Honestly, I’m a little surprised about the fuss which is being made around this study. It almost makes me want to put on a tinfoil hat and look for some conspiracy. Or is it just psychiatry’s/pharma’s attempt to control the message in the light of more and more people seeing the emperor has no clothes?
âSometimes, an aspect of the disease is that the patient believes threats and enemies are everywhere â including in the person of the doctor.â
It’s not an aspect of a disease, it’ accurate assessment of the situation and these people deserve to be called doctors just as much as Dr. Mengele. It’s state sponsored kidnapping and torture.
If the dropped using drugs they would have surely cut it down significantly. Even more so if they went with Open Dialogue-like approaches but I guess I can dream on.
And what does that really mean:
âThe students are almost inevitably legal adults, but there are a lot of other parties that have skin in the game and really have concerns and to one degree or another legitimate involvement.â
ALMOST legal adults? I didn’t know that when you become a student you become infantalized. I knew that happens when you become a patient but apparently this way of social control is expanding. If it’s really health we’re talking about then the same rules should apply and the patient’s welfare should come first. Unless it’s not health that all these “other parties” have in mind.
Btw, I don’t belive that for a minute:
âThereâs no doubt in my mind that the schools are trying to strike the right balance,â said Paul Lannon, a Boston lawyer who advises colleges on legal issues. âThey care for the students. They want the students to do well. They want the students to be healthy.â
All they want is to cover their a** in case something happens. Nobody cares about students, they are there to be made money off.
One more reason to stay away from the psych industry. They ruin your life in so many different ways one does not know where to start. And after that they dare to turn around and tell you how bad “stigma” is.
Supposedly they have now forbidden the psychologists from taking part in interrogations. However, I’ve not seen any sign of them wanting to punish the people who did it nor do I believe they will enforce it in future. I hope they prove me wrong but the more I know the more cynical I get.
Let me guess: business as usual?
First of all there has to be real penalties, including criminal, for doctors who are not sticking to guidelines on these drugs. Otherwise they can do whatever they want and never face any consequences.
“The report acknowledges a noticeable difference of opinion about that causes of prescription drug dependence between the governmental and practitioner organizations on one side and the support groups, withdrawal charities, and affected individuals on the other. The first group attributed patterns of dependence to individual differences in patients while the latter placed accountability on the inappropriate prescribing practices of the doctors.”
That is in itself very telling. Let me translate:
“first group attributed patterns of dependence to individual differences in patients” -> “these people are junkies and their defective brains are to blame”
But it’s nice that some people are starting to address the problem. It is too little, too late for many but maybe it will help at least some and prevent more people from getting hooked on these drugs going forward.
Humanities aside – most doctors and that included (first and foremost) psychiatrists are not very well educated in …biology. It seems counter-intuitive to a lot of people but the biological education in medical school is very narrow and little attention is paid to making students understand even such basic concepts as theory of evolution.
I’ve had first-hand experience as part of my studies was done at the medical university where my faculty shared some of the courses with medicine. They were very good at some things (like anatomy) but lacked in other respects and even well-prepared biological courses were treated as “unimportant”. Later on I had to work in a collaborative environment between doctors and life scientists and such issues were showing – things that were obvious for us (like that using drugs cocktails to treat cancer or HIV should work better long-term to prevent drug resistance) were coming as a surprise and hard to understand concepts for doctors. So I’m not very surprised when members of this profession show sometimes stunning ignorance even on issues they should be educated about and psychiatrists are probably the worst offenders.
Wow, that’s remarkable. I hope it will spread.
âIâd Rather Die Than Go Back to Hospitalâ
The sign of sanity and clear thinking. One has to really be out of one’s mind to want to re-experience psychiatry.
Recommendations have this tiny problem that they can be (and are) routinely ignored with no consequences to the ignoring.
âThereâs an unsettling correlation between psychopathy, a personality disorder characterized by a lack of conscience, and those who find personal wealth and successâ Jon Ronson reports in The Psychopath Test. Psychopaths are four times more likely to be found among CEOs than the general population, which means that lack of empathy or remorse combined with superficial charm, egotism, unethical behavior and a search for thrills are some of the qualities rewarded most highly. ”
That’s also a good observation. The values of our society are upside down.
He has a point. Way to deal with “superfluous population”.
…while the NSA was recording.
When you google “lizard people” and “flat earth society” you’ll also find a lot of interesting things. Not everything you real on the internet is true.
“Psychiatry NEVER diagnoses anybody as needing Justice”
So true…
I actually think there’s a good “model”: every bad think that happens to a person adds up, the more severe more than the benign one. When enough sh*t accumulates, especially at once people break down. That is what it used to be called “mental breakdown” and that is for me the one and only correct “diagnosis”. Some people have the breaking point earlier, others can withstand a lot more but almost anyone will break down if enough bad things happen to them. It’s really that simple – what is complicated is when you deal with an individual and his/her unique life story. We are all different and we’re all the same.
bpdtransformation, B.A.
I think you may be reading to much into studies on this topic. I also saw studies which suggest that it’s not the early childhood that’s the problem (at least for psychotic “disorders”) but rather what happens in early teens, especially related to social stress (bullying, racism or even such “benign” things like moving out of town and losing one’s childhood friends).
It may be very well that the truth is somewhere in between – for one person it’s the neglect when she was 3, for someone else it’s sexual abuse at 14, for someone otehr it’s romantic breakdown at 30. People are complicated.
If I understand correctly by “mother” you understand “primary caregiver”?
“When I started out psychiatry was not medicalized, and was purely humanitarian.”
I’m not sure when and where you started out but I can’t recall any period in psychiatry’s history when it could be called “humanitarian”.
