control addicts that made it happen.
Creeping Fascism: University “Unfit to Study” Policies
“Unfit to study” policies are “respectable fascism.” Where marginalization, exclusion, and control on the basis of putative “mental illness” is starting to happen in any arena, or to any designated group, we need to oppose the institutionalized oppression and stand in solidarity with those under siege.
Learning About Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal
We held the first course ever on psychiatric drug withdrawal on 12 June 2017 in Copenhagen. The course was open to patients, relatives, psychologists, doctors and other social and healthcare workers, and 77 people participated.
Duration of Untreated Psychosis Revisited: Response to the Goff Paper
Based on the studies cited, it seems hard to support the assertion that “early initiation of antipsychotics may improve long-term course of the illness.” This raises an urgent question about initial treatment. Doesn’t it make sense to try to capture all of those individuals who might get through a psychosis without drugs?
More Bad News About Smartphones – When Will We Heed the Warnings?
We might expect that there would be a reasonable response to an overwhelming body of evidence that our tech usage patterns must be altered or consequences will only become more dismal. Yet as we are learning, trends seem to be running contrary to what the advice begs us to consider.
Why Disease and Illness Are Concepts of the Body
If you loosen the association between the concepts of illness and disease and the body, the words cease to have any discriminative power. They are no longer able to pick out a particular category of unwanted situations and become synonymous with generic terms like ‘problem’ or ‘difficulty’. They become meaningless.
Crazy or Wise? Learning From Those Who Have Transcended Psychological Crisis
The documentary CRAZYWISE, released earlier this year, challenges Western ideas of human suffering by considering the concept that extreme states can be processes of transformation and that other cultures might have something to teach us.
Mental Illness Vs. “Bad” Behavior
Allen Frances has claimed that "It's a great mistake to confuse bad behavior with mental illness." Yet two of the so-called mental illnesses (conduct disorder and antisocial personality disorder) consist essentially of "bad" behavior, while in at least six others, "bad" behavior is an integral part of the problem.
Psychiatry’s Greatest Harm: Its Lies Have Poisoned Our Entire Culture
Psychiatry’s harms extend far beyond those people it ‘treats’ — they are undermining our society’s entire foundation. In just thirty years in America, the medical model's widespread acceptance has largely undone the huge adaptive potential that millions of years of brain evolution had provided.
Bias and Deception in Behavioral Research
Contrary to popular belief, science is not immune to the corrupting influences of the society it operates in. When false results produced by p-hacked research have social, scientific, and political importance, and affect or harm the lives of millions of people while entire fields look on, it constitutes a scientific scandal.
Tranquilizing Humanity into Oblivion: A Warning from Nathan S. Kline
Widely heralded as the father of American psychopharmacology, Kline insisted that his discoveries were adjunctive to psychotherapy, not replacements. The psychopharmacology of Kline's era recognized that medications are a blunt instrument.
