Mood Stabilizers

Psychologist and Professor Amber Gum has published the story of her personal journey of rethinking psychotropic medication in a special issue on "The Politics of Mental Health" in The Journal of Medicine and the Person. Influenced by Mad in America and the work of Robert Whitaker, Gum became aware of evidence that “suggests that psychotropic medications are less effective and more harmful than most believe” and now hopes to encourage other mental health professionals and researchers to engage in open-minded, critical self-assessment of standard practices.

Following a lawsuit brought by Andrew Thibault of Parents Against Pharmaceutical Abuse (PAPA), the FDA has produced adverse event and severe adverse event reports...

An analysis of medical records in the UK reveals that the use of certain antidepressants for depression is linked to a heightened risk for mania and bipolar disorder. The research, published this week in BMJ Open, found the strongest effect for serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) and the antidepressant venlafaxine.

New research published in the July issue of The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry found that the use of mood stabilizers, antipsychotics, antidepressants, and hypnotics during pregnancy is associated with increased health risks to the infant.

New research published in the August issue of Psychiatric Annals evaluates the results of randomized control trials on the use of various psychotropic drugs for patients diagnosed with borderline personality disorder (BPD). Despite the “American Psychiatric Association’s practice guidelines endorsement of SSRIs as first-line therapies for BPD,” the results of the meta-analysis reveal that pharmacotherapy in BPD is “not supported by the current literature,” and “should be avoided whenever possible.”

"CNN's Carol Costello explores Operation Tohidu, an experimental rehabilitation program to help veterans with PTSD." Operation Tohidu founder, Dr. Mary Vieten claims PTSD is not a mental illness and "there is no reason to medicate someone who has been traumatized by their war experience." When asked what percentage of soldiers returning with PTSD do not need drugs she responds, "100%."

Four different studies conducted in different ways examining different groups have linked use of certain psychiatric drugs to bone fracture risks and negative impacts on human bone development.

Lithium appears to reduce libido and sexual function, and more research into the problem is needed.

A third of patients who have taken the common psychiatric medication lithium for over ten years have developed "chronic renal failure" from the drug.

It is very common for psychiatric patients, especially those diagnosed with schizophrenia, to be prescribed two or more psychiatric medications at once, and this...

After ten years of litigation, Pfizer has agreed to pay $325 million for marketing its anticonvulsant Neurontin for unapproved purposes.  The settlement comes six...

Greg Young, who leapt to his death from the top of Niagara Falls, "had been on numerous medications, all of which came with warnings...

My name is Leah Harris and I'm a survivor. I am a survivor of psychiatric abuse and trauma. My parents died largely as a result of terrible psychiatric practice. Psychiatric practice that took them when they were young adults and struggling with experiences they didn’t understand. Experiences that were labeled as schizophrenia. Bipolar disorder. My parents were turned from people into permanent patients. They suffered the indignities of forced treatment. Seclusion and restraint. Forced electroshock. Involuntary outpatient commitment. And a shocking amount of disabling heavy-duty psychiatric drugs. And they died young, from a combination of the toxic effects of overmedication, and broken spirits.

A "systematic review" of all outcome studies of patients with mood disorders, in the March issue of the Australia & New Zealand Journal of...

Over one third of people with bipolar diagnoses admitted to a Rhode Island hospital were on four or more psychiatric medications, says research published...

On Monday the U.S. Supreme Court rejected Pfizer's appeal of a $142 million award to the Kaiser Foundation for illegal marketing of Neurontin.  The...

If I had remained med compliant I wouldn’t understand the simple joys of caring about my hygiene and my surroundings. I’ve wanted to write about this for a long time but I’ve not done it and I think it’s because I still have shame around how slovenly I became. I hid it from others fairly well most of the time, but I couldn’t hide it from myself. The fact is the drugs stripped me of some very basic elements of human care. When one doesn’t care about their immediate environment and their bodies, they really just don’t care about themselves. It’s a very painful place to be and yet when it’s caused by drugs it’s all muted and weird and not really who we are at all and so really all that is left is horrible shame.

"My studies in this area lead me to a very uncomfortable conclusion: Our citizens would be far better off if we removed all the psychotropic drugs from the market, as doctors are unable to handle them. It is inescapable that their availability creates more harm than good." - Peter Gøtzsche, MD; Co-founder of the Cochrane Collaboration

A Philadelphia jury yesterday ordered Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Janssen to pay $11 million to the parents of a five-year-old boy for failure to warn...

After an hour of deliberation, jurors decided that the anticonvulsant Topamax (topiramate) had, in fact, caused April Czimmer's son to be born with a...

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...

Concentrations of pharmaceuticals in Lake Michigan are undiluted two miles from treated sewage outfalls, according to research published in Chemosphere. Research has linked pharmaceuticals...

The idea of spending more time as a bureaucrat in the US Embassy in Iceland did not appeal to me. I longed for the freedom that academics have. While pursuing that dream I stumbled into the world of international media, “chemical imbalance”, book publishing and a greedy professor of psychiatry which was a prelude to my second annus horribilis.

The killing of 20 children and six adults in Newtown has triggered a search for some way of preventing these kinds of tragedies.  The...

The Journal of ECT, looking at the question of whether antidepressant medications at the start of ECT reduced post-ECT relapse in a sample of...