However, I must say I don’t agree with that:
“The appropriate treatment is the psychotherapy of character. Psychotherapy is a specialized form of human engagement that repairs the damage to oneâs character”
It’s another way of telling people they’re broken and defective and need to be “repaired”. While I do agree that conscious effort to overcome one’s habits and change bad coping strategies may be helpful for some people under some circumstances and some people need a friend or maybe a therapist to point them in the right direction I strongly disagree with the idea that badly developed personalities are to blame. More often than not it’s the society that drives people “crazy”.
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti
“Human suffering has never been a brain problem. It is a human problem, and it has been so since the dawn of time.”
This is an important message that cannot be repeated often enough. Thank you for these words.
This questionnaire is loaded with societal expectations, I agree with it.
I could not hep but LOL at ” I can weigh up the pros and cons of psychiatric treatment”.
Very important questions, I’d also like to know the answer.
“I agree that there is no one event that can be identified as a âcauseâ, and agree that it is a culmination of events that are triggered at some point.”
I don’t agree with that. It may be true in many cases but I know full well that the only time I tried to take my own life was when I was being tortured in a hospital and the one and only, singular reason was for the torture to stop.
“Instead, like surgeons, they will implement tools that reduce the suffering and enhance the well-being of the patient.”
translated:
“We are real DOCTORS goddammit! We do MEDICINE.”
I wonder who are the “experts” testifying in these trials? The likes of Lieberman & co?
I think they just discovered that the Earth is not flat afterall.
That is a wonderful idea :). I’m on board.
Garbage in, garbage out.
People get better when they feel like they belong to a community, are needed and respected by others. It’s really that simple.
You don’t want to buy ineffective and toxic meds for huge amouts of money? Clear conflict of interest.
In the world where corporations have constitutional rights nothing is too crazy.
Antipsychotics are devastating at any dose. It’s just the question if you ant to die quickly, slowly or live as a zombie.
“the laws protect them and regulate OUR behavior, no theirs”
You’re 100% right. Would someone include a Bribe Seeking Disorder or Insatiable Greed Syndrome in the DSM that would be the end of this book of nonsense.
There are never criminal charges in these cases… For the companies such settlements are a drop in a bucket and the “cost of doing business” and most individual doctors are insured against such cases so that they rarely have to reach to their own pockets.
As long as there are no jail sentences it’s not justice – it’s a mockery.
I agree. That is not necessarily to say that people who commit acts of violence on these drugs were necessarily latent killers anyway – one has to consider akathesia which from what I’ve heard is enough to turn Ghandi into a serial killer. Also these drugs diminish empathy. I don’t think I know one person who has never expressed an urge to murder their boss but almost no one seriously thinks about it. Killing another human being is a hard thing to do save for a small minority of people with psychopathic personalities who usually don’t need encouragement anyway. If the drug takes the empathy away, takes impulse control away and on top of that causes suffering then it’s a “perfect mix”. For people who got on these drugs because they already had some relational problems it’s the end.
People often say about mass shooters that they are psychopaths. Leaving aside the appropriateness of using labels a psychopath (someone naturally lacking empathy and ability to form attachments combined with a fetish for murder but otherwise “normal”) will not commit mass murder and then suicide. A person like that may become a serial killer or join the military or do something where one can realize these urges without suffering the consequences. The mass shooters don’t fit this profile, not in my mind. These actions scream desperation for me, not cold blooded murder even if they appear so.
Let’s start with the fact that psychotherapy is not medical treatment, even in the crazy world of psychiatry it isn’t. I find it particularly amusing when people do clinical trials with it. It always reminds me of: http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/2/24/blind_trials.png
It’s a matter of individual vs stats. When you look at the magnitude of the problem ADs seem to be worse but that does not mean everyone trying to come off them will have a major problem. Like with any other drug really, some folks get a pass.
Are you trying to say that Germans are better people than good folks down in Illinois? I don’t think so.
I seriously don’t get people’s obsession with Jobs. He was an extraordinarily good salesman and a***ole at the same time, bordering on a sociopath. It’s close to a last person I’d put on a pedestal for people to emulate as a hero.
There are many better and smarter people who do not exploit others and have less of an ego. Sadly, they don’t become demigods.
“I donât think they create positive symptoms but could be mistaken about that.”
You are in fact mistaken. The work of Robert and others clearly show that the use of neuroleptics, especially long-term increases a chance of psychosis (so-called supersensitivity).
“You might notice that when someone âacts outâ medication is an issue somewhere.”
That is so true. I had problems at the point when I entered psychiatry but it was not before I tried some of their pills that I’ve become suicidal, with panic attacks, obsessive, paranoid etc. Not that I didn’t have reasons to be like that given the nature of my relationship at the time but going on these poisons and then coming of them because of the side effects and then going on different ones and ;like that for weeks and months seriously screwed me up. The worst by far was Zyprexa – the person who came up with this one should burn in hell.
“I have no time to deal with you” – that’s the most prevalent reason for someone being labelled as “dangerous”. I mean why would you do your job when you can force drug someone, put them in restraints and go for coffee.
That is btw the literal quote. They don’t even bother to pretend, they’ll just lie in the hospital documents and to the judge.
They were trying to hook me on this drugs. They denied every possible side effect and didn’t notice almost complete anterograde amnesia while I was being “observed” 24/7 in a hospital. A drunken monkey with a razor blade would do a better job in helping people than an average psychiatrist.
A pig with lipstick is still a pig afterall.
Dr. Mickey’s life must be exhausting… but so is ours. Digging through a tons of horse*** and it seems like for little change.
