Holistic Recovery from Schizophrenia

First step: Stop looking at the person as mentally ill

2012-01-28T01:44:00.000-08:00

Discover and Recover: Resources for Mental and Overall Wellness is a excellent "go to" place for people wanting further information on alternative therapies and empowering their own recovery. I'm reprinting a recent comment(s) to another of my posts from its founder, Duane Sherry.

Discover and Recover Jan 27, 2012 02:32 PM

Rossa,

I’ve been taking an online course through the University of North Texas, WISE Program -Workplace Inclusion and Sustainable Employment – http://pacs.unt.edu/wise/ UNT was the largest rehabilitation counseling program in the world until very recently... It is no longer the largest, but still has a sizeable graduate degree program.

Last night, I read a great article – ‘Strategies for Healthy Relationships and Mental Wellness’ by George Nostrand.

I wanted to share with you and your readers some of what the article was about…
He describes “mental illness” in a refreshing way:

“The first step in working with someone who has been diagnosed with a mental illness is to stop looking at the person as ‘mentally ill.’ Everyone struggles at some point with varying degrees of mental illness. We all feel depressed, anxious, paranoid, and angry. In addition to dealing with a host of other emotions, our thinking also becomes confused, we get lost in our thoughts, and we just plain have days when our brains doen’t want to function.”

“As a result, mental illness is normal. A person becomes mentally ill when normal thoughts and emotions go beyond a point of ‘comfortability’ and self-management. In these instances, thoughts and emotions cause extreme disruptions in people’s lives. When it comes to work, these interruptions to healthy functioning can lead to embarrassing situations, sporadic work history, and take a serious toll on people’s self-esteem.”

He also has some good things to say about the therapeutic value of work:

“Work plays a crucial role in recovering from these periods of disruption. Nothing: not medications, therapy, or any other element of treatment, can provide the wide-ranging and crucial elements of recovey that work can. It is the only way for people to regain their independence and reintegrate into their respective communities. This is why it is so important that vocationial services be provided in a way that is empowering to the individual.”

My thoughts:

The article by George Nostrand, Strategies for Healthy Relationships and Mental Wellness will be read by people around the world, through the UNT WISE online program. I find it encouraging that so many people will be reading his words about "mental illness"... Hopefully, professionals will begin to think of "mental illness" in a new light.

I have long-thought that the paradigm shift that is needed to transform the mental health system will likely come through self-directed programs and those that offer peer support. I won’t hold my breath waiting for psychiatry to promote the concept of recovery… and psychology seems to be slow out of the gate as well.

But I do think rehabilitation programs such as the one at the University of North Texas offer some hope, along with those at Boston University and Temple University.
We have a long way to go, but at least it’s a start:

Boston University – Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation – Repository of Recovery Resources: http://www.bu.edu/cpr/repository/index.html
Temple University – Collaborative on Community Reintegration (Rehabilitation and Research Center: http://tucollaborative.org/

Be well,
Duane

Friday fun

2012-01-27T07:24:00.000-08:00

It may be time for you to "do the needful" by sizing up your marriage prospects using an Indian dowry calculator! This calculator is Dedicated to all the match making aunties of India

http://www.dowrycalculator.com/ Like 78,788 people like this.

Chris's comment:

I think "skin colour" is a huge bump on the scale. I did it for me (little do they know) skin colour: "wheatish" caste Kshatriya (warrior) unemployed, no alma mater height 6' father's profession "teacher" dowry: 25 Lakh (is this the price of a Big Mac?")

Chris's results:

Getting there, slowly but surely. Right now, your dowry rate is 25 Lakh. If you want your dream dowry, this might not be the most optimum time for you to get married. There are times in life when we are standing on crossroad and need to take some tough decisions. You could go either way from here. Be the master of your destiny and steer it towards your dream dowry. Best of luck!

Astonishing rise of mental illness - is it a global phenomenon?

2012-01-26T01:19:00.000-08:00

Has anyone noticed that Robert Whitaker's latest book has undergone a name change?

Old title: Anatomy of an Epidemic: Psychiatric Drugs, Magic Bullets, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America

New title: Anatomy of an Epidemic: Psychiatric Drugs, Magic Bullets and the Astonishing Rise of
Mental Illness

Does the name change reflect the observation that there is an astonishing rise of mental illness in other countries, as Robert Whitaker perhaps has learned over the course of his international speaking engagements?

Coconut oil

2012-01-24T08:47:00.000-08:00

I'm passing on some news about the purported benefits of coconut oil when treating alzheimers, dementia, epilepsy, Parkinsons and schizophrenia.

The video clip states that coconut oil raises the overall cholesterol score, but actually that is because it raises good cholesterol. This is also what niacin (Vitamin B3) does. I had my yearly medical check-up recently and the doctor reported, once again, that my overall cholesterol reading was really high. "But, don't worry," she reassured me. "That's because your good cholesterol is extremely high and it has raised the total score." Dr. Abram Hoffer recommended niacin to his schizophrenia patients and he also said that the vitamin was good in preventing dementia/alzheimers.

Here's the consumer's view of coconut oil. Gianna Kali at Beyond Meds has allowed me to reprint her comment in the main body of this post. I like her idea of using coconut butter as a substitute for peanut butter.

Coconut in general and coconut oil are both foods of the gods...especially if you're eating a grain free diet like I am...it's a great substitute.

I eat coconut flour for baked goods and coconut butter to replace peanut butter and cheese...and yes...it helps as a substitute...totally...I miss cheese and it sort of is like a spread that works...I also make homemade coconut milk since I no longer drink cow's milk and then the coconut oil I use in all sorts of cooking and baking too.

It's a wonderful food all around the coconut...it's high in protein and fiber and the fat is good for your brain and body in general.

I eat tons of saturated fat...both animal and plant (coconut oil is a saturated fat...my cholesterol went DOWN when I stopped eating grains and increased healthy fats...people don't know that grains and carbs is what make cholesterol go up in a lot of people....not fats!! and the grains and carbs will mess with people with blood sugar problems too.

Animal fat needs to be grass fed to be really healthy...in any case both my cholesterol and glucose levels have returned to healthy levels since eating this way.

Smells like pharma tactics

2012-01-24T04:31:00.000-08:00

If you want to start a trend with the public, the school system has proven to be a good place to start. I can think of a few trends that I personally witnessed. The first trend was to push technology in the home, not just in the classroom. My husband and I barely had enough money to pay the mortgage, feed the family, and keep the car running, but we kept reading articles in the newspapers that children did much better at school if they had a home computer. Home computers cost $2000, not money we could get our hands on easily. Huge guilt feelings on our part. Our children would lose any educational advantage they may have had! The parent/teacher interview would go something like this: Teacher: "well, I'm not worried about Alex's (our middle son) handwriting because he'll be working on computers in the future anyway. He won't need handwriting." The message was clear: Buy a computer or Alex would be chiseling out his writing assignments on stone tablets.

The second trend was the rush to medicate. I again began to feel that my children were being left out. So many children had diagnoses of ADD and ADHD, and dysgraphia (Alex missed out on that one) that the principle's office had a long line down the hallway at noon of children waiting to be medicated. But, as readers of this blog are already aware, my youngest son Taylor was caught in the ADD web. I was told by the school psychologist that Taylor may never reach his potential if I didn't put him on Ritalin. Today, with hindsight, I question who was feeding this information to the school system. Suddenly, teachers were acting like pharma reps.

And, the trend continues. Scare parents into jumping on the digital bandwagon to help Johnny keep up in the classroom. Get the teachers to endorse the product. Get the media to advertise this for you.

iPad a solid education tool, study reports

-- More and more schools are jumping on the digital bandwagon and adopting iPads for daily use in the classroom. Apple's education-related announcements last week will no doubt bolster the trend, making faculty tools and student textbooks more engaging and accessible.

But today another data point emerged, demonstrating that the iPad can be a valuable asset in education. In a partnership with Apple, textbook publishers Houghton Mifflin Harcourt performed a pilot study using an iPad text for Algebra 1 courses, and found that 20% more students (78% compared to 59%) scored 'Proficient' or 'Advanced' in subject comprehension when using tablets rather than paper textbook counterparts.

Conversion disorder not about mould

2012-01-20T02:26:00.000-08:00

Le Roy, New York (CNN) -- Twelve female students from Le Roy Junior Senior High School in upstate New York are experiencing a mysterious medical condition. Their symptoms include stuttering, uncontrollable twitching movements and verbal outbursts.

Health officials say the symptoms are consistent with "conversion disorder."

Dr. Jennifer McVige, a pediatric neurologist at the DENT Neurologic Institute who is treating many of the students affected, said, "Conversion disorder is a physical manifestation of physiological symptoms where there is traditionally some kind of stress or multiple stressors that provoke a physical reaction within the body." McVige said the symptoms are real. "This is unconscious. It is not done purposefully."...

Officials at the school hired an independent third party to conduct mold and air quality tests but found no environmental cause for the girls' illnesses. A statement posted on the school's website said, in part, "The medical and environmental investigations have not uncovered any evidence that would link the neurological symptoms to anything in the environment or of an infectious nature."

Sanchez's mother, Melissa Phillips said she does not agree. "I don't think that all physical aspects of this have been exhausted; not enough testing has been done."

The media reaction is to express "surprise" that this puzzling phenomenon can't be traced to a contaminant in the physical environment, just like the medical community continues to be "puzzled" about the lack of clear cut medical evidence for schizophrenia. Here's what the media should say about conversion disorder, but shies away from:

Conversion disorder: the modern hysteria
Colm Owens and Simon Dein

Conversion disorder is thought to occur primarily in societies with strict social systems that prevent individuals from directly expressing feelings and emotions towards others. Temporary somatic dysfunction is one possible mode of communication, particularly for those who are oppressed or underprivileged. The ‘psychological mindedness’ and ease of emotional expression typical of modern developed societies have led to the increasing rarity of conversion disorders in developed countries (Tseng, 2001

Conversion has been attributed to many different mechanisms. One influential theory, dating back to Ancient Greek physicians who thought the symptoms specific to women, invoked as their cause the wandering of the uterus (hustera), from which the word hysteria derives. The term conversion was first used by Freud and Breuer to refer to the substitution of a somatic symptom for a repressed idea (Freud, 1894). This behaviour exemplifies the psychological concept of ‘primary gain’, i.e. psychological anxiety is converted into somatic symptomatology, which lessens the anxiety and gives rise la belle indifference, where a patient seems surprisingly unconcerned about their physical symptoms. The ‘secondary gain’ of such a reaction is the subsequent benefit that a patient may derive from being in the sick role.

As David & Halligan (2000) point out, the concept of conversion disorder has raised great controversy between the proponents of psychological and physiological models of mental states. Conversion disorder raises the intriguing philosophical problem of how it is that psychological or mental states can effect long-term motor, sensory and cognitive changes in people claiming not to be consciously responsible for them. Theories falls into three main groups: psychoanalytic, learning theory and sociocultural formulations

Psychoanalytic theories

Psychoanalytic explanations of conversion disorder emphasise unconscious drives, including sexuality, aggression or dependency, and the internalised prohibition against their expression (Hollander, 1980). A classic paradigm of this theory is the case of Anna O., who was treated by Freud (Breuer & Freud, 1895). Physical symptoms allow for the expression of the forbidden wish or urge but also disguise it. Other psychoanalytic explanations focus on the need to suffer or identification with a lost object (Ford & Folks 1985). An analytic therapist would attempt to treat a conversion disorder by helping the patient move to more mature defence mechanisms.

Management

It is crucial in any approach to patients with conversion disorder to establish a therapeutic alliance and to allow recovery with dignity and without loss of face. It is important that nursing and medical staff avoid labelling these individuals as manipulative, dependent or as exaggerating their difficulties.

Read the rest here

Charlie Sheen's amazing publicity stunt

2012-01-19T06:58:00.000-08:00

Subtitle: Celebrities' amazing turn-arounds

Occasionally it's nice to be superficial on this blog. Getting out daily posts that try to shed a little light on the upside of schizophrenia -- a "serious mental illness" according to psychiatrists and pharma--is tough slogging.

A lot more rooted in reality
What is his secret?

Charlie Sheen says that last year's headline-making antics are indeed a thing of the past.

I'm not crazy anymore. That was an episode," Sheen says, laughing, as he spoke with reporters at Sunday night's Fox Network Television Critics Association party in Pasadena, Calif. "I think I'm a different person than I was yesterday. Everything is a lot more mellow and focused and much more rooted in reality."

Sheen, 46, couldn't be more Zen about his new FX show, "Anger Management," in which he will star and produce. He reports that casting is underway and that they will shoot 10 episodes in six weeks.

Apoyo en el seno cuando el modelo bioquímico de la enfermedad es rechazado

2012-01-18T04:51:00.000-08:00

I've reprinted my post from today in Spanish. Thank you Google Translate! Advance apologies for overloading my followers' inboxes. I hope any errors in the Spanish text are humorous one!

