Psychiatric Drugs

A major research group mentions in a paper published in an academically rigorous psychiatric journal (and I get it that some readers consider that an oxymoron) the possible influence of super-sensitivity on increasing the risk of relapse when neuroleptic drugs are stopped. Yet those of us who raise this as a reason to moderate our use of these drugs are considered biased or scientifically naive.

The mother of a man charged with trespassing for leaping from a monorail into a tiger's den at the Bronx Zoo, where he was...

The label of schizophrenia has a chilling ring. It carries with it the suggestion of a wrecked and wretched life. It is also a diagnosis that is notoriously difficult to shed. For this reason, the diagnosis of schizophrenia should not be applied lightly and not without a thorough understanding of the patient’s family and wider circumstances.

Yesterday I attended psychiatry grand rounds, where Andy Miller presented his latest research. Andy has been a pioneer in the field of psychoneuroimmunology and an exponent for the view that major depression reflects systemic inflammation. (I have published a review of this literature recently in Frontiers in Psychology which is available for download).

Dr. Toby Watson, The International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry's former executive director, reports on his expert testimony to the Federal Congress and...

In a study of 6,767 reports of antidepressant trials in juveniles treated for depressive and anxiety disorders, the risk of psychopathological behavioral or mood...

Martin Harrow and Thomas Jobe have a new article coming out in Schizophrenia Bulletin that I wish would be read by everyone in our society with an interest in “mental health.” Harrow and Jobe, who conducted the best study of long-term schizophrenia outcomes that has ever been done, do not present new data in this article, but rather discuss the central question raised by their research: Does long-term treatment of schizophrenia with antipsychotic medications facilitate recovery? Or does it hinder it?

Robert Whitaker appears on Science for the Public on March 20, 2013, speaking about how the ADHD is diagnosed and why users of medications...

From what I’ve learned, it seems that the minute you walk into a psychiatrist’s office or have the misfortune to be locked up on a ward is the minute you’re given a diagnosis and medication(s), and perhaps even electroshock. There is no “normal”; “normal” is not allowed. You have a “lifelong disorder” of whatever ilk, and it must always be medicated. This is the paradigm.

In Michael Moore's movie, "Bowling for Columbine," the question is repeatedly asked; "why are there so many gun murders in the United States compared to other countries?" But no answer is given. However, in Gary Null's recent film, "The Drugging of our Children," Mr. Moore says that it is quite possible Eric Harris & Dylan Klebold shot all of those students at Columbine for no other reason than they were given psychiatric drugs. He called for an investigation into the role of such drugs in the murders at Columbine, but does not appear to be following up. Now, there is an opportunity to ask him about it!!!

This is how it started: Pregnancy. Now, you may guess that a hormonal tsunami could turn my body into wreckage and you’d be right. I’m not the first woman to get pummeled by the swift waters of pregnancy and I won’t be the last. What you might not guess is that despite knowing this, a doctor specializing in these particular imbalances would proffer benzodiazepines as a cure for hormone induced insomnia. You might also be surprised that my first script would be written for an amount usually reserved for those having grand mal seizures.

Psychiatrists at the University of Minnesota forced a young man into a profitable study of antipsychotic drugs over the objections of his mother, who desperately warned that his condition was deteriorating and that he was in danger of killing himself. On May 8, 2004, Mary Weiss' only son, Dan Markingson, committed suicide. A petition to the governor of Minnesota now asks for an investigation.

Cross-sectional analysis by the University of Maryland and Johns Hopkins University of 456,315 youths enrolled in Medicaid between 1997 and 2006 finds that the...

A review of research on antipsychotic medications as an adjunctive treatment for depression published this week in PLoS Medicine finds that the widespread practice...

I remember the feeling, one of not exactly isolation but otherness. A sense that not only did I not fit in many places where I used to, but also that I lacked the energy to even try — to, like an actor, wear the skin of the old me for an hour or even a few minutes so that others would not feel uncomfortable in my quivering and clearly perturbed presence.

AntiDepAware promotes awareness of the dangers of antidepressants, in particular to the problem of antidepressants "being prescribed to those who are not depressed, to...

A Colorado based company, Sundance Diagnostics, contacted me a few months ago to tell me about work they are doing to develop a genetic test to predict suicide risk when patients are prescribed antidepressant drugs. Their plan is to sequence the entire human genome of about 360 patients and controls to see if antidepressant drug risk can definitively be predicted.

Researchers in London and Spain, in a prospective, randomized, study of long-term (3 year) effects of first- and second-generation antipsychotics on neurocognition in 79...

Scientists at Microsoft, Stanford and Columbia University, using automated software to mine data from 82 million internet searches for information related to, found a...

The humor newspaper The Onion satirizes the conversion of transient human emotions into lifelong illnesses, reporting that "Shortly after losing grip of a helium-filled...

German author and activist Peter Lehmann presents "Recovery by Taking Psychiatric Drugs versus Recovery by Coming Off of Psychiatric Drugs" at the 2012 International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry (ISEPP) Conference in Philadelphia, PA.

Researchers in China find an acute reduction in white matter in the frontal lobe following six weeks of antipsychotic treatment for "first-episode schizophrenia". Results...

An issue that we think deserves more media attention than it is currently receiving is the idea of Preventive Intervention in Psychiatry. The goal of Preventive Intervention is to reduce the rate of psychiatric diagnoses in an at-risk group of people by pretreating all the group members with a medication. For instance, could the rate of PTSD in the military be reduced by pretreating everybody in the military with an SSRI?

In August 2010, my friend and fellow ‘suicide mum’ Deb Williams and I established CASPER – Community Action on Suicide Prevention Education & Research. CASPER’s goals are to provide peer support to families bereaved by suicide, to educate politicians and opinion leaders on suicide and its prevention and to support families and communities to reclaim suicide prevention from medical professionals and governments.

The United States desperately needs good programs to help people withdraw from neuroleptic drugs. From all I have seen and heard, there aren’t any - none at least that can reputably claim to get good results on a fairly consistent basis. Again and again I find myself challenged to envision such a program, and in reply to the challenge I have broken down this hypothetical program into various components.