I am not that sure you can blame the drugs for criminal behaviour as a sole factor but then I’ve never experienced severe akathesia (I did a bit but I recognized it for a side effect of the drugs and flushed the pills).
People who take these drugs have many problems but one thing is sure – the drugs do nothing to stop them and in many cases they cause them to step over the line. It’s absolutely disgusting that not only are people not informed about it but some are straight out forced to take them. In my mind if a”patient” commits a crime under the influence of forced drugging the psychiatrists should be responsible. But they always refuse any responsibility for what they do – they only want the power.
That is great news. For all those who are struggling with no help (or the opposite of help) from the system.
It’s depressing and enraging at the same time. No matter how much evidence you present it’s the same old song. We are the Jews of the XXI century – you can blame anything on us.
Plus kicking out studies with conflicts of interest would likely do the same.
Maybe we should stop calling these drugs “anti-depressants”. The same way we should not call crystal meth an anti-obesity drug (though this one can actually be effective for what it’s worth).
I’m pretty sure you’re right.
People who can’t feel physical pain have real problems keeping themselves out of harms way. People who don’t feel emotional pain never learn not to harm others because they have no way to develop empathy.
Psychiatry wants to turn us into psychopaths. No one who has experienced a full range of human emotions wishes to be reduced to that.
“If they ever find a drug that blocks feelings of depression it would be devastating to humanity.”
Thank you. You’re exactly right.
I wonder if they now compared both to say taking part in therapeutic midnight naked dancing around a bonfire and howling to the moon would they obtain similar results? It all sounds like huge placebo effect to me. Whatever you do to people who are “depressed” (whatever that even means in the real world) a proportion of them are going to get better if they believe it’s meant to help. When you do absolutely nothing a proportion of them will recover as well. Finally there will be people who won’t recover no matter what because they happen to have real, persistent problems which aren’t solved with an attitude change. When do we stop pretending we’re dealing with medicine and diseases here?
Well, on all fronts – they should have read MIA and they would have known that already. That being said – it may be a step forward.
Good news :). I hope it spreads elsewhere in Europe too.
“How much can they really tell in those brain scans?”
Not much really. There are serious methodological issues with imaging, especially functional imaging related to artifacts and bad statistics (I always refer people to the IgNobel on the thought processes of a dead salmon – google it ;P).
But even when the study’s done rights all that imaging observes is a sum of activity in broadly defined brain regions. It tells you very little of what is actually going on and does account poorly for individual variability which is huge. We know that for most people for instance fear responses are controlled by amygdala but that is a huge oversimplification. There are different circuits within that structure, some activating, some inhibitory and that does not even account for the fact that it may be largely different for different people. Seeing that giving someone a drug makes amygdala more active may give you a hint this person’s more fearful but the easier and more reliable way to get that information is to ask.
In other words giving people drugs or placebos has some influence on their brain activity. That’s hardly an earth-shattering discovery.
Maybe because it is placebo effect for the most part?
That being said I don’t really buy the brain imaging studies at this point, not until they get reproduced independently multiple times and preferably with different, complementary methods.
“Anti-depressants” likely have more effects on the brain than placebo, because they screw up the neurotransmitter signalling.
Tick, tick, tick… when is the first “bomb” going off? People dying or being damaged for life with this pill which supposedly cures a non-existing problem and in fact doesn’t even do that?
The problem with that is the mistaken idea that demand is what creates supply. It works well in theoretical models but it’s not how markets really operate. There are a lot of ways to create demand by force or by manipulation or by social pressure. Psyhciatry’s been using them both. In fact it’s very tightly linked to the broken economic and political system, and as the article above shows, protects it vehemently.
I agree. In fact I did the same – named the people and hospital involved in the abuse of me publicly. I was threatened with a lawsuit for that (which I have recorded) but my response was to laugh at them and invite it. I’d love to see them sue me with defamation but I know they never will since I’d win and expose them.
I’ve seen this as well. People asking on forums: “I have a disorder X. Is it OK for me to have children?”. Followed by everything from “it’s OK if you stay or your meds and if your psychiatrist says so” to “You should never do it. You’ll suck as a parent and your children will also be crazy because it’s genetic”. It makes me so angry.
“activism is the most undervalued and underfunded âtherapyâ for psychiatric survivors, trauma survivors, and their loved ones”
Amen to that. I rarely hear words so true.
Retarded or evil?
I had “highly intelligent” used on me as a form of an insult from a psychiatrist who talked and behaved like a true sociopath (I don’t know if that was learnt behaviour or who he really was).
It’s not overused – it’s underused. Psychiatry is all about social control and that’s the message that we have to shout from the rooftops. It’s not a bout helping, which is sadly the illusion most people live under.
Thanks you so much for creating that list – it’s important to remind people that psychiatry’s infamous history is not a thing of the past but it continues beyond the Holocaust era and is not restricted to “bad countries”.
What’s next? Heroine?
They are really f***ing ridiculous. Btw, one of the well known side-effects of ketamine (why it’s not really used for anesthesia in people) is it’s propensity to induce horrible nightmares and generally unpleasant mental states. Not to mention in the first place that it is an anesthetic and can be very dangerous with overdose.
The “funniest” part is that “serious” people are actually talking about it like it was a valid area of pursuit for new medicines. YOUR WHOLE FRAMEWORK IS WRONG!!! How long do we have to say it?
That is an excellent point. In fact the current political elites are not divided into left and right but just less and more extreme representatives of the ruling class.
In other words – we need to change the system completely. And indeed it’s a class war alive and well.
Thanks but I’ll take living in today’s Sweden over living in Nazi Germany.
I don’t think you use the word socialism in the same way as people who actually describe themselves as such understand.