Estimado Rossa,

Usted sólo respondió a mis plegarias. Acabo de leer su blog sobre el tratamiento mejor y más barata alternativa para schz ... y tenía todas las respuestas que estaba preguntando. A veces me pregunto si lo que estoy haciendo está mal, porque mi hija no sale nada, y ya no me obligue a ir a su sesión. En su lugar, tengo que pagar a una chica de su edad para venir a visitar y escuchar a ella, aunque ella no quiere hablar. Como no me llevo a mi hija a cualquier terapeuta, de alguna manera me siento solo, solo confiando en tu blog y lo que he leído de otros libros. Leyendo sobre Catalina Penney del libro "Cura de Dante", y sabiendo que ella se recuperó, mientras que vivir en una habitación bajo vigilancia durante 3 años, y ver a su médico medsfree casi todos los días en el hospital, me da esperanza. Como has dicho, me pueden estimular el crecimiento en el país. Si mi hija no quiere salir de la casa, que puede llevar a la gente a su ayudante como una danza, o un amigo a prestar un oído atento.
Hasta el momento, creo que ella es feliz en su casa, canta, escucha música, ve televisión, come alimentos saludables cuando quiere, escribe en un cuaderno, dibuja, habla con su hermano, quien se encuentra en México a través de Skype, su hermana le visita, y está dispuesto a salir con ella, y, a veces quiere hacer algunas tareas. Me siento aliviado de que ella no va a salir, tratando de ir a los patios traseros de otras personas. El complejo de apartamentos junto a la nuestra poner un cartel "no tresspassing o va a llamar a la policía" Creo que fue puesto a mi hija, porque el verano pasado iba a ir allí, pero no causó ningún problema, pero yo todavía lloro cuando veo ese signo.

Por favor, seguir recordando a los demás en su blog que la alternativa mejor y más barata está en casa. En California, el SSI y el IHSS provee fondos para cuidados en el hogar. Ellos requieren que la persona vea un médico o terapeuta para obtener un diagnóstico y una revisión anual. Voy a tener que llevar a mi hija a la terapia de nuevo a tiempo para la revisión anual, y que está bien. Son terapeutas www.medsfree.com, ya pesar de que mi hija es un buen negocio para ellos, ahora, veo que el hogar es mejor para ella.

Abrazos,
"María" *

PD Además, si es útil, me gustaría hablar con un abogado, y psiquiátricos sobreviviente Ted Chabasinski que me ha ayudado a rescatar a mi hija de muchos hospitales de un donativo. Si alguien quiere más información, no dude en consultar a mí.

* No es su nombre real

Support indefra når biokemiske model af sygdommen er afvist

2012-01-18T04:26:00.000-08:00

My Danish readers will soon tell me if Gøøgle Translate did a faithful translatiøn of their language. I have reprinted my pøst from today into Danish (At least, I høpe it's Danish - I thought there are supposed to be more øø - or is that for Norwegian? LOL) If this experiment goes well, I'll do some further translations into Spanish, Chinese, Hindi, etc. I apologize in advance for overloading your inbox. I hope any errors in the text are humorous one!

Kære Rossa,

Du har lige besvaret mine bønner. Jeg har lige læst din blog om den bedste og billigste alternativ behandling for schz ... og det havde alle de svar, jeg tænkte på om. Nogle gange har jeg spekulerer på, om hvad jeg gør, er forkert, fordi min datter ikke gå ud på alle, og ikke længere jeg tvinge hende til at gå til hendes session. I stedet betaler jeg en pige hendes alder at komme besøge og lytte til hende, selvom hun ikke ønsker at tale. Da jeg ikke tage min datter til en terapeut, en eller anden måde føler jeg alene, bare stole på din blog, og hvad jeg læser fra andre bøger. Bare at læse om Catherine Penney fra bogen "Dantes Cure", og vel vidende, at hun genvundet, mens de bor i en lukket afdeling i 3 år, og se hans medsfree læge næsten hver dag på hospitalet, giver mig håb. Ligesom du sagde, jeg kan fremme væksten derhjemme. Hvis min datter ikke ønsker at gå ud af huset, kan jeg bringe mennesker til hende som en dans hjælper, eller en ven til at låne et lyttende øre.

Indtil videre synes jeg hun er glad derhjemme, synger, lytter til musik, ser tv, spiser sund mad, når hun ønsker, skriver i notesbøger, trækker billeder, taler med hendes bror, som er i Mexico via Skype, hendes søster besøger hende, og er villig til at gå ud med hende, og nogle gange ønsker at gøre nogle pligter. Jeg føler mig lettet over, at hun ikke går ud og prøver at gå til andre folks baghaver. Lejlighedskomplekset ved siden af vores, sætte et skilt "nej tresspassing eller vil ringe til politiet:" Jeg tror det var placeret i forhold til min datter, fordi sidste sommer, at hun ville gå der, men aldrig voldt problemer, men jeg stadig græde når jeg ser dette tegn.

Vær holde minde andre i din blog, at den bedste og billigste alternativ er hjemme. I Californien, leverer SSI og IHSS midler til pleje i hjemmet. De kræver en person for at se enten en læge eller terapeut for en diagnose og en årlig gennemgang. Jeg bliver nødt til at tage min datter at se terapeuten igen tid for den årlige gennemgang, og det er ok. De er www.medsfree.com terapeuter, og selvom min datter er en god forretning for dem, lige nu, ser jeg, at hjemmet er bedre for hende.

Hugs,

"Maria" *

P.S. Også, hvis det er nyttigt, vil jeg gerne have, at nævne en advokat, og psykiatriske overlevende Ted Chabasinski som har hjulpet mig med at redde min datter fra mange hospitaler for bare en donation. Hvis nogen ønsker mere information, er du velkommen til at henvise dem til mig.

* Ikke hendes rigtige navn

Support from within when the biochemical model of the illness is rejected

2012-01-18T01:00:00.000-08:00

Dear Rossa,

You just answered my prayers. I just read your blog about the best and cheapest alternative therapy for schz...and it had all the answers that I was wondering about. Sometimes I wonder if what I am doing is wrong, because my daughter does not go out at all, and no longer I force her to go to her session. Instead , I pay a girl her age to come visit and listen to her, even though she doesn't want to talk. Since I don't take my daughter to any therapist, somehow I feel alone, just relying in your blog and what I read from other books. Just reading about Catherine Penney from the book "Dante's Cure", and knowing that she recovered while living in a locked ward for 3 years, and seeing his medsfree doctor almost everyday in the hospital, gives me hope. Like you said, I can encourage growth at home. If my daughter does not want to go out of the house, I can bring people to her such as a dance helper, or a friend to lend a listening ear.

So far, I think she is happy at home, sings, listens to music, watches tv, eats healthy food when she wants, writes in notebooks, draws pictures, talks to her brother who is in Mexico thru skype, her sister visits her, and is willing to go out with her, and sometimes wants to do some chores. I feel relieved that she is not going out, trying to go to other peoples backyards. The apartment complex next to ours put a sign "no tresspassing or will call police" I think it was placed for my daughter because last summer she would go there, but never caused any problems, but I still cry when I see that sign.

Please keep reminding others in your blog that the best and cheapest alternative is home. In California, SSI and IHSS provides funds to care at home. They DO require the person to see either a doctor or therapist for a diagnosis and a yearly review. I will have to take my daughter to see the therapist again in time for the yearly review, and it is ok. They are www.medsfree.com therapists, and even though my daughter is a good business for them, right now, I see that home is better for her.

Hugs,
"Maria"*

P.S. Also, if it is helpful, I would like you to mention a lawyer, and psychiatric survivor Ted Chabasinski who has helped me rescue my daughter from many hospitals for just a donation. If anyone would like more information, feel free to refer them to me.

* not her real name

Friedrich Nietzsche 1844-1900

2012-01-17T04:31:00.000-08:00

To predict the behavior of ordinary people in advance, you only have to assume that they will always try to escape a disagreeable situation with the smallest possible expenditure of intelligence.
Friedrich Nietzsche

Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
Friedrich Nietzsche

But thus do I counsel you, my friends: distrust all in whom the impulse to punish is powerful!
Friedrich Nietzsche, Also Sprach Zarathustra, Chapter 29

No price is too high to pay for the privilege of owning yourself.
Friedrich Nietzsche

To forget one's purpose is the commonest form of stupidity.
Friedrich Nietzsche

You need chaos in your soul to give birth to a dancing star.
Friedrich Nietzsche

There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.
Friedrich Nietzsche, "On Reading and Writing"

What is done out of love always takes place beyond good and evil.
Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil, Aphorism 153

The greatest danger that always hovered over humanity and still hovers over it is the eruption of madness - which means the eruption of arbitrariness in feeling, seeing and hearing, the enjoyment of the mind's lack of discipline, the joy in human unreason. Not truth and certainty are the opposite of the world of the madman, but the universality and the universal binding force of a faith; in sum, the non-arbitrary character of judgements... Thus the virtuous intellects are needed - oh, let me use the most unambiguous word - what is needed is virtuous stupidity, stolid metronomes for the slow spirit, to make sure that the faithful of the great shared faith stay together and continue their dance... We others are the exception and the danger - and we need eternally to be opposed. - Well, there actually are things to be said in favor of the exception, provided that it never wants to become the rule.
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science, s. 76

From Wikipedia
Nietzsche's influence remains substantial within and beyond philosophy, notably in existentialism, nihilism and postmodernism. His style and radical questioning of the value and objectivity of truth have resulted in much commentary and interpretation, mostly in the continental tradition. His key ideas include the death of God, perspectivism, the Übermensch, amor fati, the eternal recurrence, and the will to power. Central to his philosophy is the idea of "life-affirmation", which involves an honest questioning of all doctrines that drain life's expansive energies, however socially prevalent those views might be.[

Taoist alchemists and trigeminal neuralgia: two testimonials

2012-01-16T06:10:00.000-08:00

Two testimonials, underscoring the value of alternative healing, vitamins, and belief.

Testimonial 1
Dogkisses's blog author Michelle, writes about her experience with a Taoist alchemist in her post entitled One Beet a Day. To find out about the beets, you'd better read the rest of her post.

The first time we met was to talk about my son. Of course, this led to discussing my son’s childhood, background and me. I was in his office for my own treatments shortly afterward.

My toes had hurt for a while. I kept waking up in the night feeling like somebody was pulling my toenails with pliers. It was extremely painful!

I briefly mentioned this pain, but I wasn’t there for the toe pain. I was there to figure out how to help my son. I was there because the energy I felt around this man evoked in me hope that my son could get better, possibly even well, which is not what psychiatry has told us for nearly a decade.

The Alchemist gave me a homeopathic remedy the first day I went for a treatment. I told him that I hadn’t responded well to homeopathy in the past, but he said give it a try anyway.

The next day, the toe pain was gone. It never returned like it was. I’ve felt it on a much milder level, but only a couple of times. They had been hurting nearly constantly and at one point, I recall being afraid of having to use a wheel chair if the pain continued. The doctors said it was likely Rheumatoid Arthritis or Lupus.

I was surprised when the pain vanished after one treatment from the Alchemist. I really didn’t know what to think. Perhaps the homeopathic remedy worked. Perhaps the energy the Alchemist carries is that of a true healer.

Testimonial 2
My cousin, Christina, posted this article on her Facebook page about the benefits of vitamin B12.

Vitamin B12: The Most Important Nutrient You Aren’t Thinking About
If you aren’t getting enough vitamin B12, it is indeed very important – and you may very well not be thinking about it. One reason you aren’t thinking about it is that we tend to fall in (and out!) of love with one nutrient at a time (such as vitamin C, beta carotene, lycopene and so on), and vitamin B12 isn’t the nutrient du jour. But the other reason you may not be thinking about it is … because you can’t. A deficiency of vitamin B12 can limit your ability to think clearly about anything! (More on that momentarily.)

Christina did her own sleuthing to treat her trigeminal neuralgia, a very painful condition affecting the trigeminal nerve of the face. I asked her for more details, and here's what she wrote back.

B12 totally took away the pain i had with trigeminal neuralgia. I thought I had a bad toothache - it lasted 4 years and my dentist kept telling me it wasn't my teeth or gums - told me to go to family doctor, finally did, he diagnosed tn - and i went onto mayo clinic website and found case histories - only one that didn't involve psychotic drugs or brain surgery was lady who swore by B12 - I talked to my dr about it - it is water soluble so he said sure - within 48 hrs the pain was gone. Been taking it ever since. on a scale of 1-to 10 it is a 10

Schizophrenia memoir free today on Kindle

2012-01-16T04:35:00.000-08:00

Free Book again today

Louise Gillett (Schizophrenia at the Schoolgate) has written a memoir of surviving and thriving after a diagnosis of schizophrenia. It's a free download today for Kindle users.
Please pass the word to anyone you know who might want a copy of her e-book 'Surviving Schizophrenia: A Memoir.'

Here's the link: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Surviving-Schizophrenia-Tale-Sound-ebook/dp/B0057P6M46

How I got away with stolen cookies and created an alternate reality: a clue to the strategy used by big pharma and the APA

2012-01-15T04:21:00.000-08:00

I've reprinted below some extracts from a deliciously subversive story about a trainee psychotherapist given an assigment by his master to steal some cookies from a store. The lessons drawn from this story bring to mind the story of another subversive, Huckleberry Finn, who wanted to help Jim, the runaway slave, yet also knew he was guilty of stealing property (Jim) from Miss Watson. Huck opted to go against the moral and legal standards of the time and work to free Jim.

How I got away with stolen cookies and created an alternate reality: a clue to the strategy used by big pharma and the APA
Saturday, January 14, 2012 by: Mike Bundrant

"I want to you steal some cookies from the grocery store. But don't just sneak in there and put a box under your coat. Do it in a way in which you create a distorted reality and walk out of that store with the manager's permission to take the cookies."

Most of what I learned from the Mental Health Underground has come to me slowly but surely over the years as I have matured. The most poignant lesson of all is that reality, and the sanity that comes from knowing it, is a mutually created thing. We create and share it together. If someone doesn't see reality the way most people do, he is considered crazy, out of touch. Schizophrenics fall into this category. Most people are not hearing voices come out of the walls. When someone does, he gets drugged up until the voices are smothered in a warm, chemical blanket.

Who created the reality you share?

When a person creates a bizarre reality and expects you to share it with them, you may not react well. The contrast between the bizarre reality and the one most people agree upon is too great. What happens, however, when the bizarre reality seems plausible from within the agreed upon one? The bizarre version has great potential to be adopted and shared, especially if the proponent of that reality has power or credibility.

