Little Porcupine Goes to the Psych Ward

Little Porcupine Goes to the Psych Ward

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I was so anxious about having to raise three boys alone that I felt I was going insane. So I thought of going to see a psychiatrist. I was looking for Carl Jung. Instead I found a system where they give you pills, whether you need them or not.

Prescription for Murder ABCD

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The Anything But the Company Drug playbook involved digging deep into the medical records of the person reporting a problem in order to find the ingrown toenail at the age of two that was possibly the cause. And of course if something else was possibly the cause, then we can’t conclude that our drug did it.

Prenatal Exposure to Psychotropic Medication Linked to Long Term Cognitive Impairment

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School aged children exposed prenatally to psychotropic medication show poorer outcomes in cognitive ability.

Study Suggests Mania More Common in Psychosis When Antidepressants Used

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A prospective cohort study of those labeled high risk for psychosis finds a higher prevalence of antidepressant use among those who develop manic symptoms.

Death By Placebo

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When people waste all their time and effort on futile attempts to fix fake chemical imbalances instead of addressing their real issues (since there supposedly are none), their issues will persist and build up. Hyping placebos to be miracle pills thus builds up false hopes, which sets a person up for big letdowns that can lead to suicide.

Providing Social Welfare Can Save Billions of Dollars, Researchers Say

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Researchers suggest that treatment is more effective and healthcare costs are reduced when contextual care is implemented that addresses social and economic needs.

Part II: Michelle Starts Prozac and Sees the Devil

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By 2011, anyone who read the scientific literature would have known that children cannot tolerate SSRIs and should not be given them. Neither Conrad nor Michelle seemed to have been warned about the common adverse effects (such as nightmares and compulsive suicidality) of the SSRI antidepressants they were on.

Childhood Bipolar Disorder More Rare Than Previously Claimed, Study Finds

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Re-examination of meta-analytic claims finds the prevalence of pediatric bipolar disorder is close to zero.

What Does it Mean to be Anti-Psychiatry? Thoughts of a Cartoon Anteater

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How did I get here? What turned me from loyal acolyte into fearsome-clawed rebel, itching to take on the high priests of psychiatry? Well, there is nothing like being given a taste of psychiatry’s vile medicine for igniting the revolutionary furnace and getting it glowing white hot.

Psychoanalyst, Show Some Modesty

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Recently the American Psychoanalytic Association reaffirmed its members’ right to pronounce on the mental health of public figures—in particular, the controversial Donald Trump. Like the many objectors to the Goldwater Rule in the APA, our psychoanalysts act as if they’re above such a trivial restriction. They are not.

In Chronic Patients, Antipsychotics Have Limited Efficacy in Reducing Symptoms

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A large review and meta-analysis of 167 studies across 60 years dissects placebo-controlled randomized controlled trials of antipsychotic drugs.

Michelle Carter: Did She Text Her Boyfriend to Death?

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Today a Massachusetts judge sentenced Michelle Carter for the crime of manslaughter in the suicide death of her boyfriend. I was the only psychiatric and medication expert on either side in this trial, and I testified on behalf of Michelle. Other than perhaps her lawyers, I probably know more about the true story than anyone else.

Arts Participation May Improve Mental Well-Being and Social Inclusion

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Introductory arts courses at Open Arts Essex show improvements in mental well-being and social inclusion for individuals with mental health challenges.

Adam Maier-Clayton: Assisted Suicide and Mental Illness

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If we describe “death with dignity” as a benefit, a good thing, a release and relief and a mercy for people with chronic unbearable and unmanageable pain, why do we also describe exclusions from assisted suicide for people with mental illness as a protection rather than discrimination?

New Study Asks Doctors About Barriers to Deprescribing

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Researchers interviewed doctors about the barriers that prevent them from being able to decrease excess medications.

Would Discovering the Biology of “Mental Illness” Explain its Cause?

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Researchers are constantly hunting for chemical variations in people with emotional problems. But even if chemical differences are someday found, why would we assume that these chemical processes cause abnormal behaviors or moods, as opposed to being mere correlates of them at the chemical level?

Findings Linking Depression to Abnormal Brain Activity Questioned

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Meta-analyses fail to replicate findings linking abnormal brain activity to depression.

Study Finds Mistreatment and Psychological Distress Among LGBT Prisoners in the US

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The rate of incarceration for lesbian, gay, and bisexual individuals is roughly three times that of the general population and they experience significantly higher rates of victimization and mistreatment in prison.

Senate Slated to Rubber-Stamp “Mental Health Czar” This Tuesday

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This new “Mental Health Czar,” as it is popularly known, will preside over a SAMHSA that is supposed to be far more friendly to the mental health industry. The approval ceremony is scheduled for streaming on the US Senate HELP (Health Education Labor Pensions) Committee website this Tuesday at 2:30 pm EST.

Voices in our Heads: The Prefrontal Cortex as Parasite

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As I considered the voice I heard talking to me in my own head, it occurred to me that what was happening was, more or less, a later development of the brain talking to a more basic and earlier level of consciousness, one which was not verbal itself and was, in fact, the actual seat and locus of my real awareness.

If You Don’t Have a Brain…

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When we force people to take psychiatric drugs, or lie to get them to take the drugs, we are not only harming the organ of their body called the brain—we are harming their capacity to think and to feel and to know themselves. We are limiting their personality and identity, and the expression of their soul.

Half of First-Episode Patients Respond to Antipsychotics

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No placebo controlled trials provide evidence of antipsychotics in first-episode psychosis.

Brief Trauma-Focused Psychotherapies Effective for Children with PTSD

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Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing Therapy and Cognitive Behavioral Writing Therapy both reduce PTSD symptoms in children who experienced a single traumatic event.

New Study Examines User Experience of Discontinuing Psychiatric Medications

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Researchers find that support and self-care were helpful for users during discontinuation, but that mental health professionals were not very helpful.

A System Built on Fear

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Experiences such as pain, turmoil, trauma and grief aren’t separate from the person—they shape how that person sees the world, how they cope with the world. To separate those experiences from the person, to call them sick, feels barbaric. It feels as if humans are being taught to fear being human.