Please, to begin with – read Marx’s Communist Manifesto and then come back to comment. I’d bet you’ll find this book stunningly reasonable. Or at least you’ll know what you’re criticizing.
I wonder why mentally ill die so young? It must be because they’re crazy…
Exactly. The neoliberal doctrine fails to take into account all the non-monetary incentives such as morality, love, empathy, altruism and so on. We are so used to this kind of thinking that it’s hard to get away from this mindset and consider that most people are actually good. Sure, everyone has also some selfish in them but then the right incentives are to promote social solidarity and not individualistic greed.
The_cat – having lived in a few different countries so far the more “socialistic” ones (I mean social-democratic European countries) do much better than more capitalist ones. Also in terms of actual free market. You can call it a paradox but having the state regulate market in a more socially just direction actually promotes genuine competition between small businesses as opposed to hegemony of big business and cronies.
I think you should listen more to what Mr Sanders says instead of looking at the label (we should be used to that approach here I suppose ;P). I don’t agree with a lot of things, especially on foreign policy, but he’s not crazy.
It’s not only about pricing – it’s also about making sure that drugs don’t get approved when they don’t work and cause harm. Like getting the FDA that does its job instead of serving as a fig leaf for pharmaceutical industry.
Following current logic foxes are ideal candidates for guardians of a henhouse – they are experts on poultry afterall.
It seems like from the psychiatric surviviour perspective Sanders is the best candidate so far. Hardly perfect but that may be the best there is.
Welcome to the DSM. A world of wonders where the inmates are running the asylums and giving people labels.
Settle, pay a small fine/compensation, continue making loads of money…
We need a new system.
Well, in China it’s also not all that rosy – they usually do it to someone (who as fallen out of favour anyway) once in a while to keep people happy but overall product safety in China continues to be abysmal. At least that’s what my Chinese friends have told me.
Same as it doesn’t make any sense for any other industry. They pay you off with a percentile of the money they made off you and other victims and continue to repeat the same offenses over and over again. Nobody goes to jail, no company goes bankrupt. It’ the “cost of doing business”.
I hope people will read it with an open mind.
Plus that psychiatry does is the exact opposite of helpful – it tells them they’re defective and have to live with it after which it places them on drugs which cause disinhibition and lower empathy. Interesting that it backfires…
If someone is violent they must be crazy. Hence “link” between mental illness and violence. Confirmation bias right there.
Give there’s no definition of mental illness that would make any sense it’s extremely easy to label people displaying a given behaviour insane and then attribute this behaviour to all the other classes of insanity. It makes no sense unless that is exactly what you want to do.
“As for the future, we realize that we are growing older (I am now 65, my wife not much younger) and that we cannot continue looking after Meili forever.”
This is truly heartbreaking that parents of disabled kids all around the world have to be asking themselves that question: what happens to my child when I’m no longer able to care for him/her?
It’s unacceptable that we consider drugging healthy people like Meili and making them sick just because they have a mental disability. Finding them psychiatric diagnosis to justify this is even more reprehensible.
So being abused is not good for you? Who would have thought…
It’s funny that psychiatry has to “discover” such things. Better late than never.
Btw, that is also linked to “anti-stigma” propaganda:
“”The Scottish government has long worked hard to reduce the stigma faced by people with mental health problems.” As this stigma declines we would expect more patients to seek help from their GPs for problems such as depression.”
Instead of looking at the causes of their problems and organizing people are now attributing their problems to broken brains and getting chemical lobotomies. Given that most of the recipients of this “care” are older women it looks awfully like a profitable way of getting rid of “superfluous population”.
That can’t end up well…
Not only are people not getting better – they will have more problems at the end of the day when side effects and dependence take their toll. Not to mention that I have not seen an antidepressant fix poverty before.
It’s kind of sad that ACLU has to pick that one up. These people should be in prison along with other people involved in torture as well as those who signed off on it.
I remember myself on Seroquel – it’s a miracle I didn’t murder anyone. I felt so deprived of any connection to my feelings that I would have done anything to feel something in a normal way again. The more extreme the better. These are torture drugs and I have no doubt that some people commit acts of violence against self or others because of them.
Funny how psychiatry has the habit of causing and exacerbating the very problems it claims to treat.
Always blame the odd one out. Which is going to create more angry people in the end. Counterproductive for society but politically expedient.
Marihuana smoke has lower temperature than tobacco which is hypothesized to prevent it from causing lung cancer (many carcinogenic substances don’t form at lower temperatures). Also some studies suggest it’s components may have anti-cancer properties. All of that is not very conclusive thus far though.
Plus if you want to keep marihuana illegal than all people who drug kids with things like amphetamines (“ADHD” drugs) and other psychotropic drugs should also be sent to prison.
Apology would be nice – financial compensation would be better. Criminal charges for people involved in this scandal even better.
No empathy, no shame, no remorse – which personality disorder is that supposed to be, remind me again?
I think that should also apply to “ADHD” drugs (amphetamines) and in fact all drugs. If we were real about prescribing medicines to treat illness and doing so only when necessary then we should not need brand names at all.
Amphetamine instead of Concerta (or whichever type of stimulant this one is) could do wonders.
Is the next study going to be on if the sun sets on the west or if fish can survive without water?
I mean, it’s nice they’re studying something else than pills but we already know poverty’s bad for you. Can we move on to actually doing something about it?
The Onion got it right :D.
One should beware bills which include such nice sounding words as: family, freedom, truth, nation and so on in the title. They are usually the exact opposite of what they proclaim.