In my case, the store manager accepted the scenario I presented, a bag full of items that I purchased. He had evidence of my credibility, as he knew of the bag I had left behind earlier in the evening. I altered that reality only slightly by including the mint cookies and it still met the manager's approval. The manager failed to understand the layers of deception, however. He didn't know that his memory of the forgotten grocery bag was part of my treacherous plot all along. What gave my story credibility was the false scenario that I created from the beginning.

What does this have to do with big pharma and the APA?

Everything. These organizations have fabricated a version of reality that mental health patients and helping professionals alike are required to accept. That reality has less to do what patients actually need or what is really going on in their lives and more to do with how to efficiently get their money while minimizing liability.

Share a reality that heals, not one that steals

The hidden blessing of my involvement with the Mental Health Underground is that it gave me a chance to share an incredibly useful experience with a few like-minded people that didn't buy into the system. Although I admit some of our experiments were foolish, they pale in comparison to the vast experiments being perpetrated on humankind by those in power who will never feel bad enough to make amends for their stolen cookies. They play for keeps and it is your mind at stake.

Rather than buy into the mental health trip laid out in the DSM, opt for learning how your mind and emotions actually function. Learn to master your own state of being. Discover how to communicate well and how to manage conflict. Learn useful tools, not useless diagnoses! This is the path to health and healing.

Read the full article here: http://www.naturalnews.com/034641_alternate_reality_Big_Pharma_psychiatry.html

The best and cheapest alternative therapy for schizophrenia

2012-01-13T07:35:00.000-08:00

Information about alternative therapies for schizophrenia is cropping up more and more in research journals and in the media, which is a welcome change. In the past, it was almost impossible to find information about schizophrenia except in the medical context of "debilitating and chronic illness requiring life long medication." I have extracted some recent studies that are reprinted below. What I have to say may sound strange coming from someone who has promoted diverse alternative therapies ranging from sound and music based therapies, to drama therapies and cathartic psychotherapies.

Here's my two cents worth. Alternative therapies to treat schizophrenia may not be necessary. Plenty of people I have come in contact with through this blog and from reading recovery stories, have never gone in for orthomolecular therapy, or ridden a horse, or participated in dance or drama therapy. What I would consider the most basic alternative therapy that works for most people is take time out to rest and reflect, and to have the non-judgemental and encouraging support of family or a close friend or friends. I call this basic therapy an alternative one because it is actually contrary to what a lot of people believe. The public mainstream still invests in the idea that schizophrenia is a debilitating, chronic illness that medications can manage. Encouraging growth at home is also contrary to how a lot of people are treating their relative, who they have come to view as having a disease. To quote from the Sheila Mehta/Auburn University study testing whether the belief that a disease view of mental disorder reduces stigma:

In general, the disease view did not improve attitudes, except in terms of blame. It did, however, tend to provoke harsher behavior. In contrast, the psychosocial view induced treatment no different from that toward normal others. The results provide little support for the claim that regarding the mentally disordered as sick or diseased will promote greater acceptance and more favorable treatment.

The therapies I have written about in my blog are icing on the cake. They can help and do help a person to be more at ease in their body and mind (enabling them to stop relying on meds), but all of the work the therapies do counts for nothing if a person sees himself as fundamentally a chronic case or if his family and friends treat him as such. You can practice alternative therapies, but if you return each day to an environment that is critical and unnurturing and which supports your patienthood, all the good they have been doing for you will undone.

So, here are just three of the therapies that are gaining attention. I've quoted the National Post (horseback riding) and The Cochrane Review research for dance therapy and drama therapy.

One doesn’t really expect to see horseback riding and psychiatric illness mentioned in the same sentence, let alone combined as a form of health care. But a recent Canadian study suggests that riding may actually be beneficial for people with schizophrenia. And that is only the tip of the iceberg, it seems, when it comes to horses and treatment.

Dance therapy (also called dance movement therapy) uses dance and movement to explore a person’s emotions in a non-verbal way. The therapist will help the individual to interpret their movement as a link to personal feelings. This review aims to assess how successful this therapy is as a treatment for schizophrenia, when compared to standard care or other interventions. Six studies were identified but five were excluded because there were no reliable data, because they were for a therapy other than dance or because they were not properly randomised. The included study compared 10 weeks of group dance therapy plus standard care, to group supportive counselling plus standard care for the same length of time. It was a community-based project involving 45 people and both groups were followed up after four months.

Drama therapy is one of the creative therapies suggested to be of value as an adjunctive treatment for people with schizophrenia or schizophrenia-like illnesses. Randomised studies have been successfully conducted in this area but poor study reporting meant that no conclusions could be drawn from them. The benefits or harms of the use of drama therapy in schizophrenia are therefore unclear and further large, high quality studies are required to determine the true value of drama therapy for schizophrenia or schizophrenia-like illnesses.

There are several things that I would consider when deciding to undertake an alternative therapy.

1. The words "therapy" and "therapist", when attached to the word "alternative," convey a medicalized view of the so-called illness, even when you do not believe in the medicalized view of the so-called illness. There is a danger with alternative therapies of having your patient status reinforced, especially if the therapy is institutionalized and done in a group. Horseback riding is an example. It's expensive, and probably done in a group for that reason. Group therapy, whatever the kind, has a sheltered workshop aspect to it, the same kind of feeling that you may get from being enrolled, like Chris was, in a hospital program. Chris's and other people his age, found being in the program, humiliating.

Individual or one-on-one therapies or activities don't carry the stigma of group activities when it comes to a mental health diagnosis. One benefit of individual treatment is that the person/therapist may be a guiding light for your relative. This has certainly been the case with Chris. He has benefited from their holistic beliefs in helping to heal a spiritual crisis.

2.Not every therapy is a good choice in the early stages of a crisis. Vitamin therapy is fine in the early stages, and being around animals like a family pet is far less threatening that riding a horse. Chris couldn't bring himself to do voice lessons, for example, until he was better equipped to handle the voice teacher's demanding personality.

3. The therapy or activity should suit the person. Horseback riding seems all the rage as a therapy, but as Rupert Isaacson said in his memoir, The Horse Boy, go with what your relative is interested in. Chris has done lots of therapies, but the common ingredient tended to be music and drama. His art is at the stick figure level, so art therapy wasn't something he pursued.

4. Which brings me around to saying that whatever you do doesn't have to have the word "therapy" attached to it. I dragged Chris through all those therapies because it felt good for me to be DOING SOMETHING about THE PROBLEM (LOL). Someone who wants to draw and paint only needs access to the materials. Anyone can listen to music.

5. It is just possible that your relative will show an interest in something when recovering that will reveal what he or she was put on earth to do. The crisis was a way of showing that the old expectations were the wrong ones. Don't urge your relative to just get with the same old program. That old program didn't work.

"Doc Martin" calls vitamins "placebos"

2012-01-10T00:15:00.000-08:00

Following my post yesterday about the British television show "Doc Martin" and the use of placebos, I deliberately avoided revealing what the placebos actually were in order not to distract from the main points I wanted to raise. The "placebos" that Doc Martin and his predecessor gave the patient were vitamins.

Now, if you, like me, are a fan of another doc, "Doc" Abram Hoffer, you may object to calling vitamins, "placebos." Niacin in very high doses in combination with an equal amount of vitamin C and other B-vitamins, is very effective in reducing psychotic symptoms, anxiety, and increasings one's focus. Ever since I learned about niacin and started giving it to Chris to help his psychosis, I also put myself on three grams per day of niacin,vitamin C, and I added a B-complex and zinc. I got amazing results in just three days. My ability to focus increased about five-fold, my hair got thicker and my skin got smoother. I was less anxious.

People are unique in their nutritional needs. People under stress need much larger amounts of certain B vitamins than they get from eating an otherwise healthy, well-balanced diet. Smoking depletes vitamin C, alcohol depletes the B vitamins, and so on. Don't assume that vitamins are worthless just because someone calls it the placebo effect.

Doc Martin

2012-01-08T06:24:00.000-08:00

Last night the family (parts of it) watched two episodes from the first season of the British television series, Doc Martin. The show is about a London surgeon, Dr. Martin Ellingham, who has developed an aversion to blood and must seek other work in his profession. He is invited to be the general practitioner in a small Cornish town populated with the usual lovable British eccentrics. His lack of people skills when dealing with the locals is the humorous premise for the show.

Readers of this blog may enjoy Doc Martin. Here's why. In one of the episodes, the doctor finally goes to see a man who has been asking that the doctor come to see him. (As a former surgeon, the doctor doesn't make house calls. He expects people to come to his office at a set time on a set date.) Finally, he goes to see man, who lives on a remote farm. The farm house is fenced and gated and there is barbed wire on top of the wall. The man insists that the doctor stay for lunch, but it is becoming clear that he is quite paranoid. He has a friend "Edward," who turns out to be a giant invisible squirrel. Edward has been invited to lunch, too, and a place has been set for him. The man tells the doc that the former doctor in the village gave him a steady supply of a certain medication, and he absolutely must have a prescription from the doctor before the doctor leaves. The doctor, rightly sensing that the man is "squirrely," figures out that that the old doctor gave him benzodiazepines to calm him down. But Doc Martin won't do this. Instead, he gives him a lecture on the damage that long term use of benzos will do.

I'm sorry to say I can't remember what ruse the doctor uses to get off the farm. Further into the episode the townspeople and the doctor come upon the man hacking down some birdhouses in a psychotic frenzy. "He's got post traumatic stress disorder from being in Bosnia," say the townsfolk. "Just give him the tranquillizers, doc -- Old doc so-and so always gave them to him."

As it turn out, the doctor discovers that old doc so-and-so did no such thing. Rather than give the man benzos, the former doctor was giving him placebos. They were were working quite well, until after the old doc died and there was stretch of time when the town had no doctor and no way for the man to access the placebos. So, Doc Martin continues to give him the placebos, and he gets the man's agreement to begin some psychotherapy.

I'm looking forward to seeing more of Doc Martin. It will be interesting to see how much alternative medical thinking will be written into the scrip

Market for schizophrenia drugs may be peanuts, but so is the Risperdal settlement

2012-01-06T05:22:00.000-08:00

From Bloomberg.com

J&J Said to Agree to $1 Billion Accord in Risperdal Sales
Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) will pay more than $1 billion to the U.S. and most states to resolve a civil investigation into marketing of the antipsychotic Risperdal, according to people familiar with the matter.

J&J, the world’s largest health products company, reached an agreement last week with the U.S. attorney in Philadelphia, according to the people, who weren’t authorized to speak about the matter. Negotiations over a possible criminal plea are still under way, they said.

The U.S. government has been investigating Risperdal sales practices since 2004, including allegations the company marketed the drug for unapproved uses, J&J has said in Securities and Exchange Commission filings (JNJ). The company said it has been in negotiations with the U.S. to settle the investigation.

Read the rest here.

Ablechild and breaking the monopoly on psychiatric treatment with medication

2012-01-05T07:55:00.000-08:00

Below is a press release from Ablechild about the prioritizing of issues on the Connecticut Governor's 2012 agenda.

“The most important thing Connecticut can do now is to break the monopoly on psychiatric treatment,” (co-founder Sheila) Matthews says. “Medication shouldn’t be the first option addressing behavioral or learning issues and it certainly shouldn’t be the only one.”

Some readers may question why a press release about the over-proliferation of medication use in the child foster care population is reprinted in a blog on schizophrenia. While it is true that diagnosing schizophrenia in children is still rare, the diagnosing of ADD, ADHD and bipolar (schizophrenia's look-alike twin) has grown by leaps and bounds. Most psychiatrists accept and promulgate the notion that there is a rare psychiatric condition called childhood schizophrenia. Up until now, the public has tended to accept this, just as it has accepted the pharmaceutical companies ' pronouncement that schizophrenics need antipsychotic medication just like diabetics need insulin. Robert Whitaker's book, Anatomy of an Epidemic, revealed that pharmaceutical salesmen promoted this self-serving and false comparison in order to keep people from going off their medication.

I strongly suspect that the push to stop medicating children stops at schizophrenia, which is always upheld as a "special case," just as it is in adults. When the public stops buying into the notion that adult schizophrenia is always a special case, effectively treated by drugs, the childhood schizophrenia diagnosis and the use of drugs to "treat" it will also be questioned. Childhood schizophrenia can be treated and should be treated, like any other childhood emotional disorder like ADD, ADHD and bipolar, without resorting to drugs. Ablechild is doing excellent work. Let's make sure that treating childhood schizophrenia without drugs is part of its agenda.

Ablechild Urges Adding Overmedication of Children in State Care to Governor’s 2012 Agenda

Parent advocacy group to educate State of CT healthcare providers on the over-prescribing of psychotropic drugs to children in foster care.

WEBWIRE – Tuesday, January 03, 2012

WESTPORT, CONN., JANUARY 3, 2012—Ablechild co-founder Sheila Matthews will brief Connecticut State Healthcare Advocate Victoria Veltri today on the organization’s research into the over-prescribing of psychotropic drugs to children in foster care.

The parents’ rights organization is a sitting member of the Connecticut Behavioral Health Committee that reports directly to Governor Malloy. In today’s meeting, Matthews will share data from last month’s ABC News 20/20 report, which Ablechild helped develop. The show provided a first look at a new Government Accountability Report that found:

• Foster children were prescribed psychotropic drugs at rates nearly five times higher than non-foster children.

• More than a quarter of foster children were being prescribed at least one psychiatric drug.

• Hundreds of foster children received five or more psychiatric drugs at the same time, despite no evidence that this is safe or effective.

