Non-drug Approaches

From youtube: "Sascha Altman DuBrulhas been documenting and fomenting underground culture and radical peoples' movements since he was a teenager. From the anarchist squatter...

Allen Frances traces the history of empathic listening from Philippe Pinel in the early 19th century, through his own recent conversation with Eleanor Longden....

Research from UCLA finds that rats exposed to early life trauma showed aberrations  of stress hormones, receptors in the amygdala, and inhibited or avoidant...

I understand that some people are staunchly opposed to public mental health services, and I understand why. However, millions of people reach out to these organizations and agencies for assistance in getting through difficult times. It is common knowledge that the “help” they get is not always helpful, but I have known a few people who found the support they were looking for and, let’s face it, until there are widely available and accessible alternatives that people are able to turn to, many people who are struggling reach out to public and private providers for help. Some people call me naïve because I have faith in the human capacity to make good choices, when given the opportunity and presented with evidence that supports a decision that is informed not only by data, but by recognition of their potential to be a force of healing and justice in the world.

I had the good fortune to be working at a dynamic Recovery program for adults beginning in 1990. I passionately believed that not only does recovery happen – but that we would be able to demonstrate it by reporting significant improvements in quality of life outcomes such as employment, housing and social supports. The program's commitment to Supported Employment, for instance, was emphatic and we took pride in doing “whatever it takes” to support our members’ integration into the community. The Recovery movement was just taking root in California and throughout the U.S. When I look back on the following 19 years, I can’t help but feel some sense of disappointment about the overall outcomes.

In my last blog, I talked about how I was attempting to cope with a “mini-relapse” without using psychiatric drugs. One Sunday morning in the midst of this episode I awoke in a particularly dismal state. I didn’t have a structure planned for the day. And without something to look forward to, both my anxiety and depression increased.

Sera Davidow, MIA Blogger and Director of The Western Massachusetts Recovery Learning Community (RLC), discusses her lived experience within the psychiatric system.

Living in this very complex, demanding, stratified modern society has produced an epidemic of personal alienation. There is often a tragic gulf between our emotional experience and our awareness of it. 1 in 5 Americans are now taking a psychiatric medication. 1 in 4 women are now taking a psychiatric medication. All of those medications suppress, modify, or block emotion.

Researchers at Tufts University exposed rats and their children to early life stress, resulting in depressed maternal care, aggression, increased restlessness and anxiety-related...

The September/October issue of the Harvard Review of Psychiatry reviews the biological and therapeutic research findings for the role of oxytocin in attachment, and...

Israeli researchers find that maternal skin-to-skin contact with pre-term infants are related to "dynamic cascades of child physiological regulation and parental provisions in shaping...

Sandra Steingard writes in Community Psychiatrist about Lex Wunderink's study, published in the August JAMA Psychiatry, which found that people who discontinued medication have...

It has been twenty years since my last suicide attempt. I was barely eighteen years old, and had already spent the last four years, my entire adolescence, really, in and out of the mental health system. On that day, twenty years ago, I left the hospital with nothing but a prescription for yet another drug in my hand, sent back to the decrepit group home where I began my adult life.

Singer Sinead O'Connor announced on her website that after several "second opinions" she has learned "I do not in fact suffer from Bi Polar...

The recent incident in the grounds of Washington Capitol, involving a young educated woman, brought shock to many people. It was another opportunity to blame a victim of mental illness and demand further restraint and medical attention for such individuals. Yes, we are lacking dignified, caring, discerning and attentive treatment for those whose spirits are broken. But we certainly don’t suffer from a lack of medical treatment for such individuals. It is time for policy-holders, and our scientific community to ask the 'heretical' question; “Could the drugs be the culprit behind the violence?”

ACES Too High, the trauma blog, analogizes the rise of medication to the concept of manifest destiny. Issues of personal responsibility, depletion of resources,...

ACES Too High, the blog about Adverse Childhood Experiences, recalls the excruciating experiment and films concerning the impact of childhood neglect.  A one-year-old baby...

Psychiatric Times chronicles the peripatetic progress of "schizophrenia" research, from schizophrenogenic mothers to unspecified genetic lesions and back again via second-trimester embryonic insults, to...

Martin Teicher, noted researcher of the neurobiology of child abuse, finds in an MRI study of 265 maltreated 18-25 year-olds that "Maltreatment was associated...

I think it is time to reclaim the word disability. Disability needs to be appreciated. To the extent we value community over isolation, anything anyone cannot do, or needs help with, builds community. There are infinite examples in every career and walk of life of how necessary “disability” (since we're calling it that) is for connection, service and meaning in life. Without it we'd have absolutely no need for each other. And the fastest way to despair is to feel unnecessary.

The Redhall Walled Garden provides a tiny glimpse into the future, as a potential alternative to psychiatric hospitals, halfway houses, and the other oppressive forms of treatment that comprises the current status quo in most countries around the world. We can all learn from this alternative approach, and we should popularize aspects of this program just as we do the Soteria House and the Open Dialogue model.

The core of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or ACT, is the idea of simply accepting, rather than trying to get rid of, disturbing or unwanted inner experiences like anxiety or voices, and then refocusing on a commitment to take action toward personally chosen values regardless of whether that seems to make the unwanted experiences increase or decrease. This idea is consistent with the emphasis in the recovery movement of finding a way to live a valued life despite any ongoing problems, but ACT has value because of the unique and effective strategies it offers to help people make this shift.

David Cohen's work begins to address a paradox: medication effects are not simply chemical impacts on a biological brain, but rather the complex interactions of social factors, expectation, placebo, "nocebo," and learning. As a harm reduction approach to withdrawal emphasizes, empowerment may be the most important consideration for supporting people's wellness.

People who are considered the highest functioning in American culture such as politicians, lawyers, medical doctors (including psychiatrists), major league sport players, etc., all lack certain abilities that I possess (and, of course, vice-versa). Are their abilities actually the real ones and mine “soft,” surreal, abstract, inaccessible and useless? In order to redefine health, we must redefine worth. Are you sure the “abled” are able to accomplish what you value? Are you sure the “disabled” aren't more able to heal the world?

Do you think youth prevention programs, sports, arts programs, or spiritual approaches can help people through emotional distress? We've been calling for this dialogue for years and now it's time to get out in your city and participate in it. In four days in Kansas City we'll have the first ever large scale public forum that includes information about medical harm and the full range of entrepreneurial solutions.