Emotional CPR as a Way of Life

5
Many of us are taught to fear the expression of strong emotions, and to hide or suppress big feelings. We have also erroneously been taught that only specially trained people or “professionals” are equipped to handle these experiences. But people knowledgeable in conventional treatment often aren’t exposed to community-based, holistic, common sense, person-to-person approaches. Many people have gained wisdom and resiliency by working through emotional distress, and it is helpful to do this with someone who understands the growth potential in these experiences.

The Hearing Voices Movement: Beyond Critiquing the Status Quo

13
We have just celebrated the anniversary of the rapidly expanding global Hearing Voices Movement which was founded more than twenty-five years ago following the ground-breaking research of Professor Marius Romme and Dr Sandra Escher. Romme and Escher have advocated for a radical shift in the way we understand the phenomenon of Hearing Voices; in contrast to traditional, biomedical psychiatry which views voices as an aberrant by-product of genetic, brain and cognitive faults, their research has firmly established that voices make sense when taking into account the traumatic circumstances that frequently provoke them.

Backsliding in the Bay State

9
The drumbeat for more "Risk Management" just gets louder. And nowhere is this so alarmingly evident as a new policy proposed by the Massachusetts Department of Mental Health (DMH) in November 2012.

Defining Recovery

34
Yesterday, Dr. Daniel Fisher emailed and asked my thoughts with regard to “recovery”. Even before I walked away from prescription-pad-only psychiatric work, others asked me about this. Other treatment providers, designated patients and family members asked what I thought they could expect to happen next and what they should do to make things better. I told them that chemical interventions are not the only, or even the essential, tool for recovery.

May Your Psychache be Minimal

20
Suicide needs to come 'out of the closet' as a public health issue. But this in turn requires a broad, ongoing community conversation rather than the current status quo of 'experts' talking about us without us. We also need to move beyond the excessive medicalisation of suicide that blames it on some notional 'mental illness'. This is my first post where I introduce myself, telling you a little of how I came to do a PhD in Suicidology. And an invitation to join me in a radically different conversation about suicide, here at Mad in America.

The Children Lead

31
How is it that we allow the agendas of others to occupy our childrens’ minds? Is it possible that a stranger can know our child better than we do? Is there anything a baby needs to learn that can’t be taught by being held in a parent’s arms? Because my children’s eyes and ears and thoughts are on me every day, they are key players in my ongoing efforts to live a right life. I count on their eyes and ears and thoughts to shore me up during times of temptation. They always lead me home.

We Are All Adam Lanza’s Mother (& other things we’re not talking about)

32
I do not understand how we can continue to avoid the conversation about psychiatric medications and their role in the violence that is affecting far too many of our children, whether Seung-Hui Cho, Eric Harris, Kip Kinkel, or Jeff Weise (all of whom were either taking or withdrawing from psychotropic medications) or the scores of children and adults they have killed and harmed. It is not clear what role medications played in the Newtown tragedy, though news reports are now suggesting there is one.

Building a Bridge to Hope

13
Hope heals. Thousand of years of experience and, more recently, numerous hope studies, prove this to be true. Yet hope is still a 4-letter word in many mental health settings. How can we build a bridge to hope from hope-stealing physical and emotional pain, hopeless diagnoses and prognoses, and hope-numbing side effects?

3 Reasons Why Children Are Drawn to Succeed at Video Games

1
Video games provide an example of an idealized relationship; in which authority is ever-attentive, un-preoccupied, and in which consequences are immediate and consistent, without prejudice or grudge. How understandable that in our relatively imperfect world, with unpredictable relationships, in which the hope of achievement and mastery is elusive or non-existent, children fall into behavior that appears to be unhealthy in comparison.

Improved Neural Development in Children Moved from Institutional Care

2
Researchers from Harvard, Tulane, the University of Maryland and Boston Children's hospital compared MRI and EEG scans of 20 normally developing Romanian children with...

Bleuler’s Continued Legacy

0
This month's Neuropsychobiology reviews, in two articles, the continued legacy of Eugen Bleuler - originator of the term "schizophrenia."  An article from Switzerland states that...

Individualism a Risk Factor for Depression

2
Findings from a survey of 6,082 individuals, designed to explore racial and ethnic differences in mental disorders, reinforce the relationship between social support and...

Your Input Welcome For 2012 Alternatives Keynote Speech – SURVEY

17
I was invited to give a Keynote Address at the 2012 Alternatives Conference in Portland Oregon, and I'm collecting your input on what I should...

Maladaptive Beliefs and Bipolar Disorder

2
Researchers in Denmark found, in a study of 49 remitted bipolar patients published in the Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, that beliefs...

Symptom Remission Does Not Equal Recovery

4
Researchers in the Netherlands and the U.K. explored the relationship between symptom reduction in schizophrenia (according to Andreason's 2005 criteria for remission) and social...

Lowered Oxytocin in Schizophrenia

1
Researchers from Japan found, in a study of 27 persons with a schizophrenia diagnosis, 17 with major depressive disorder, and 27 controls, that negative...

Seroxat (Paxil) & SSRI User Group

0
The Seroxat & SSRI User Group was founded to support and advise patients experiencing problems with Seroxat (Paxil). This English-based group offers information, forums,...

Benzodiazepines Co-operation Not Confrontation (BCNC)

0
BCNC is a website aimed at helping people reduce from benzodiazepines. It includes links, book reviews, support groups, and other information.

Paxil Progress

1
Paxil Progress is a forum for people engaged in withdrawal from Paxil. It also offers adverse drug reaction reporting, FDA Warnings, published withdrawal studies,...

Med Free Or Working On It

0
A website for "survivors of medical abuse, through psychiatric drugs and other medications, and are looking for healthy ways to support our minds and...

Surviving Antidepressants

0
Surviving Antidepressants provides volunteer peer support for antidepressant withdrawal, while tapering off and after you quit.

Members of Parliament Disclose Struggles w/ Depression & Anxiety

7
"Like a hundred little blackmails a day" is how British Member of Parliament Charles Walker described his struggle with obsessive compulsive disorder. He, along...

Global Mental Health Research Needs Cultural Perspective

0
This paper in Transcultural Psychiatry states that global mental health (GMH) research "appears to be using a monocultural model that is individualistic, illness-oriented, and...

Transcultural Limitations of Medical Model Treatment in Ghana

1
An anthropological study of mental health service use in Ghana, published online June 21 in Transcultural Psychiatry, finds that counter to expectations almost all those...

Nevada Legislation Aims to Curb Psychotropics in Foster Children

1
A touching article in the Las Vegas Sun follows one child from abandonment through foster placements, polypharmacy, suicidality, delinquency and homelessness to stability off...