The meeting’s agenda includes a report on the $29,766,625,000 spent on psychiatric services by Connecticut’s Department of Children and Families, and Ablechild research showing how making educational, language and vision and hearing/speech solutions available can cut costs while enabling true informed consent for parents. “The most important thing Connecticut can do now is to break the monopoly on psychiatric treatment,” Matthews says. “Medication shouldn’t be the first option addressing behavioral or learning issues and it certainly shouldn’t be the only one.”

In a November briefing with Malloy’s legislative aide, Michael Christ, Matthews also pressed for action on Proposed Bill 5007. If passed, the landmark legislation would require the state to inform parents of their rights regarding diagnosis and treatment of behavioral and mental health disorders in children.

Since 2005, Proposed Bill 5007 has remained stalled in the Connecticut Legislative Education Committee subject to reintroduction by long-time committee chair, State Representative Andy Fleischmann. Matthews says, “It’s extremely frustrating that no action has been taken on this bill for over five years while special-interest and industry-backed legislation not only moves through committees rapidly, its backers have been given fast-track access to the legislative process itself.”

Malloy is preparing his 2012 agenda, which will be announced shortly before the legislature convenes in February. “Ablechild is pleased to support Governor Malloy as he sets his course for the year ahead,” says Matthews. “Connecticut was the first state to prohibit schools from recommending the use of psychotropic drugs, three years before it became federal law. We hope Connecticut will continue to show leadership through best-practice guidelines that protect its most vulnerable residents.”

About AbleChild

AbleChild is a nationally recognized nonprofit organization dedicated to parents, caregivers, and children’s rights alike. The organization is a clearinghouse for objective information regarding ADD, ADHD, and other behavioral issues. All services AbleChild provides are free to the public. To learn more, visit www.ablechild.org.

Acting helps soldier cope with post-traumatic stress disorder

2012-01-02T01:24:00.001-08:00

I'm holed up here in my vacation pad (LOL) with only my Blackberry to link electronically to the blogging world. There is an interesting story in ocala.com on the value of acting for overcoming PSTD. Schizophrenia is essentially post-traumatic stress disorder, except the trauma that precipitates the psychosis is the former case is usually less obvious in the latter case. There is a time and a place for acting as part of a person's recovery. As the article states, recovery is individualistic. People have to go with what works for them. My son, Chris, was introduced to acting classes in his two year recovery program, and his psychiatrist observed that Chris really "came alive" in this class. But it was only four or five years later that Chris started to seek out activities that put him on the stage. Recovery is personal. A good approach to it is the holistic one. Try a little bit of everything.

3 New Year's resolutions

2011-12-30T03:58:00.000-08:00

Most of these resolutions have to do with the memoir I have been writing and rewriting going on seven years now. My writing has gotten better, or at least more precise, thanks to the freelance editor who is helping me whip the chapters into shape. Right now I'm working on the chapter on Family Constellation Therapy. I'm a bit like a plumber who has completely torn apart the kitchen sink in order to determine where the leak is. All the sentence nuts and bolts are strewn on the floor and I've got to figure out how to put them back in the right order to avoid taking the chapter apart again.

New Year's Resolutions

1. Finish editing my book.

2. Finish editing my book.

3. Pepper my posts liberally with LOL.

Reason: I've been resisting introducing LOL into my posts 'cause I generally hate using popular and geographically based slang. It's fine for other people who seem to know how to use LOL appropriately. I also fear a sense of humor doesn't come across as well as I would like it to in my writing. Hence LOL. It will also make me look more carefree, almost as carefree as I feel these days.

Oh, yes, and Happy New Year everyone!

The placebo effect and the diagnosis effect

2011-12-29T03:35:00.000-08:00

There is an article in the Dec. 19 edition of The New Yorker magazine about how the placebo effect is gaining new found respectability. The Power of Nothing: Could studying the placebo effect change the way we think about medicine? The subject of the article, Ted Kaptchuk, Director of the Program in Placebo Studies and the Therapeutic Encounter at Harvard's Beth Israel Medical Center, believes that if the patient gets better, not because of a drug, but due to the placebo effect, shouldn't the placebo be considered a useful took in the medical tool kit, as useful as any drug?

The article states that simply believing in the treatment can be as effective as the treatment itself. In several recent studies, placebos have performed as well as drugs that Americans spend millions of dollars on each year.

The New Yorker article started me thinking about how the placebo effect, which we all tend to positively associate with healing, could also be used in the opposite sense - being told you are not going to get better. The placebo effect is often used to demonstrate how amenable the human mind is to suggestion - if people believe they are going to get better, they often do. What then do we make of the mental illness diagnosis, the label that the psychiatrist hands out? The mental health diagnosis, critics charge, opposes the expectation of recovery. The worst mental health diagnosis, the one with the least prospect for recovery (for people who believe what the doctor tells them) is a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

Patients are told by the doctor that they have a life long illness, that can be managed by drugs. They are told there is no hope of being cured. Therefore, the patient correctly internalizes the diagnosis and his actions henceforth tend to uphold the diagnosis. It is my experience that people who reject the diagnosis and/or do not succumb to the medical model of the so-called disease are the ones who cure themselves. Looking at recovery incentives in the hard nosed context of money, the article states: In several recent studies, placebos have performed as well as drugs that Americans spend millions of dollars on each year, one might logically ask, well, why not give schizophrenia patients the equivalent of a placebo - the expectation of being cured? The patient's mind will take over from there.

The diagnosis effect is much more sinister than the placebo effect, at least from what little we know of how the placebo effect is being manipulated in drug trials so far. The New Yorker article IMHO shows that in the future, it is possible that the placebo effect can be manipulated for noble and not so noble ends. The diagnosis effect, when it comes to a mental health label, casts a spell over the patient, his family, and anyone who connects the diagnosis to the patient. I have heard people parrot exactly what the doctor tells them -- that schizophrenia is life long, that not taking meds leads to relapse, that the disease itself, not the effect of the meds or the natural course of the illness at a certain point, dulls the mind. The family begins to treat the patient as a mental and emotional cripple. Whatever the patient may believe about the course of his condition is negatively reinforced every day by the family and others who believe that the original diagnosis is scientifically factual, and not something that can be tweaked by the power of suggestion.

Adults are not harmed by DSM labels

2011-12-23T01:16:00.000-08:00

There is an excellent article by Paula Caplan, Ph.D. in Psychology Today (Dec. 19).

In "Who Will Protest Against the DSM Harm?", Dr. Caplan points out the hypocrisy of some well known psychiatrists who have suddenly (but not really) "seen the light" when it comes to societies most vulnerable citizens (children and the elderly.) We are only too aware that society's vulnerable adults have been harmed for decades by the labels and the drugging, but a petition by The American Psychological Association that is gaining huge momentum tellingly omitted adults from its list of those harmed, until Caplan pointed out this rather gaping hole to the petition's coordinator.

The good news: More people than ever before are learning that psychiatric diagnosis is not grounded in good science and causes a vast array of harm to people who have turned for alleviation of their suffering to those who are called helping professionals. The bad news: The forces keeping the psychiatric diagnosis juggernaut rolling and misleading the public are more powerful than ever.

IMHO, psychiatry's new found zeal to right past wrongs for certain groups is merely sensing which way the wind blows, but it is hoping to keep the public focused on cute children and elderly parents in nursing homes in order to divert attention away from the bulk of its clients, namely adults. Here's a confession of mine, which I think I have already confessed to elsewhere in my blog. If an organization wants to be at the receiving end of warm fuzzies from the public while simultaneously enriching its own bottom line, focus on children. Psychiatry is no different from charities in that respect. What, no adults in need of our support? I ask myself before flicking the remote or failing to drop a coin or two into a cardboard box at the check-out counter. The widely promoted concept of "child poverty" is a particular bugbear of mine. Child poverty, I often snort. Children aren't by themselves poor. They have poor parents. Bah humbug.

Caplan writes:
You may have heard about the petition started by several divisions of the American Psychological Association, who express concern about possible harm to children, adolescents, and the elderly and ask for an external group (the DSM is published by the American Psychiatric Association) to evaluate the proposals for the next edition, called DSM-5. This petition has garnered thousands of signatures and the support of additional American Psychological Association divisions. Although it is wonderful that these brave divisions have at last spoken out about the devastation caused to untold numbers of people over the many decades of the DSM's existence, it is stunning that they would specifically omit mention of harm to adults who are not elderly.

There's lots to ponder in her article. Please read it.

Calling all First Episode Schizophrenia Torontonians

2011-12-22T01:25:00.000-08:00

FIRST-EPISODE SCHIZOPHRENIA
ALTERNATIVE MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT
ONTARIO OUTREACH PROJECT

Raymond J Pataracchia ND, BSc © 2011/2012
Clinic Director, Naturopathic Medical Research Clinic
December 7, 2011

Our outreach project, localized to the geographic catchment of Southern Ontario and US vicinity, aims to provide an advanced drug-free treatment regimen that offers hope for first-episode schizophrenia (FES). First-episode schizophrenia is identifiable in people with consistent psychotic symptoms lasting 6 to 24 months. It is in this FES group that researchers believe early treatment offers the most benefit. Indeed it is in this group that there exists the greatest potential to bring brain chemistry back to a state of normalcy.

We are currently accepting patients for a one year open-label clinical trial (where everyone knows what the treatment is) and we encourage all interested to call our Toronto clinic toll free at 1-877-ORTH-871 or locally at 416-944-8824. Although medical referral is not mandatory, we work with an array of medical professionals and encourage inter-professional collaboration.

In this international outreach effort, the Naturopathic Medical Research Clinic (NMRC), located inToronto, Ontario, will use an advanced drug-free nutrient-based protocol with a central nutrient foundation that has been used successfully over the past half century.

We intend to report on the effectiveness of this unique first-episode treatment method in the sample of patients. Reporting will not only help future research efforts, but will also help society appreciate the value of a drug-free approach considered to offer profound hope.

It is important to note that FES patients taking drug medication can safely and simultaneously use this nutrient-based protocol. In society, we see a high drug drop-out rate in FES. Indeed many patients (upwards of 40%) opt not to take drug medication at all. With this existing demographic sample we aim to determine the comparative effectiveness of an advanced nutrient-based protocol in drug-naïve versus drug-medicated FES. Although the fact that the benefit of using neuroleptic drugs in FES is not established, the majority of modern day psychiatric researchers will assert: 1) that medication benefits outweigh apparent risks, 2) that maintaining medication while implementing an alternate treatment method does not negatively alter results or study validity and, 3) that drug sedative effects play a paramount role in maintaining socially acceptable society decorum.

We all look forward to the day when FES patients will be given the opportunity to live life free of major sedation. The NMRC treatment protocol archive on first-episode and chronic schizophrenia encompasses a comprehensive array of nutrient targeted patient data. Our archive supports the use of an exceptional model of wellness in FES. In considering the protocol of choice in first-episode cases, we have taken into account sixty years of evidence-based archives and a decade of in-house data on alternative clinical treatment outcomes in schizophrenia. The chosen FES protocol is a clinical nutrition vitamin and mineral regimen that combines adjunct thyroid treatment when indicated. The clinical nutrition component is an advanced and novel clinical nutrition (orthomolecular) regimen that addresses core nutrient deficiencies and dependencies. We consider this approach to provide the best treatment outcome scenario in FES.

There will be a comprehensive lab testing component integrated in this trial as we aim to determine the metabolic and biochemical factors that define good responders. There will also be a comprehensive component that assesses symptoms and quality of life functional recovery aspects. An international
outreach effort of this quality will facilitate an understanding of the most effective alternative treatment model for FES, and thereby offer hope to a segment of society that so drastically needs it.

This outreach project is considered an ‘in-house’ open-label research endeavor and as such does not
require grant funding or natural health product regulatory body approval. In this case, under this research design, eligible participants will be required to pay for a portion of assessment and treatment services and supplement costs. A four-part service package fee covers one year of assessment and treatment services. Monthly supplement cost estimates are available and vary depending on body weight and protocol allocation at the 6 month mark. At the 6 month mark, participants are allocated to either the thyroid or the multi-EPA treatment stream, and iron deficient cases are supplemented as indicated.

Eligible Candidates are those who:

i) have a diagnosis of FES or who through a collaborative effort in assessing symptoms are provided with a solid FES diagnosis; participants must be moderate to severely symptomatic and functionally semi-independent in society; diagnostic uncertainty excludes participation but candidates with prodromal symptoms of 1-2 years will be considered for a separate open-label trial with a streamlined treatment intervention;

ii) are on, off, or have never taken neuroleptic medication; if on medication, participants are not to discontinue or withdraw unless directed under psychiatric supervision; if progress is substantial and withdrawal from medication is indicated, this is to be done only as recommended under psychiatric supervision with the aim of maintaining the lowest effective dose to avoid receptor related confounds to treatment outcome (dose reductions should thereby not exceed 15% of the ‘stabilized’ dose ofneuroleptic every 3-6 months during the one year study protocol);

iii) are less than 2 years post-onset at the time of starting the protocol;

iv) are age 18 to 40; those aged 14-17 or 41-55 will be considered for a separate open-label trial with similar treatment intervention;

v) are willing to allow their progress to be documented by providing disclosure to report data on their case up to 5 years post-treatment (anonymity is respected in all cases);

vi) are committed to adhering to the protocol to ensure compliance; participants are excluded if they use other alternative treatments during the one year study protocol; participants must be able to form an alliance with the research team to comply with protocol structure; where possible, patients should be accompanied by caregivers to provide a support network that ensures compliance; a compliance contract is mandatory;

vii) are willing to pay for treatment and participate without subsidization; a heavily discounted rate applies to encourage access to all socio-economic populations; participants must be able to afford transportation to and from the Toronto clinic and other miscellaneous out-of-pocket expenses;

viii) do not have a history of a chronic condition that is a confound to treatment response; for example, active liver disease such as active hepatitis, illicit drug use, alcohol abuse, peptic ulcer, assaultive or flagrant uncooperative behaviour, or moderate to severe destructive behaviour.