Honestly, I’m a little surprised about the fuss which is being made around this study. It almost makes me want to put on a tinfoil hat and look for some conspiracy. Or is it just psychiatry’s/pharma’s attempt to control the message in the light of more and more people seeing the emperor has no clothes?
âSometimes, an aspect of the disease is that the patient believes threats and enemies are everywhere â including in the person of the doctor.â
It’s not an aspect of a disease, it’ accurate assessment of the situation and these people deserve to be called doctors just as much as Dr. Mengele. It’s state sponsored kidnapping and torture.
That’s a good step forward but still does not prevent outrages like this to happen:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gustl_Mollath
I’m with Peter Goetsche on that:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2gZq5_17EJ0
Stop psychiatric torture.
If the dropped using drugs they would have surely cut it down significantly. Even more so if they went with Open Dialogue-like approaches but I guess I can dream on.
And what does that really mean:
âThe students are almost inevitably legal adults, but there are a lot of other parties that have skin in the game and really have concerns and to one degree or another legitimate involvement.â
ALMOST legal adults? I didn’t know that when you become a student you become infantalized. I knew that happens when you become a patient but apparently this way of social control is expanding. If it’s really health we’re talking about then the same rules should apply and the patient’s welfare should come first. Unless it’s not health that all these “other parties” have in mind.
Btw, I don’t belive that for a minute:
âThereâs no doubt in my mind that the schools are trying to strike the right balance,â said Paul Lannon, a Boston lawyer who advises colleges on legal issues. âThey care for the students. They want the students to do well. They want the students to be healthy.â
All they want is to cover their a** in case something happens. Nobody cares about students, they are there to be made money off.
One more reason to stay away from the psych industry. They ruin your life in so many different ways one does not know where to start. And after that they dare to turn around and tell you how bad “stigma” is.
Supposedly they have now forbidden the psychologists from taking part in interrogations. However, I’ve not seen any sign of them wanting to punish the people who did it nor do I believe they will enforce it in future. I hope they prove me wrong but the more I know the more cynical I get.
Let me guess: business as usual?
First of all there has to be real penalties, including criminal, for doctors who are not sticking to guidelines on these drugs. Otherwise they can do whatever they want and never face any consequences.
“The report acknowledges a noticeable difference of opinion about that causes of prescription drug dependence between the governmental and practitioner organizations on one side and the support groups, withdrawal charities, and affected individuals on the other. The first group attributed patterns of dependence to individual differences in patients while the latter placed accountability on the inappropriate prescribing practices of the doctors.”
That is in itself very telling. Let me translate:
“first group attributed patterns of dependence to individual differences in patients” -> “these people are junkies and their defective brains are to blame”
But it’s nice that some people are starting to address the problem. It is too little, too late for many but maybe it will help at least some and prevent more people from getting hooked on these drugs going forward.
Humanities aside – most doctors and that included (first and foremost) psychiatrists are not very well educated in …biology. It seems counter-intuitive to a lot of people but the biological education in medical school is very narrow and little attention is paid to making students understand even such basic concepts as theory of evolution.
I’ve had first-hand experience as part of my studies was done at the medical university where my faculty shared some of the courses with medicine. They were very good at some things (like anatomy) but lacked in other respects and even well-prepared biological courses were treated as “unimportant”. Later on I had to work in a collaborative environment between doctors and life scientists and such issues were showing – things that were obvious for us (like that using drugs cocktails to treat cancer or HIV should work better long-term to prevent drug resistance) were coming as a surprise and hard to understand concepts for doctors. So I’m not very surprised when members of this profession show sometimes stunning ignorance even on issues they should be educated about and psychiatrists are probably the worst offenders.
Wow, that’s remarkable. I hope it will spread.
âIâd Rather Die Than Go Back to Hospitalâ
The sign of sanity and clear thinking. One has to really be out of one’s mind to want to re-experience psychiatry.
Recommendations have this tiny problem that they can be (and are) routinely ignored with no consequences to the ignoring.
âThereâs an unsettling correlation between psychopathy, a personality disorder characterized by a lack of conscience, and those who find personal wealth and successâ Jon Ronson reports in The Psychopath Test. Psychopaths are four times more likely to be found among CEOs than the general population, which means that lack of empathy or remorse combined with superficial charm, egotism, unethical behavior and a search for thrills are some of the qualities rewarded most highly. ”
That’s also a good observation. The values of our society are upside down.
He has a point. Way to deal with “superfluous population”.
…while the NSA was recording.
When you google “lizard people” and “flat earth society” you’ll also find a lot of interesting things. Not everything you real on the internet is true.
“Psychiatry NEVER diagnoses anybody as needing Justice”
So true…
I actually think there’s a good “model”: every bad think that happens to a person adds up, the more severe more than the benign one. When enough sh*t accumulates, especially at once people break down. That is what it used to be called “mental breakdown” and that is for me the one and only correct “diagnosis”. Some people have the breaking point earlier, others can withstand a lot more but almost anyone will break down if enough bad things happen to them. It’s really that simple – what is complicated is when you deal with an individual and his/her unique life story. We are all different and we’re all the same.
bpdtransformation, B.A.
I think you may be reading to much into studies on this topic. I also saw studies which suggest that it’s not the early childhood that’s the problem (at least for psychotic “disorders”) but rather what happens in early teens, especially related to social stress (bullying, racism or even such “benign” things like moving out of town and losing one’s childhood friends).
It may be very well that the truth is somewhere in between – for one person it’s the neglect when she was 3, for someone else it’s sexual abuse at 14, for someone otehr it’s romantic breakdown at 30. People are complicated.
If I understand correctly by “mother” you understand “primary caregiver”?
“When I started out psychiatry was not medicalized, and was purely humanitarian.”
