Uncategorized

(August, 1985) My first academic article, entitled, “Dissociation and Psychotic Symptoms” is published in The American Journal of Psychiatry. It was a case report of a young girl who experienced visions and voices. We thought that she had dissociative symptoms and we had taught her how to control these experiences through self hypnosis. In the same month, an article was published in another academic journal. This was entitled, “Treatment of Bulimia and Rapid-Cycling Bipolar Disorder with Sodium Valproate: A case Report .” We were describing the same young girl. Our treatments were concurrent. How could this be?

In my last two posts, Back in the Dark House Again: The Recurrent Nature of Clinical Depression and Am I Having a Breakdown or Breakthrough? Further Reflections on a Depressive Relapse, I have shared my recent relapse into depression. Although it has been tough, when I wake up each morning I am grateful for one thing — I am not suicidal. Others are not as fortunate.

A randomized, controlled trial by researchers in the Netherlands compared 102 subjects with recurrent depression receiving mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) + treatment-as-usual (TAU) with...

-Clare Allan writes that the late John Nash often expressed how important it was for him to find his own balance between conventional and unconventional thinking.

Lables such as schizophrenia mask all of the strengths, feelings and talents that individuals possess, The labels can make people's behavior appear aggressive, when in fact they are terrified. On the other hand, people in extreme states respond as all humans do to an approach that is calm, supportive, and allows them the space that they need at critical times. Individuals who have been abused, neglected, or suffered from traumatic experiences communicate these fears to those who have the patience and willingness to listen to them.

Germany's DEAL project, which includes over 60 major research institutions, has announced that all of its members are canceling their subscriptions to all of...

The BMJ’s clinical editor takes issue with uncritical media coverage of antidepressant network meta-analysis, outlining reporting missteps.

From Mikhaila Peterson: Mikhaila interviews Drs. Jim Wright and David Cohen on the reality behind psychiatric medications like the ones that nearly destroyed her and her father's lives.

From The New Yorker: "America imprisons women in astonishing numbers. The population of women in state prisons has increased by more than eight hundred...

From NPR: "Conversion therapy...is telling somebody that there's something fundamentally broken with them and...it needs to be fixed. That's a lot of trauma."

Your next move will be an amendment to another measure. Do not attempt. You've pulled bogus crap with this since the beginning. You've lied about task force recommendations. You've pulled suprise buttsex scheduling, when proponents somehow got the message, and opponents were left scrambling to get there. Twice. You basically filibustered us on Wednesday, which was also scheduled without notice.

Psychiatrist are the link between two entities; the pharmaceutical companies that engage in bullying and misinformation, and the consumers who respond with fear and compliance. The goal of this world-wide enterprise is to expand the superhighway that connects research for new drugs to clinical trials, and then to production and distribution.

Researchers parse out factors within urbanicity that leads to risk for psychotic experiences.

Where Professor Harrington's book seems to differ from books that others might call polemics is that she does not attribute nefarious motives to the psychiatric establishment. I worry that she underplays the ways in which the current model causes harm, but I support her suggestion for a retraction of psychiatry's scope.

I was fortunate to attend the recent ISPS conference in New York. MIA already has another excellent post on this and I hope there will be more to follow. I suspect each of us will bring a somewhat different perspective based on our own experience and I hope the polyphony of voices will enrich the reporting of this event. There was so much happening – often simultaneously – that my only complaint is that there were many fine workshops that I was not able to attend. I want to extend my sincere thanks to the organizers of this meeting.

Pharmalot writes of a Paxil study which has been discredited for a decade, but never retracted or nor its authors rebuked despite the wide-ranging...

Yale University has agreed to screen access - with Johnson & Johnson's input - to detailed clinical trial data on the pharmaceutical giant's products.  ...

Allen Frances was the chairperson of the DSM-IV Task Force, a former chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Science at Duke University...

Andrew Thibault is an extremely curious, inconvenient parent.  He is Co-Founder of Parents Against Pharmaceutical Abuse (PAPA), a parent movement opposed to over-diagnosis and...

The debate between the majority and dissent shows how distorted and destructive the stereotypes of madness are as they have passed down through the law. But there are also winds of change coming from tensions inherent in the insanity defense itself, and we should take this opportunity to develop some sensible policies.

I have recently read this book, and I think it would be extremely helpful for parents, teachers, and counselors who work with children in...

From Reuters, "'At La Fageda, these people don’t have a label – they are totally integrated – and they start improving, reconstructing themselves without...

A report released yesterday by the Institute of Medicine, at the request of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, says "at least...

This means that what ADHD proponents present as validation of a diagnosis of a real and treatable disorder is in fact a placebo effect caused by an ostensibly scientific label, which exists in synergy with an efficient, legal drug. The ADHD label produces this placebo effect because its diagnosis is based on behavior that in reality could be observed by anyone. What is observed sounds "scientific"; it is easily understandable and highly obvious. When the diagnosis is turned into an action plan, we forget that there is nothing scientific about it and that its evaluation is purely subjective and clinical; that it creates a great many false positives, and that a drug prescribed in half of the cases indeed does have serious side effects.

Saying "in our opinion, it is worse that a psychotic person is sentenced to preventative detention than a nonpsychotic person is sentenced to compulsory...