____________________
Many thanks to Duane Sherry for spotting this study.

Worth repeating

2011-12-21T02:22:00.000-08:00

Gianna Kali at Beyond Meds has posted some links to the inspiring work of Jungian analyst Maureen Roberts. I wanted to highlight just one of them for this post. Please read the rest of the article for an in-depth shamanic interpretation of schizophrenia.

from Schizophrenia: Your Questions Answered, by Maureen Roberts, Ph.D.

What is Schizophrenia?

A good question, with no simple, short, or straightforward answer, since each sufferer is unique and schizophrenia is a complex phenomenon. In general, schizophrenia is an extremely introverted, psychospiritual mode of perception, or way of relating to the world; or state of consciousness involving (what I have called) 'extreme empathy'. This simultaneous blessing and curse is due to a fragile, fragmented, dead, or lost ego, or conscious personality structure. The normal, ego-enforced boundaries between the self and the world have broken down, such that schizophrenia sufferers - for better and worse - find themselves identifying with everything within their scope of perception. It is because of this ego loss, or 'dis-integration' that psychosis, shamanic initiation and mystical experience are so inextricably bound. The schizophrenic person may appear to family, friends and doctors to be lacking in emotion, but in reality is in a state of intense empathy, such that extreme sensations of joy and fear are usual. Because of their fragile personal boundaries, schizophrenic folk typically see, hear, sense, perceive and understand things that others are unaware of. Secret, or symbolic meanings are seen and heard in everything, and the schizophrenia sufferer typically feels responsible for the fate of the world.

Further reading: "Schizophrenia: The Shaman Sickness" by Sam Malone (former sufferer). Visit his website, which includes testimonies by schizophrenia sufferers. http://www.geocities.com/johnny_crowseed/sands/skzlike.html
(Editor's note: The link provided does not work and I can find no trace of this website on the Internet.)

A Digital Christmas story

2011-12-21T00:15:00.000-08:00

Enjoy this bit of fun. Season's Greetings to all (and to all a good night!)

Welcome Om*

2011-12-20T04:17:00.000-08:00

Our family will be escaping shortly to spend Christmas in a small village about a three hour drive from our city. This post is a bit of a seasonal wrap-up of family events and some observations on my part.

I picked up our youngest son, Taylor, at the airport on Sunday after depositing my husband, Ian, in time to catch his flight. Taylor was exhausted after his transatlantic flight and slept the rest of the day. Then, all three "boys" played video games till midnight. Taylor's got one semester left of university before he takes on the challenges of a job and independent living. Alex, our middle son, is taking time off over Christmas from his current job. He, too, needs the rest. I managed to snag him into replacement ushering (for Ian) at our church but I had to resort to laying some heavy guilt on him. "You live at home, your rent is minuscule, you can offer to help out occasionally," says Mom. Alex doesn't do guilt. Never has. I admire him for that quality. Still, it took some pestering on my part to get him to don at least a sports jacket for the occasion.

On the other hand, we have Chris, who does do guilt, but is getting much better at questioning why he feels he has to take on the burdens of the world. To boost his resiliency in this area and others, Ian and I bought him a pre-Christmas gift - 36 hours of DVD lectures on Why Evil Exists, and 36 hours of lectures on Christian theology. I felt he needed a rush job, to have all his questions answered (LOL) before his first Saturn return 28th birthday in January. If all goes well, according to the Evil description, these 36 lectures offer you the unique chance to approach the subject of evil through numerous lenses and to refine your view of this central question of human life, giving you a broad and deep resource for your own thought and action. (Don't tell Chris, but I also got him The Portable Nietzsche as a gift.) Chris's problem/opportunity is that he thinks too much.)

Despite the guilt feelings, Chris is gaining lots of confidence in his voice. He turned in a strong performance as a soloist during the Nine Lessons and Carols service on Saturday evening.

"I am finding that I like the attention, Mom."
"Great," says Mom. "Keep doing more of what you like."

The first Saturn return period (ages 28 to 30 or so) is a encouraging time for young men who may have been having mental health difficulties up until now. I was heartened to read how well Randye Kaye's son is doing. In her post Randye does a superb job of describing how to support an individual through psychosis with humor.

At its best, humor creates partnership. At its worst, it is ridicule and bullying. The difference is often a matter of simple courtesy, but also a decision based on your sharpest instincts when it comes to those close to you. Tread carefully - but if results are encouraging, then proceed with joy. The results can be amazing.

What Randye describes is the humor variant of concept of Low Expressed Emotion. Although treating a person with respect appears obvious to getting positive results with someone else, in practice, many of us give into our darker impulses and we tear the person down by our looks and comments. In practice, it takes quite a while to learn how to get it right. I like what she writes "if results are encouraging, then proceed with joy." Eventually, continuous respectful treatment becomes second nature to us.

Chris, on his own initiative, is beginning a Transcendental Meditation course. I had been gently suggesting for years that he may find peace in meditation, but, he wasn't emotionally ready to take that step until now. Learning to meditate seems a fitting way to for him to end the year and to enjoy the mysteries of the years to come. I was delighted to read this Beyond Meds post from Will Meecham about meditation and building mental health resiliency:

Ever since starting this blog, I’ve sung the praises of meditation and right attitude as tools for building mental health. Not that many years ago I felt horribly familiar all the adjectives that open this post. I had tried many types of therapy and many different pharmaceuticals without much improvement. Eventually, I turned attention inward and began to work with my thoughts and feelings directly.

By clearing out misconceptions and misperceptions, I found clarity and readiness to accept whatever happens in life. I am not immune to grief and disappointment, but I am much more resistant to despair. Meditation succeeded where medication failed.

_____________
*Om
"The goal which all the Vedas declare, which all austerities aim at, and which men desire when they lead the life of continence … is Om. This syllable Om is indeed Brahman. Whosoever knows this syllable obtains all that he desires. This is the best support; this is the highest support. Whosoever knows this support is adored in the world of Brahma."
~ Katha Upanishad I

Early psychosis intervention programs pay mere lip service to spiritual beliefs

2011-12-19T03:15:00.000-08:00

Is schizophrenia a spiritual illness, as patients often maintain, or is it a brain disease, as the medical profession claims? The OASIS program at the University of North Carolina, like many psychosis programs affiliated with university medical programs, strikes a hypocritical note.

Gianna Kali at Beyond Meds alerted me to a recent newspaper article about the program. (Thank you, Gianna!) I have noticed that the medical profession is now starting to pay at least lip service to the idea that schizophrenia, in the patient's view, is a psycho/spiritual quest. But as you read further into this article it becomes apparent that the staff at the OASIS program completely reneges on the promise to the patient - that they believe him when he maintains that schizophrenia is a spiritual quest. It almost seems like they "tricked" him, because, to the program, it was all about the meds all along.

What is actually happening is that outpatient programs for identifying and treating early psychosis (like the OASIS program) are getting the idea that they should appear sensitive to the client's "delusional" beliefs. This looks innovative and "client centered." So, journalists are fed the following story about hope and recovery, and the staff "accepting" (humoring) the young man (Binanay) in his spiritual delusions, and how outraged the medical director is that the parents of a different boy are given no hope, and we the readers are emotionally sucked into this outrageous idea that there is no hope! We are also being sucked into thinking that the only hope to manage psychosis is through meds.

Binanay was also lucky to be diagnosed soon after the onset of his illness, and to be referred to the Outreach and Support Intervention Services (OASIS) program – administered by UNC’s Center for Excellence in Community Mental Health – in Carrboro’s Carr Mill Mall.

Binanay needed direction; he needed acknowledgement of his perception that what was going on was as much in his heart as his head. It was a profound spiritual experience.

The staff at OASIS was willing to accept that. The importance of mapping an exit strategy of the client’s own design is a cornerstone of the OASIS philosophy. The conviction that there’s hope is another.

Diana Perkins, OASIS’ medical director, describes a recent meeting she had with the parents of an 18-year-old boy in rural North Carolina who had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. They had taken him to a local hospital, and were told by a psychiatrist that their son would never recover – no hope; get used to it. “And it was just devastating,” Perkins says. “Here they had this 18-year-old boy, off in college, and now they’re being given this message. This was a psychiatric hospital; this was a trained psychiatrist.”

The problem, Perkins says, is that psychiatrists often don’t see schizophrenia patients until their illness is advanced. But a commitment to the meds was part of the plan, and that involved a tradeoff – the euphoria for a shot at stability – he wasn’t quite ready to make.

“Clinicians have this bias,” Perkins says, “and they really need to understand that this is not inevitably a chronic, disabling illness, that people can learn to manage it.

Later in the article, OASIS staff seem to have reneged on their promise to Binanany, to respect his belief in the spiritual origins of his so-called schizophrenia.

“His illness took a severe course,” Saade says of Binanay’s struggle with recovery.
“I think David had a hard time coming to terms with the role that medication would play in his life,” Perkins says, “what he needed to do to maintain a sustained recovery, how he was going to manage.”

Maybe Binanay's "illness" took a severe course because he had a hard time adjusting to the diminished expectations that this program offered him and to the side effect of the meds. Maybe Binanay felt tricked. Instead, we have a spokesman for, in essence, a drug rehab program defining Binanay for us in disease terms. Who was on hand to help him with his spiritual issues and to build resiliency without resorting to drugs? As for the OASIS program -- been there, seen it, done it with my own son in a different "innovative" program. The goals and treatment methods were the same -- to keep people on their meds. The results were that my son was on meds, and no alternative treatment that would have worked with his beliefs was offered.

What is OASIS?

OASIS, which stands for Outreach And Support Intervention Services, is an award-winning program dedicated to providing services to adolescents and young adults who are experiencing early psychosis, or who are at risk for developing psychosis. (Ed. note - Psychosis risk syndrome is criticized as being a way to get people on meds early, many of whom might otherwise never go on to develop psychosis.)

Mission

The mission of OASIS is to foster successful recovery from early psychosis and to increase public understanding of psychotic disorders. The program aims to:

•Provide early identification and treatment (Ed. note - This means meds.)

•Prevent relapse (Ed. note - This means meds.)

•Prevent hospitalization (Ed. note - This means meds.)

•Minimize disruption in people's lives

•Support people in the workplace, school, and relationships

•Educate the community and other providers to recognize early psychosis and the importance of early treatment (Ed. note - Maintain and increase the public's belief in meds.)

•Provide educational opportunities for mental health professionals (Ed. note - This means jobs.)

•Provide access to state of the art clinical research programs (Ed. Note - This means you may become a guinea pig for drug trials. You will certainly be fodder for the university medical program with which this program is affiliated. You will be considered a laboratory animal for the scientific interest of the medical students and faculty. How many medical staff offer spiritual guidance?)

Chicago Hearing Voices training

2011-12-15T06:44:00.000-08:00

I received the following e-mail from Len Lempa through the ISEPP discussion group. He has given me permission to publicize his request on this blog.

I am working to put together a group with an interest in bringing a Hearing Voices group training to the Chicago area. If anyone has feedback on the process that you went through in putting a training together in your area I would appreciate your input. Or more importantly if you live in the Chicago area and are interested in knowing more or helping us make this happen I want to get to know you. Or if the moderators of the group or anyone with access to ISEPP membership would be willing to share this with members who live near Chicago it would be appreciated.

Our planning group is in a very early phase of development and it only includes about 5 or 6 people and little or no institutional support yet. I am really looking to network to get a group together that can make this happen. I have connected with a couple recovery specialists out here and their interest level is high but there is still a lot of work to make this happen. We are targetting next April to have it happen. Help needed and appreciated.

Len Lempa
Elgin, IL
Lenlemp@yahoo.com

The Hearing Voices movement founded in Manchester, England, in 1989, and Intervoice, an international online community, are two of several self-help groups based on Dr. Marius Romme’s original work. Members meet to share experiences and learn to recognize that the voices may be expressions of their own subconscious. The emphasis is on personal growth for each individual.

Dr. Romme believes hearing voices is not an illness. The voices are messengers that speak about certain problems that occurred in the person’s life. Trying to kill the messenger by ignoring the voices or by medicating them, often makes them worse, the deep-seated problem is not addressed, and the result is a chronic patient. The difference between patients hearing voices and non-patients hearing voices is their relationship with the voices. People who never become patients accept their voices and use them as advisers. In clinical settings, however, voices are almost always seen as evil messengers and are considered a sign of schizophrenia.

Pharma's sublimal seduction technique

2011-12-14T05:35:00.000-08:00

In 1974 Professor Wilson Key wrote Sublimal Seduction, a book in which he put forth the idea that advertising media embedded sexual images into every day products (most famously ice cubes) in order to subliminally seduce the buyer into - no surprise here - buying.

Perhaps you already can tell where I'm going with this. (Going for a bit of a ramble. Bear with me.) Pharma uses the direct sales approach to sell its products through paid advertising, but the safety and efficacy of its products is being questioned as never before (by scientists, academics, journalists, bloggers) so a different strategy, quite similar, IMHO, to subliminal seduction, is being tried.

Think I'm too paranoid? I may not be alone in my thinking. Concerning the fate of subliminal advertising, Julie Sedivy, Ph.D., earlier this year wrote in Psychology Today, that eventually

The dust settled, public paranoia about advertising practices abated, and in scientific circles, a professed interest in subliminal advertising came to be about as respectable as wearing scarlet lipstick and fishnet stockings to an academic conference—or conducting research about ESP, for that matter.