I’m not sure when and where you started out but I can’t recall any period in psychiatry’s history when it could be called “humanitarian”.
However, I must say I don’t agree with that:
“The appropriate treatment is the psychotherapy of character. Psychotherapy is a specialized form of human engagement that repairs the damage to oneâs character”
It’s another way of telling people they’re broken and defective and need to be “repaired”. While I do agree that conscious effort to overcome one’s habits and change bad coping strategies may be helpful for some people under some circumstances and some people need a friend or maybe a therapist to point them in the right direction I strongly disagree with the idea that badly developed personalities are to blame. More often than not it’s the society that drives people “crazy”.
“It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.” – Jiddu Krishnamurti
“Human suffering has never been a brain problem. It is a human problem, and it has been so since the dawn of time.”
This is an important message that cannot be repeated often enough. Thank you for these words.
This questionnaire is loaded with societal expectations, I agree with it.
I could not hep but LOL at ” I can weigh up the pros and cons of psychiatric treatment”.
Very important questions, I’d also like to know the answer.
“I agree that there is no one event that can be identified as a âcauseâ, and agree that it is a culmination of events that are triggered at some point.”
I don’t agree with that. It may be true in many cases but I know full well that the only time I tried to take my own life was when I was being tortured in a hospital and the one and only, singular reason was for the torture to stop.
“Instead, like surgeons, they will implement tools that reduce the suffering and enhance the well-being of the patient.”
translated:
“We are real DOCTORS goddammit! We do MEDICINE.”
I wonder who are the “experts” testifying in these trials? The likes of Lieberman & co?
I think they just discovered that the Earth is not flat afterall.
That is a wonderful idea :). I’m on board.
Garbage in, garbage out.
People get better when they feel like they belong to a community, are needed and respected by others. It’s really that simple.
You don’t want to buy ineffective and toxic meds for huge amouts of money? Clear conflict of interest.
In the world where corporations have constitutional rights nothing is too crazy.
Antipsychotics are devastating at any dose. It’s just the question if you ant to die quickly, slowly or live as a zombie.
“the laws protect them and regulate OUR behavior, no theirs”
You’re 100% right. Would someone include a Bribe Seeking Disorder or Insatiable Greed Syndrome in the DSM that would be the end of this book of nonsense.
There are never criminal charges in these cases… For the companies such settlements are a drop in a bucket and the “cost of doing business” and most individual doctors are insured against such cases so that they rarely have to reach to their own pockets.
As long as there are no jail sentences it’s not justice – it’s a mockery.
I agree. That is not necessarily to say that people who commit acts of violence on these drugs were necessarily latent killers anyway – one has to consider akathesia which from what I’ve heard is enough to turn Ghandi into a serial killer. Also these drugs diminish empathy. I don’t think I know one person who has never expressed an urge to murder their boss but almost no one seriously thinks about it. Killing another human being is a hard thing to do save for a small minority of people with psychopathic personalities who usually don’t need encouragement anyway. If the drug takes the empathy away, takes impulse control away and on top of that causes suffering then it’s a “perfect mix”. For people who got on these drugs because they already had some relational problems it’s the end.
People often say about mass shooters that they are psychopaths. Leaving aside the appropriateness of using labels a psychopath (someone naturally lacking empathy and ability to form attachments combined with a fetish for murder but otherwise “normal”) will not commit mass murder and then suicide. A person like that may become a serial killer or join the military or do something where one can realize these urges without suffering the consequences. The mass shooters don’t fit this profile, not in my mind. These actions scream desperation for me, not cold blooded murder even if they appear so.
Let’s start with the fact that psychotherapy is not medical treatment, even in the crazy world of psychiatry it isn’t. I find it particularly amusing when people do clinical trials with it. It always reminds me of:
http://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/images/2/24/blind_trials.png
It’s a matter of individual vs stats. When you look at the magnitude of the problem ADs seem to be worse but that does not mean everyone trying to come off them will have a major problem. Like with any other drug really, some folks get a pass.
Are you trying to say that Germans are better people than good folks down in Illinois? I don’t think so.
I seriously don’t get people’s obsession with Jobs. He was an extraordinarily good salesman and a***ole at the same time, bordering on a sociopath. It’s close to a last person I’d put on a pedestal for people to emulate as a hero.
There are many better and smarter people who do not exploit others and have less of an ego. Sadly, they don’t become demigods.
“I donât think they create positive symptoms but could be mistaken about that.”
You are in fact mistaken. The work of Robert and others clearly show that the use of neuroleptics, especially long-term increases a chance of psychosis (so-called supersensitivity).
“You might notice that when someone âacts outâ medication is an issue somewhere.”
That is so true. I had problems at the point when I entered psychiatry but it was not before I tried some of their pills that I’ve become suicidal, with panic attacks, obsessive, paranoid etc. Not that I didn’t have reasons to be like that given the nature of my relationship at the time but going on these poisons and then coming of them because of the side effects and then going on different ones and ;like that for weeks and months seriously screwed me up. The worst by far was Zyprexa – the person who came up with this one should burn in hell.
“I have no time to deal with you” – that’s the most prevalent reason for someone being labelled as “dangerous”. I mean why would you do your job when you can force drug someone, put them in restraints and go for coffee.
That is btw the literal quote. They don’t even bother to pretend, they’ll just lie in the hospital documents and to the judge.
They were trying to hook me on this drugs. They denied every possible side effect and didn’t notice almost complete anterograde amnesia while I was being “observed” 24/7 in a hospital. A drunken monkey with a razor blade would do a better job in helping people than an average psychiatrist.
A pig with lipstick is still a pig afterall.