Then there was a Bush political advertisement where the word "RATS" briefly flashed across the screen when Al Gore's image appeared, prompting Sedivy to write:

A lot has happened in psychological science in the decade since the Bush/Gore election. Weinberger and Westen's study is now only one among many that have found that people's attitudes and behavior can be swayed by cues that they have no awareness of, or that they don't believe to be relevant to their behavior. Here's a fistful of exotic findings from the last few years of research:

John Bargh and colleagues have run dozens of studies in which they've shown that human behavior can be "primed" in various ways—people became more polite after doing puzzles with words that relate to courteousness than with words that are associated with rudeness; they behaved more aggressively after the subliminal flashing of images that evoke stereotypes of aggression (such as the image of a black man); they behaved more altruistically when sitting in a room with a backpack on the table, than in a room with a briefcase.

Print articles and Video News Releases *(VNR) about "recovery" from psychosis are cropping up in great number these days. Embedded in these stories is a brief word, and the word, you guessed it, is "medications." A memorable embedding of this foreign object is the scene in A Beautiful Mind, when John Nash says in an off-hand way - so off-hand that some viewers may have missed it - "I take the newer medications." The fact that Nash actually stopped taking antipsychotic medications decades before was not known by the viewers, who will associate Nash's recovery with the newer antipsychotics.

Pharma gets the drift of the way the winds of change are blowing, so here's how it plans to cling to market share. Companies will stoke the general demand for medications, not for their own brand names. Pharma will do this by feeding the the media and the public recovery stories. In these stories there will be brief testimonials by individuals, family members, or doctors, that medications are an essential part of the picture and the public will think that medications are the entire reason the person is standing in front of you smiling and "recovered." Where the viewer may discount a direct sales pitch from pharma, he or she will warm to a trustworthy individual. Without the public knowing who or what is behind these kind of stories, we are being asked to accept on faith that there is no puppeteer pulling the strings. Of course, sublimal advertising isn't restricted to pharma. Any group can put its message across by subliminal advertising techniques. The key objective is to engage the viewer to become emotionally invested in the recovery story and then "buy" the briefly stated reason for the recovery.

___________________________
*from Wikipedia
Most VNRs feature a professional news reporter, such as Karen Ryan, someone with on-air news experience, or an actor. VNRs also often include interviews with experts (who often have legitimate, if biased, expertise); so called "man on the street" interviews with "average" people; and pictures of celebrities, products, service demonstrations, corporate logos and the like, where applicable. In some cases the "man on the street" segments feature persons randomly selected and interviewed spontaneously, and in other cases actors are hired and directed by VNR producers to deliver carefully scripted comments. In addition, regardless of whether real people or professional actors appear, VNR producers and directors, just like journalists, have complete discretion to excerpt and edit these "interviews" into 'sound bites' that help make the point they are trying to make.

More rubber body parts

2011-12-09T08:00:00.000-08:00

A few weeks ago I wrote about experiments being conducted at Vanderbilt University. The original article appeared in Discover Magazine. In this well-known experiment dating back to a Princeton University party game, a rubber hand is introduced and stroked in time with one of the volunteer's hands while the other hand is hidden under a table. The findings of the Vanderbilt study confirmed its premise that people with psychotic episodes have a weaker sense of self and therefore experienced the illusion more strongly than people of a similar age and background who didn’t have schizophrenia.

Try this, Descartes!

This month's Nature Magazine has an article on neurologist Henrik Ehrsson's research. While what is going on in the laboratory makes for most interesting reading, there is enormous danger with these kinds of experiments done in the name of scientific progress because of the dark science of mind and body control of another human being. Read the article below. See what you think.

It is not every day that you are separated from your body and then stabbed in the chest with a kitchen knife.

But such experiences are routine in the lab of Henrik Ehrsson, a neuroscientist at the Karolinska Institute in Stockholm, who uses illusions to probe, stretch and displace people's sense of self. Today, using little more than a video camera, goggles and two sticks, he has convinced me that I am floating a few metres behind my own body. As I see a knife plunging towards my virtual chest, I flinch. Two electrodes on my fingers record the sweat that automatically erupts on my skin, and a nearby laptop plots my spiking fear on a graph.

Out-of-body experiences are just part of Ehrsson's repertoire. He has convinced people that they have swapped bodies with another person1, gained a third arm2, shrunk to the size of a doll or grown to giant proportions3. The storeroom in his lab is stuffed with mannequins of various sizes, disembodied dolls' heads, fake hands, cameras, knives and hammers. It looks like a serial killer's basement. “The other neuroscientists think we're a little crazy,” Ehrsson admits.

But Ehrsson's unorthodox apparatus amount to more than cheap trickery. They are part of his quest to understand how people come to experience a sense of self, located within their own bodies. The feeling of body ownership is so ingrained that few people ever think about it — and those scientists and philosophers who do have assumed that it was unassailable.

“Descartes said that if there's something you can be certain of in this world, it's that your hand is your hand,” says Ehrsson. Yet Ehrsson's illusions have shown that such certainties, built on a lifetime of experience, can be disrupted with just ten seconds of visual and tactile deception. This surprising malleability suggests that the brain continuously constructs its feeling of body ownership using information from the senses — a finding that has earned Ehrsson publications in Science and other top journals, along with the attention of other neuroscientists.

“A lot of people thought the sense of self was hard-wired, but it's not at all. It can be changed very quickly, and that's very intriguing,” says Miguel Nicolelis, a neurobiologist at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina.

Ehrsson's work also intrigues neuroscientists and philosophers because it turns a slippery, metaphysical construct — the self — into something that scientists can dissect. “We can say if we wobble the signals this way, our conscious experience wobbles in this way,” says David Eagleman, a neuroscientist who studies perception at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas. “That's a lever we didn't have before.”

“There are things like selfhood that people think cannot be touched by the hard sciences,” says Thomas Metzinger, director of the Theoretical Philosophy Group at Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, Germany. “They are now demonstrably tractable. That's what I think is valuable about Henrik's contribution.”

Read the rest of the article here.

I should not have panicked (but I did)

2011-12-08T05:18:00.000-08:00

Or, I could have known sooner, but nobody told me that a schizophrenia diagnosis should not be considered a life sentence.

When Chris was given the diagnosis of doom in Dec. 2003, there was not such a robust on-line community of hardy folk who did not go along with the received wisdom that schizophrenia was a brain disease. Or, if there was such a thriving community, I didn't know about it.

My main point of reference were the doctors whose business it was to believe in the diagnosis. They were a uniformly pessimistic lot. If they actually thought that Chris had a future that didn't involve psychiatric medication, unemployment and sheltered living for the rest of his life, they didn't think to share this information with our family.

My second point of reference were the people who suddenly came out of the woodwork to tell me that their sibling was "schizophrenic," like when you get cancer and suddenly everybody you talk to has had the same cancer. You had no idea these conditions were so prevalent. My acquaintances were all baby boomers, roughly my age, so their sibling was now roughly the same age as us. The conversation usually went something like this:

Me (hopeful): Oh, so your brother has schizophrenia? Will he be flying over here for your third wedding?

They (frightened look, lowered voice): "Oh, no, he doesn't travel very well. He's been living in a group home near my parents for a number of years now. But (trying to be reassuring), I hear that the medications are so much better these days, I'm sure it will make all the difference for Chris."

My third point of reference was the chat group I joined within the first couple of years of the diagnosis of doom. I began to notice how drugged up its members were. They accepted their diagnosis and they seemed to accept five, six or seven drugs to get through the day as a matter of course. Many of them were my age and had been this way for years.

Was I right to panic given the dreadful scenario that was being painted by both doctors and acquaintances? I think so. Unfortunately, my panicking caused me to push Chris into activities for which he wasn't ready. My panicking caused Chris to panic, naturally. This retarded his growth. If someone had reassured me that there was every expectation that Chris would resume a normal life if he was left alone for a few years to figure things out for himself, with no pressure brought to bear on him to do things he wasn't ready to do, then I could have relaxed and learned be more philosophical and patient.

Today it's a different story. Thanks to the Internet and the mounting evidence that puts the diagnosis under scrutiny as never before, there is a shared community of people who know there is a better way. There is becoming a shared understanding of what schizophrenia and how to treat it (needed time out for regrowth).

The stupid diagnosis to begin with, and the fixation of the medical community on using drugs as primary treatment, meant the the good news, which was there all along, was kept from many people who could have benefited from it.

To dream the impossible dream

2011-12-05T05:00:00.000-08:00

Dr. Clancy McKenzie sent his observations about reprogramming dreams to the ISEPP discussion group of which I am a member. Dr. McKenzie has given me permission to reprint his patients' story, which appears below.

My son, Chris, isn't the only person in our family who has learned to direct his dreams. Programming dreams is something I've been doing in recent yearsto help me take control of my life, to realize that I had greater power to influence positive outcomes than I ever thought possible. Chris's crisis left me sleepless and fearful for several years. I would wake up every night from a bad dream and the first person who popped into my mind was Chris, and I immediately felt overwhelming sadness and fear. Today, I don't worry about Chris during the day or when I wake up at night. I do occasionally have anxious dreams. If my dream is a typical anxiety dream about a math exam, I might think to myself, Well, I know I was about to fail that final math exam because I hadn't opened the book all year, but here's what I'm going to do about it to make sure I pass. When I go back to sleep, I'm going to pick up where I left off with that dream. I'm going to hire a tutor and I will pass that exam. (Whether my instructions to myself are realistic about passing the exam at such a late date doesn't matter. Dreams make all things possible.)

Notice in the story below the way Dr. McKenzie gives general instructions to his patients about the content of the dream. Minds and bodies know what to do with the information given to them.

“mommy”

Six months ago a young family was disrupted when the mother suddenly died in a car crash. Left behind are her young husband, a 7½ year old daughter, and a 4 year old son. They were devastated.

I immediately saw them and gave them “programmed” dreams. I instructed the father to have a dream about his wife, decide the dream would not be upsetting, and decide the dream itself would resolve all upset feelings.

I told the 7½ year old that she would have a dream about Mommy that night, the dream would not be upsetting, and in the dream Mommy would take away all her upset feelings.

With the 4-year-old I just said “You can visit Mommy any night you want, during sleep. Tonight she is gong to visit you and take away all your upset feelings.”

The next time I visited with them, the father tried to comfort them by saying “Mommy is sitting right here with us now.” The four-year-old piped up “she’s not sitting, she’s playing.” The following visit the father told me that his son led him to the laundry room that morning, pointed to the washer and said “mommy said you have to take the clothes out of there and put them in over there” (pointing to the dryer). He was stunned. He did the laundry two days earlier and forgot to put it in the dryer.

During the visits the children are very happy, not showing any signs of sadness. The next visit when the man took his son to the restroom, I asked the daughter what her mommy tells her during sleep. She was beaming with joy as she proudly answered: “She tells me I am going to be a very good mommy some day.” When I tried to question her further, she clammed up as though she wasn’t sure she was supposed to reveal what her mommy had said to her.

Months passed. The children remained very happy, playing together and never fussing or fighting. One day the man came in alone and we just began to visit. He spoke about how well the children were doing, and I mentioned a finding I had just made and was very excited about. I realized two studies I had done were sequential, with no other similar studies in between – which meant they were cumulative. The first data was one over two to the 12th power and the second was one over two to the 15th power. They revealed the same thing, but now it was one over two to the 27th power, or one chance in 134,217,728 by chance alone.

This was exciting, but it was as it should be, because one cannot have delayed PTSD without original trauma–even if it is delayed PTSD from infancy (schizophrenia, depression, etc). I told him I was going to send letters to the Senate and to Congress.

Two nights later the little girl brought the portable phone into his bedroom, saying “Mommy wants to tell you something.” He told her to lie down in the bed, which she did, and then she began to speak “Tell Dr. Clancy to send those letters right out; it's very important.” (Her mother addressed me as Dr. Clancy, but the little girl always addressed me as Dr. McKenzie.) The father wrote 1½ pages of notes, part of which were her speaking and part of which were her mother speaking through her. It ended with her mother saying “tell your brother I will see him tomorrow night.” She had no recollection of any of this the next day.

The real shocker came at Thanksgiving. There were twelve family members sitting around the table. None knew of the relationship the children had with their mother, and everyone was taking turns telling what they were most thankful for. When the 7½ year- old girl spoke, she gave a one word answer: “Mommy.” Her brother was next in line and he said: “Mommy.”

No one could speak several minutes. The father’s eyes filled with tears, and he could not speak. He was grateful that he was not the next in line to speak. When the children were not around, he told the other adults that the children dream about their mother.

For 42 years I have had all my patients program dreams, and have not known any to get a wrong answer. There have been more than 400 who programmed a dream about a lost loved one. Usually it is like a visit – geared to help the person overcome grief. There are two articles about miracles of programmed dreams on www.BabiesNeedMothers.com , listed under “WORKS” – for any who might be interested.

Clancy

Two things you can do to keep the spotlight on change

2011-12-04T06:19:00.000-08:00

1. Take the latest research findings and critiques of psychiatric drugs to your doctor

Gianna Kali at Beyond Meds has zeroed in on the Irish Examiner article I posted yesterday and sees a niche marketing developing for psychiatrists who will help their patients get off psych medications. Those psychiatrists who do will have a hard time keeping up with the demand. If you are one of these patients who feels that they would like to try functioning without psych meds, or at the very least reduce the number and dosage, there has never been a better time than now. Only a few years ago, a lot of the information about the effect on the brain of psych meds was suppressed and it was easy for the psychiatrist to point to scientific "evidence" of the need for these medications. No longer need a patient go cap in hand to attempt to convince a psychiatrist that the drugs aren't useful and are actually doing a lot of harm. Now, psychiatrists should be more than willing to listen.

Gianna Kali/Beyond Meds

The article ends with that final statement which I have bolded because the fact is there is a huge niche opening up for psychiatrists and other prescribing physicians who want to take the opportunity. People want and desperately need COMPETENT professional help in coming off of psychiatric drugs. We need prescribers to make the transition easier.

This is an invitation for prescribing doctors to think about stepping up to the plate and perhaps even undoing some of the harm they’ve maybe helped cause.

This is not to be taken lightly. Many people come off meds with relative ease. Some of us, though, become crippled with iatrogenic illness. You will need to educate yourselves. Once you start making it be known that you can help — those of us who’ve been seriously and gravely harmed will start appearing on your doorstep. Most doctors never see (or recognize) us because once they deny our reality those of us who understand what has happened to us don’t hang around to be further abused. The doctors then move forward believing we don’t exist and spread that dangerous misconception to other doctors. It creates a treacherous world for those of us who are very ill with nowhere safe to go.

Please, it’s time that doctors learn how to help us. Some of you have unintentionally helped create the iatrogenesis that is now limiting our lives so much more than any “mental illness” ever did. Please start helping us heal now. We need you.

Some of what I’ve learned about psychiatric drug withdrawal with links to additional resources here: Withdrawal 101.

2. Join the MindFreedom campaign

On Sat. May 5th, 2012, in the spirit of free thought and liberty, MindFreedom is taking itsnonviolent revolution to historic Philadelphia, PA, USA, and to thedoorstep of the American Psychiatric Association Annual Meeting.

The APA is expected to give their blessing to the newest version of their devastating label bible (the DSM-5), and so MFI is going to 'occupy the APA!' This is part of a global peaceful campaign to Boycott Normality.

There will be a counter-celebration, Mad Pride Liberty March, and a Peaceful "Creative Maladjustment Protest." Members and allies will also be holding events in solidarity in other states and countries. Toronto is already on board!

For more information, visit: http://www.boycottnormal.org/

If you live in NYC, you may want to participate in an important public event, moderated by MFI President Celia Brown, in conjunction with the United Nations NGO Committee on Mental Health, on 8 December 2011, marking human rights day, more info here:
http://www.mindfreedom.org/as/act-archives/us/new-york/nyc-human-rights-day

Synthetic sanity: medicating inmates in order to execute them

2011-12-04T06:00:00.000-08:00

Fit to be Killed: Manufacturing Synthetic Sanity on Death Row looks at the likely fate of the Arizona shooter, Jared Loughner.

Eventually the Supreme Court will probably rule on forcibly medicating inmates for the purpose of executing them. It is difficult to be optimistic about the verdict that would be handed down by the Roberts court; the outcome will probably depend upon Justice Kennedy. But whatever the verdict of the Supreme Court Justices, prison physicians can make the difference. All too many of them have long forsaken the fundamental oath of medicine, "Do No Harm." Doctors must stand up against synthetic sanity in substantial numbers, and their professional societies must punish those who breach the doctor's oath. Ultimately, however, there is only one definitive solution to practices like creating synthetic sanity: to abolish the benighted practice of capital punishment once and for all.

Read the full article here:

Today's media grab bag

2011-12-02T02:08:00.000-08:00

It's long over-due and wonderful to see how the news media is picking up on the widespread drugging of children in foster care. I watched the Diane Sawyer clip, but, of course, it was way too simplistic in equating coming off drugs with suddenly becoming an honor student and playing the clarinet. If this is not just a Hallmark feel-good story, the real story is what else happened to this child in the interim?

Further rummaging around on the Internet got me the answer.
Ke’onte, who was on up to four medications at a time during his years in six foster homes, said that therapy has helped him in a way that meds never did. “In therapy, you talk about the deepest thing and it hurts, but you can deal with it better the next time,” he said.Now, he said, he is first chair in clarinet in his school band, participates in cross-country and has three small roles in the school play.“I’m not only more focused in school… I’m not going to the office anymore for bad behavior and I’m happy.”

Hopefully subsequent coverage will show in greater detail what alternative interventions are helping these kids
The Sawyer clip also implied that merely being adopted into a family will do the world of good for a troubled child. We all know it doesn't work like that. A child still has problems and the adoptive parents must deal with them with simultaneously dealing with their own inexperience as parents. Parenthood, adoptive, foster or otherwise, is about the most challenging work anybody can take on. Most of us have good intentions when we first start out on the parenting road, but reality intervenes.

Another public good that more media exposure about childhood drugging of foster children will do is to turn the spotlight on all the non-foster children who are taking the same cocktails of drugs. Children from two parent families, children from single parent homes, adopted children. The foster children exposure will soon start making a lot of people very uncomfortable about their chosen course of treatment. I'm getting so old that I can see what is already happening. The pendulum is starting to swing in the other direction. More crazy excessive things will happen with our newfound zeal to right all the wrongs of the past. And so it goes.

Now, over to Sanjay Gupta. I gotta say I wince when somebody who should know better, titles his news clip "Young schizophrenic shares hope" It's so carnival side show. See the schizophrenic dance and perform tricks! Come on, Sanjay. You are perpetuating the use of schizophrenia as an adjective to describe a set of behaviors that almost nobody with that label shares with another person with the same label. Alright, maybe if we gave the label "manic depressives" back to schizophrenia's look-alike sibling ―people with bipolar disorder ―would I be more accommodating of the word "schizophrenic." "Young manic depressive shares hope" Young bipolar shares hope? Since there is no medical test for schizophrenia, Dr. Gupta is reinforcing to the viewing audience that schizophrenia must be like diabetes, and we know that Robert Whitaker's book has exposed that myth. Apart from diabetes and schizophrenia, what other "tics" are used to describe people in the medically approved lexicon? There are fewer and fewer* once manic depressives got a face lift. It's like trying to find an English word that rhymes with "orange."

*narcoleptic, epileptic

I was delighted to read this quote from the Irish Examiner

Speaking to the Irish Examiner, Dr Browne, now a counselling psychotherapist, said there is so much evidence about the dangers of psychiatric drugs that it cannot be ignored. . . .

"We don’t have alternatives in place for people and drugs are damaging long-term. We need to treat people as humans and not patients who have a long term sickness. And we shouldn’t call what we do ‘treatment’.

There is no way I can say to a person ‘I will treat you and make you better’. I can only guide the person. They themselves have to do the work."

Dr Browne said 60%-80% of his work is helping people to slowly get off drugs. "At the moment I can’t keep up with the numbers of people trying to come and see me."

The mental-health-bloggers Daily

2011-11-30T05:27:00.000-08:00

From what I know about this publication that appears in my in-box everyday, it's a great initiative. The mental-health-bloggers Daily is the brainchild of Tina Gibbons, of the mind sanctuary (helping you find peace of mind)

The brain's self healing process

2011-11-30T02:02:00.000-08:00

I've been feeling exceptionally good since my brief seven minute exposure on Sunday to Lucia, the Lucid Light Stimulator. Slept well — two nights ago I slept for ten hours straight and woke up feeling relaxed and buoyant. I walk to work and marvel at the colors of the leaves, the grass, the passing cars. Focusing on the colors distracts me from cramming my mind with the usual mundane nagging thoughts.

The brochure describes the hynogogic light experience this way:

Extreme circumstances - i.e. during a near-death experience, competitive sport, or deep meditation - are able to set physical and mental regeneration processes in motion. This can lead to a realignment of the entire organism.

In this context, multi-disciplinary research in the 1980s was able to prove a significant increase of quality of life and spontaneous healings.

The cause for these changes taking place was described as a confrontation with a very bright light.

The Viennese neurologist and founder of Logotherapy and Existential Analysis, Viktor E. Frankl, (1905- 1997), described the mental dimension of a human being as a dimension in which disease is not experienced.

The hypnagogic light experience taps into this source of well-being in the light.

"I felt how the warmth of the light enveloped my body and filled my inner self with every breath I took. It seemed like boundaries between my body and soul dissolved." (Client describing his experience with the hynogogic light treatment)

Lucia No. 03 presents the access to a high performance neurostimulator, which facilitates the EEG wave pattern that usually only shows up after years of practicing meditation,. After only one treatment one will experience an intense and incredible effect.

The hypnogogic light experience is effective without having to engage in prolonged practice:

a quick and sustainable deep relaxation
an out-of.body experience
a spiritual or inter-dimensional experience
experience of time and space having no importance
allowing self to slow down
increase of mental abilities
increase of awareness

The hypnogogic light experience is effective in clinical therapy for

fear and depression
traumatic and mental symptoms
pain
addictions (intervention and therapy)
life crisis
burn-out syndrome
sleep disorders
sexual disorders including lack of libido

http://www.lightattendance.eu/
IMPRESSUM AND (c) LIGHT ATTENDANCE GMBH, CLAUDIAPLATZ 1, 6020 INNSBRUCK, AUSTRIA; 20110829

A convenient label?

2011-11-29T14:06:00.000-08:00

The life of Anders Behring Breivik.

My love affair with Lucia, the Lucid Light Stimulator

2011-11-28T03:07:00.000-08:00

On Sunday my husband Ian and I attended a hands-on demontration of Lucia, The Lucid Light Stimulator created by Dirk Proekl and Engelbert Winkler.

Dirk Proeckl is a neurologist as well as psychologist working in his own medical practice in Wörgl. Tirol, Austria. His special interests focus on the interaction between psyche and nervous system. He has studied multimodal psychosomatic rehabilitation of migraine; the distribution of neurotransmitters within the central nervous system; the readyness potential in he electroencephalogram and dipol source analysis of color-evoked potentials and of epileptic potentials in the electroencephalogram. In recent years he has worked in collaboration with Engelbert Winkler on the topic of optimizing their methods to achieve the state of Hypnagogic Light Experience, including the implications for understanding synesthesia.

Engelbert Winkler is a clinical psychologist, psychotherapist, and legal consultant for children's and youth´s issues with his own practice in Wörgl, Tirol, Austria. In 1994 he founded a family counseling institute named Kooperative Familienberatung. He studied philosophy, pediatrics and psychology in Innsbruck. He is also certified through further study in existential analysis, hypnotherapy and other disciplines. He is particularly interested in the neuronal basis and effects of Near Death Experience as well as the development of new uses of the Hypnagogic Light Experience. In recent years he has been collaborating with Dirk Proeckl on the topic of optimizing their methods to achieve the state of Hypnagogic Light Experience and expanding their knowledge of resulting neurophysiological and psychological processes (including the implications for understanding of synesthesia).

Here's what Lucia does:

Lucia Nr. 3 is a neurostimulation lamp which allows the person who is exposed with closed eyes to the lamp to enter immediately into a profound trance which otherwise can be achieved solely after many years of meditation practice, through psychedelic drugs, or through stimulus deprivation, etc.

The computer-operated interplay of its light sources activates a large variety of experiences (the vision of intensive worlds of color and shapes, the impression of existing without a body/immaterialness, etc.) and allows for an individual light experience which is every time anew highly impressive.

Lucia Nr. 3 induces a transcendental experience which otherwise occurs only under extreme conditions like high performance sports, through consumption of entheogen substances or at the onset of death. The neurostimulation lamp opens completely new perspectives for therapy and self-awareness.

Here's my experience:

I spent a total of seven wonderful minutes with Lucia. For the first two minutes, I closed my eyes and the light was beamed at me in alternating frequencies. Dirk P asked me how I feeling after two minutes, and did I want to go full tilt for the next five, or tone done the frequencies a bit? Despite being a bit uncomfortable at one point during the two minutes, I reasoned with myself and decided not to hold back from experiencing the many frequencies of the next five minutes. The full kaleidoscope of unusual colors and molecular shapes merged and separated in a colorful, harmonic ballet. I let myself "go" and enjoyed the feeling of what space travel must be like, exploring new worlds, eager for the views. I felt incredibly relaxed after my brief session.

The picture could just as easily have been disturbing. Ian reported that he was quite uncomfortable with his Lucid Light experience at one point, and felt that he didn't want to go to a dark place. Yet, Ian, too, would gladly sign up again for this experience. Engelbert said that the dark is equally valid to the light and both are part of us. We tend to run away from what is uncomfortable but it is better to understand what makes us uncomfortable so that we can challenge ourselves to overcome it. Lucia is helpful for anxiety, depression, addictions and most mental health issues. The light stimulator can be enjoyed on its own for the experience but also clears the way for people to be open to more conventional therapy that may not otherwise have worked for them. Engelbert cited the cases of two young boys who were suicidal and were not willing to talk with therapists. Lucia "opened" up or unblocked their resistance and they were then able to make progress through more conventional therapeutic means.

My notes from the lecture

• Ancient Greek mystery cults used flickering lights and candles to change consciousness

• Light is consciousness

• Can enter into the same state of consciousness by looking at bright light or the sun

• The lamp is like taking a fast elevator to a deeper state of consciousness

· Goal of this short term therapy is to get out and experience life; when one encounters stressors, focus on a light source (the sun, a flame) and reactivate the emotional feelings that one experienced with Lucia

· Difference between Lucid Light Stimulator and taking LSD is that you cannot stop the experience with LSD - you have to let the effects of the drug wear off, but you can stop the experience any time with Lucia

• Health is a state of consciousness and not just the absence of disease (the sun always shines despite the presence of clouds - you can be "ill" and still healthy and vice versa)

• Physics - the process of observing is the process of creating

• It is how you perceive the so-called problem that makes all the difference

• Victor E. Frankl - the level of behavior/level of attitude - the most important need is for self-distance*

*Everything can be taken from a man or a woman but one thing: the last of human freedoms to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances, to choose one's own way.

Viktor E. Frankl

*When we are no longer able to change a situation - we are challenged to change ourselves.

Viktor E. Frankl

How to recover

2011-11-26T23:40:00.000-08:00

Components for Recovery: The Seven Talks

Schizophrenia: A Blueprint for Recovery provides a series of components for recovery beginning with the building of psychosis, moving through recovery and rejoining mainstream society, and into drawing potentially profound spiritual lessons from one’s journey.