Dr. Mickey’s life must be exhausting… but so is ours. Digging through a tons of horse*** and it seems like for little change.
I am not that sure you can blame the drugs for criminal behaviour as a sole factor but then I’ve never experienced severe akathesia (I did a bit but I recognized it for a side effect of the drugs and flushed the pills).
People who take these drugs have many problems but one thing is sure – the drugs do nothing to stop them and in many cases they cause them to step over the line. It’s absolutely disgusting that not only are people not informed about it but some are straight out forced to take them. In my mind if a”patient” commits a crime under the influence of forced drugging the psychiatrists should be responsible. But they always refuse any responsibility for what they do – they only want the power.
That is great news. For all those who are struggling with no help (or the opposite of help) from the system.
It’s depressing and enraging at the same time. No matter how much evidence you present it’s the same old song. We are the Jews of the XXI century – you can blame anything on us.
Plus kicking out studies with conflicts of interest would likely do the same.
Maybe we should stop calling these drugs “anti-depressants”. The same way we should not call crystal meth an anti-obesity drug (though this one can actually be effective for what it’s worth).
I’m pretty sure you’re right.
People who can’t feel physical pain have real problems keeping themselves out of harms way. People who don’t feel emotional pain never learn not to harm others because they have no way to develop empathy.
Psychiatry wants to turn us into psychopaths. No one who has experienced a full range of human emotions wishes to be reduced to that.
“If they ever find a drug that blocks feelings of depression it would be devastating to humanity.”
Thank you. You’re exactly right.
I wonder if they now compared both to say taking part in therapeutic midnight naked dancing around a bonfire and howling to the moon would they obtain similar results? It all sounds like huge placebo effect to me. Whatever you do to people who are “depressed” (whatever that even means in the real world) a proportion of them are going to get better if they believe it’s meant to help. When you do absolutely nothing a proportion of them will recover as well. Finally there will be people who won’t recover no matter what because they happen to have real, persistent problems which aren’t solved with an attitude change. When do we stop pretending we’re dealing with medicine and diseases here?
Well, on all fronts – they should have read MIA and they would have known that already. That being said – it may be a step forward.
Good news :). I hope it spreads elsewhere in Europe too.
“How much can they really tell in those brain scans?”
Not much really. There are serious methodological issues with imaging, especially functional imaging related to artifacts and bad statistics (I always refer people to the IgNobel on the thought processes of a dead salmon – google it ;P).
But even when the study’s done rights all that imaging observes is a sum of activity in broadly defined brain regions. It tells you very little of what is actually going on and does account poorly for individual variability which is huge. We know that for most people for instance fear responses are controlled by amygdala but that is a huge oversimplification. There are different circuits within that structure, some activating, some inhibitory and that does not even account for the fact that it may be largely different for different people. Seeing that giving someone a drug makes amygdala more active may give you a hint this person’s more fearful but the easier and more reliable way to get that information is to ask.
In other words giving people drugs or placebos has some influence on their brain activity. That’s hardly an earth-shattering discovery.
Maybe because it is placebo effect for the most part?
That being said I don’t really buy the brain imaging studies at this point, not until they get reproduced independently multiple times and preferably with different, complementary methods.
“Anti-depressants” likely have more effects on the brain than placebo, because they screw up the neurotransmitter signalling.
Tick, tick, tick… when is the first “bomb” going off? People dying or being damaged for life with this pill which supposedly cures a non-existing problem and in fact doesn’t even do that?
The problem with that is the mistaken idea that demand is what creates supply. It works well in theoretical models but it’s not how markets really operate. There are a lot of ways to create demand by force or by manipulation or by social pressure. Psyhciatry’s been using them both. In fact it’s very tightly linked to the broken economic and political system, and as the article above shows, protects it vehemently.
I agree. In fact I did the same – named the people and hospital involved in the abuse of me publicly. I was threatened with a lawsuit for that (which I have recorded) but my response was to laugh at them and invite it. I’d love to see them sue me with defamation but I know they never will since I’d win and expose them.
I’ve seen this as well. People asking on forums: “I have a disorder X. Is it OK for me to have children?”. Followed by everything from “it’s OK if you stay or your meds and if your psychiatrist says so” to “You should never do it. You’ll suck as a parent and your children will also be crazy because it’s genetic”. It makes me so angry.
“activism is the most undervalued and underfunded âtherapyâ for psychiatric survivors, trauma survivors, and their loved ones”
Amen to that. I rarely hear words so true.
Retarded or evil?
I had “highly intelligent” used on me as a form of an insult from a psychiatrist who talked and behaved like a true sociopath (I don’t know if that was learnt behaviour or who he really was).
It’s not overused – it’s underused. Psychiatry is all about social control and that’s the message that we have to shout from the rooftops. It’s not a bout helping, which is sadly the illusion most people live under.
Thanks you so much for creating that list – it’s important to remind people that psychiatry’s infamous history is not a thing of the past but it continues beyond the Holocaust era and is not restricted to “bad countries”.
What’s next? Heroine?
They are really f***ing ridiculous. Btw, one of the well known side-effects of ketamine (why it’s not really used for anesthesia in people) is it’s propensity to induce horrible nightmares and generally unpleasant mental states. Not to mention in the first place that it is an anesthetic and can be very dangerous with overdose.
The “funniest” part is that “serious” people are actually talking about it like it was a valid area of pursuit for new medicines. YOUR WHOLE FRAMEWORK IS WRONG!!! How long do we have to say it?
That is an excellent point. In fact the current political elites are not divided into left and right but just less and more extreme representatives of the ruling class.
In other words – we need to change the system completely. And indeed it’s a class war alive and well.
Thanks but I’ll take living in today’s Sweden over living in Nazi Germany.
I don’t think you use the word socialism in the same way as people who actually describe themselves as such understand.
Please, to begin with – read Marx’s Communist Manifesto and then come back to comment. I’d bet you’ll find this book stunningly reasonable. Or at least you’ll know what you’re criticizing.
I wonder why mentally ill die so young? It must be because they’re crazy…
Exactly. The neoliberal doctrine fails to take into account all the non-monetary incentives such as morality, love, empathy, altruism and so on. We are so used to this kind of thinking that it’s hard to get away from this mindset and consider that most people are actually good. Sure, everyone has also some selfish in them but then the right incentives are to promote social solidarity and not individualistic greed.
The_cat – having lived in a few different countries so far the more “socialistic” ones (I mean social-democratic European countries) do much better than more capitalist ones. Also in terms of actual free market. You can call it a paradox but having the state regulate market in a more socially just direction actually promotes genuine competition between small businesses as opposed to hegemony of big business and cronies.
I think you should listen more to what Mr Sanders says instead of looking at the label (we should be used to that approach here I suppose ;P). I don’t agree with a lot of things, especially on foreign policy, but he’s not crazy.
It’s not only about pricing – it’s also about making sure that drugs don’t get approved when they don’t work and cause harm. Like getting the FDA that does its job instead of serving as a fig leaf for pharmaceutical industry.
Following current logic foxes are ideal candidates for guardians of a henhouse – they are experts on poultry afterall.
It seems like from the psychiatric surviviour perspective Sanders is the best candidate so far. Hardly perfect but that may be the best there is.
Welcome to the DSM. A world of wonders where the inmates are running the asylums and giving people labels.
Settle, pay a small fine/compensation, continue making loads of money…
We need a new system.
Well, in China it’s also not all that rosy – they usually do it to someone (who as fallen out of favour anyway) once in a while to keep people happy but overall product safety in China continues to be abysmal. At least that’s what my Chinese friends have told me.
Same as it doesn’t make any sense for any other industry. They pay you off with a percentile of the money they made off you and other victims and continue to repeat the same offenses over and over again. Nobody goes to jail, no company goes bankrupt. It’ the “cost of doing business”.
I hope people will read it with an open mind.
Plus that psychiatry does is the exact opposite of helpful – it tells them they’re defective and have to live with it after which it places them on drugs which cause disinhibition and lower empathy. Interesting that it backfires…
If someone is violent they must be crazy. Hence “link” between mental illness and violence. Confirmation bias right there.
Give there’s no definition of mental illness that would make any sense it’s extremely easy to label people displaying a given behaviour insane and then attribute this behaviour to all the other classes of insanity. It makes no sense unless that is exactly what you want to do.
“As for the future, we realize that we are growing older (I am now 65, my wife not much younger) and that we cannot continue looking after Meili forever.”
This is truly heartbreaking that parents of disabled kids all around the world have to be asking themselves that question: what happens to my child when I’m no longer able to care for him/her?
It’s unacceptable that we consider drugging healthy people like Meili and making them sick just because they have a mental disability. Finding them psychiatric diagnosis to justify this is even more reprehensible.
So being abused is not good for you? Who would have thought…
It’s funny that psychiatry has to “discover” such things. Better late than never.
Btw, that is also linked to “anti-stigma” propaganda:
“”The Scottish government has long worked hard to reduce the stigma faced by people with mental health problems.” As this stigma declines we would expect more patients to seek help from their GPs for problems such as depression.”
Instead of looking at the causes of their problems and organizing people are now attributing their problems to broken brains and getting chemical lobotomies. Given that most of the recipients of this “care” are older women it looks awfully like a profitable way of getting rid of “superfluous population”.
That can’t end up well…
Not only are people not getting better – they will have more problems at the end of the day when side effects and dependence take their toll. Not to mention that I have not seen an antidepressant fix poverty before.
It’s kind of sad that ACLU has to pick that one up. These people should be in prison along with other people involved in torture as well as those who signed off on it.
I remember myself on Seroquel – it’s a miracle I didn’t murder anyone. I felt so deprived of any connection to my feelings that I would have done anything to feel something in a normal way again. The more extreme the better. These are torture drugs and I have no doubt that some people commit acts of violence against self or others because of them.
Funny how psychiatry has the habit of causing and exacerbating the very problems it claims to treat.
Always blame the odd one out. Which is going to create more angry people in the end. Counterproductive for society but politically expedient.
Marihuana smoke has lower temperature than tobacco which is hypothesized to prevent it from causing lung cancer (many carcinogenic substances don’t form at lower temperatures). Also some studies suggest it’s components may have anti-cancer properties. All of that is not very conclusive thus far though.
Plus if you want to keep marihuana illegal than all people who drug kids with things like amphetamines (“ADHD” drugs) and other psychotropic drugs should also be sent to prison.
Apology would be nice – financial compensation would be better. Criminal charges for people involved in this scandal even better.
No empathy, no shame, no remorse – which personality disorder is that supposed to be, remind me again?
I think that should also apply to “ADHD” drugs (amphetamines) and in fact all drugs. If we were real about prescribing medicines to treat illness and doing so only when necessary then we should not need brand names at all.
Amphetamine instead of Concerta (or whichever type of stimulant this one is) could do wonders.
Is the next study going to be on if the sun sets on the west or if fish can survive without water?
I mean, it’s nice they’re studying something else than pills but we already know poverty’s bad for you. Can we move on to actually doing something about it?
The Onion got it right :D.
One should beware bills which include such nice sounding words as: family, freedom, truth, nation and so on in the title. They are usually the exact opposite of what they proclaim.