Please keep in mind that these talks about schizophrenia are intended to help family members, friends, and practitioners understand how to work with people with schizophrenia. They are not intended to be viewed by people are in psychosis or who were hospitalized in the last twelve months. Viewing these talks may help people who are clearly past the psychotic phase of the illness, but only if they are clearly past that phase.

Components for Recovery is a series of talks given by Milt Greek, the subject of the New York Times Lives Restored article that I linked to yesterday. The talks are available here.

Milt Greek is not a doctor or therapist; he is an expert in his own experience.

Psychiatry bears much of the blame

2011-11-26T07:44:00.000-08:00

Patients have been saying for years that their delusions are meaningful, but psychiatry hasn't listened. Psychiatry, favoring the chemical cure for reasons we are only too well aware of, turned its back on the likes of Carl Jung and Joseph Campbell, and let psychologists, non-medical therapists and their former patients do the job of finding meaning in madness. As New York Times Lives Restored article notes, there is a movement now to take back one's "delusions" from the authority of psychiatry. Psychiatry dropped the ball decades ago and actively discouraged people from getting better. Psychiatry became part of the medical/pharmaceutical/industrial complex that oversold the virtues of antipsychotic medication while underselling, or outright discouraging, talk therapy and other forms of innovative help. What a collosal waste of human potential! Let's not give the ball back to them.

Lives Restored

Finding Purpose After Living With Delusion

Doctors generally consider the delusional beliefs of schizophrenia to be just that — delusional — and any attempt to indulge them to be an exercise in reckless collusion that could make matters worse. There is no point, they say, in trying to explain the psychological significance of someone’s belief that the C.I.A. is spying through the TV; it has no basis, other than psychosis.

Yet people who have had such experiences often disagree, arguing that delusions have their origin not solely in the illness, but also in fears, longings and psychological wounds that, once understood, can help people sustain recovery after they receive treatment.

Now, these psychiatric veterans are coming together in increasing numbers, at meetings and conferences, and they are writing up their own case histories, developing their own theories of psychosis, with the benefit of far more data than they have ever had before: one another’s stories.

Mime and pantomime: new movie The Artist makes a statement

2011-11-25T01:24:00.000-08:00

If you are looking for some real entertainment this week-end, I highly recommend seeing the new silent movie, The Artist. Here's an extract from L.A. Times film critic Kenneth Turan's review:

Far from embracing the most modern cinematic techniques, "The Artist" is a glorious throwback, a black-and-white silent movie that manages the impossible: It strikes an exact balance between the traditions of the past and the demands of the present, managing to be true to the look and spirit of bygone times while creating the most modern kind of witty and entertaining fun. Look on this work, ye mighty of Hollywood, and rejoice........

...Key to the success of "The Artist" is the work of its two French stars. Dujardin and Bejo, bursting off the screen like irrepressible Roman candles, give performances that are both subtle and incandescent, reminding us of the truth of silent star Norma Desmond's famous "Sunset Blvd." line, "We didn't need dialogue. We had faces."

Luckily, I've already seen this wonderful film, so tomorrow night I'm off to see Chris sing and hoof his way through the Christmas pantomime Jack and the Beanstalk. For those of you unfamiliar with pantomime, first of all, it's not MIME (e.g. Marcel Marceau or the silent movie) — there's plenty of singing and dancing that centers around a very loose interpretation of a fairy tale, a fractured fairy tale, in reality. I went to a couple of lavish pantos in Canada years ago that that cost a small fortune to stage. That can be a problem, depending on the venue. You'd like to bring the children, but the cost almost guarantees that the audience is composed mainly of adults. The pantomime is known for certain conventions - men playing the part of women and vice versa, very risqué double entendre, hissing and booing when the villain walks on stage, lots of audience participation. Great fun. In bigger budget pantomimes, such as the Canadian one, it's customary to invite a well known person to take one of the lead roles. The opera singer Maureen Forrester and Manuel, the butler from the British television series Fawlty Towers, made appearances. Another convention is to tailor some of the humor to the local political scene, as is done in Gilbert & Sullivan productions.

Jack and the Beanstalk

The Kingdom of Absurdia is broke — its citizens are fearful of the evil Giant and his even more evil sidekick, Slimeball. These two are causing havoc, demanding money and taking hostages. It is also rumoured that the Giant likes to eat people — especially children! When Jack’s true love, the beautiful Princess Rose, is captured he sets out to save her, assisted by his dodgy bunch of helpers. With Jack and the Beanstalk GAOS brings you a really traditional family show, complete with magic beans and a pantomime cow.

The listening cure

2011-11-23T04:27:00.000-08:00

From the mouth of actor Viggo Mortensen and The Daily Beast

“The idea of confession without judgment and helping through love–love being listening–is essentially what both Jung and Freud were talking about,” he continued. “And whether it’s a psychoanalyst, a director, a parent, or a friend who listens, that’s one of the greatest gifts you can give. To just listen.”

Viggo Mortensen on Playing Freud in ‘A Dangerous Method’

Mortensen goes against type to portray Sigmund Freud in David Cronenberg’s new film. Chris Lee talked to the alpha-male action hero about what made him put down his dukes for the role.

The error of science when it comes to schizophrenia

2011-11-23T03:28:00.000-08:00

This is an essay I wrote for the M.O.M.S Movement, a MindFreedom.org sponsor.

My son's story is not nearly as dramatic as some of the other mother's stories here on this website. He has not been incarcerated in prison due to his behavior, nor has he spent years on a cocktail of powerful antipsychotic medication prescribed in too high doses. My son's story is typical of what often happens to sensitive, intelligent young men who leave the family nest for the first time and are not prepared to do so. This leaving home period often occurs around the age of 18 when the individual attends university or enters the military.

My son left home at 18 to begin university. His increasingly odd behaviour began to raise concerns for his father and me during his last year of high school. Like many other parents, we were worried and perplexed, but hoped for the best — that he would find his footing at university and return to being the sensitive, intelligent son we thought we knew. But, of course, life doesn't work that way. My son ended up in a psychiatric hospital in Toronto during the first term of his second year at university. He had barely managed to survive the first year, and was put on academic probation. The psychiatrists at the hospital said he had "schizophrenia" and my husband and I took them at their word. The diagnosis was devastating, and negatively informed the way we interacted with my son for the next few years. After all, he had a damaged brain, according to the doctors, he was most likely a chronic case, and the drugs were the best way to manage this “disease.” For the record, my son did not smoke pot or indulge in other recreational drugs. His was a classic case of young man's schizophrenia that is not drug related.

Back home in Europe, we enrolled my son in a two year psychiatric day program that he reluctantly attended every day from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. At first, my husband and I thought a medically-supervised program was a great idea, but then the cracks began to show when I decided to learn more about the “disease” of schizophrenia.

Here's what I learned from the author Hermann Hesse, for example:

The mistaken and unhappy notion that a man is an enduring unity is known to you. It is also known to you that a man consists of a multitude of souls, of numerous selves. The separation of the unity of the personality into these numerous pieces passes for madness. Science has invented the name schizomania for it.

Rather than treating my son as encompassing a multitude of souls, or numerous selves that needed to come together into some sort of coherent whole, the program attacked him with the zeal of all that the Western medical/pharmaceutical industrial complex could offer. This superficial treatment included cooking classes, movement classes, acting classes, group therapy, and of course, medications. There was a large staff of social workers, psychiatrists, nurses and occupational therapists to oversee the activities. The program's approach sounds very good (money is being spent on the problem!), but I began to feel that my son as an individual was being sacrificed to the goals of program overseeing his treatment. My son surely must have had good reasons for going “mad” and the staff at the day program didn't seem very interested in finding out why his personality had come unravelled in the first place. After all, there is no reason to investigate individual cases if “schizophrenia” is a known biochemical imbalance and your salary is dependent on promoting the disease model, is there? He left the day program after twenty-two months, as much of a mystery to the psychiatrists when he left as when he entered. Though he was marginally better he was still not able to interact socially and was grossly overweight due to the medications.

The rest is history. My research told me that my son could be put back together again with time, with empathy, and by finding therapies for him that helped his body reconnect with his mind. I learned to focus on the person, not the disease. Remember — the original diagnosis stops many people in their tracks and they don't look further for help because they have "bought" the invalid disease model. I started a blog, Holistic Recovery from Schizophrenia: A Mother and Son Journey and am hoping to publish a mother's memoir where I discuss the many unusual and highly interesting alternative therapies that my son and I embarked on.

My son is now 27 and is not the person my husband and I hoped we would get back when he was 18 and this ordeal was just beginning. That person wasn't a real person. My son is becoming an authentic personality. He started out in university thinking (but without passion) that he was headed for a career in science, and in the intervening years he has rediscovered a talent that he was ignoring in himself and that is music. I'll end this discourse with the remainder of the above quote from Hermann Hesse that explains the error of the scientific model of this so-called disease.

This error of science has many unpleasant consequences, and the single advantage of simplifying the work of the state-appointed pastors and masters and saving them the labors of original thought. In consequence of this error many persons pass for normal, and indeed for highly valuable members of society, who are incurably mad; and many, on the other hand, are looked upon as mad who are geniuses...This is the art of life. You may yourself as an artist develop the game of your life and lend it animation. You may complicate and enrich it as you please. It lies in your hands. Just as madness, in a higher sense, is the beginning of all wisdom, so is schizomania the beginning of all art and all fantasy.

― Hermann Hesse, Steppenwolf

Snow White

2011-11-17T05:28:00.000-08:00

For the past year Chris has made leaps and bounds socially. He has joined several choirs and amateur theatrical productions and is busy with these activities every night and increasingly, on the week-ends. It's his days that hold no promise. Other than shopping, cooking for the family, and keeping his appointments with Dr. Stern and the occupational therapist, he has nothing to do to fill them. Ian and I know that Chris is well, but we have deliberately avoided rocking the boat. We tell ourselves to be patient. We hope that Chris will eventually decide for himself that his day situation is intolerable. I've noticed that men who have recovered from the condition called schizophrenia often report that they began to take steps to change their lives beginning around the age of 28 (the first Saturn return).

The other day Ian and I left for work, as usual, and Chris waved us off at the door, as usual. I said to Ian as we drove away, “Don't you think Chris being home all day has gone on long enough? Shall I contact the occupational therapist and tell her to get going on helping Chris find a job?”
"Go for it,” said Ian.

I sent an e-mail to the OT saying that Ian and I felt it was high time Chris became a useful member of society and begin by getting a job. I said we would have preferred that he go back to university or take some intense training course, but he didn't seem ready for that step, because, if he was, he would have initiated the process by now.

I spent the remainder of the day wondering if I had done the right thing by putting pressure on the OT. What if Chris really isn't ready for a job?

I got my answer that evening after I got home from my yoga class. Chris arrived home shortly after I did.

“"Chris, wasn't your rehearsal tonight?”

“I didn't go,” he said, his voice sounding tired. “I bought the train ticket but I just couldn't go.”

“Well, why not?”

“"I was inside all day and I didn't do anything, and I just couldn't muster up the enthusiasm at the end of the day.”

“Did you spend your day in fantasies?”

“No. I don't do that anymore. They aren't so interesting.”

Well, that was a relief, not that I am worried that Chris will slip back into psychosis, but I still felt I needed to check.

So, we sat down and talked. By now, I was glad that I had contacted the OT.

“Chris, I fully understand how bored you must be at home all day. It's draining. I've been there myself when I was unemployed. The less I did, the less I wanted to do, the less I thought I could do. Don't you think it's about time you got a job? You need the stimulus of routine and people during the day because you have got to the point where you are very sociable and need more company. You have made great strides, you are basically "normal" now, you have great potential and there's no reason why you can't make an enormous contribution to the world, but you need to get out and start to be productive.”

Chris brightened. Hearing me say this was a huge relief to him.

“There's one thing, though, Chris. You are still waiting for life to choose you, you are kind of like — apologies for not having a male equivalent — a princess in a fairy tale who is waiting for a handsome prince to wake her up out of her dream state. Just because you are intelligent and talented doesn't mean that somebody is going to define you and tell you what you should be doing the rest of your life. Life doesn't work like that. Learn to take chances and not fear failures. In the past you just collapsed when life started putting pressure on you.You're much stronger today than you were then, so now it's time to take action, and not intellectualize too much about whether it's the right action. If you don't mind, I'm going to start getting on your case more about developing a daily schedule and sticking to it. I don't want you missing any more rehearsals because you haven't been busy enough during the day. ”

End of lecture

Overtreatment

2011-11-17T04:40:00.000-08:00

From the Globe and Mail In medicine,sometimes it's better to do nothing

In the seminal work of satire The House of God, author Samuel Shem provided a list of commandments for good medical care. The infamous 13th Law of the House of God was: “The delivery of good medical care is to do as much nothing as possible.” Yet, since the book’s publication in 1978, overtreatment has reached such tragicomic proportions that the satire has melted away, leaving only age-old wisdom. It’s as if we have come full circle back to Hippocrates, who said: “To do nothing is sometimes a good remedy

Are you there Agent? It's me, Mother.

2011-11-14T04:24:00.000-08:00

I know this excuse is getting old, fast, but the reason why I'm merely passing on information these days is because I continue to work on edits on Holistic Recovery from Schizophrenia: A Mother and Son Journey. It's been exactly three months since I sent the book proposal to the agent.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

In the meantime, I blog, I edit, I Twitter, but I'd prefer some solid evidence from an agent that my memoir has a universal appeal.

ABILIFY = DISABILIFY Thanks to Bristol Myers Squibb for a "wonder drug" that may only be better than a placebo. Andy Behrman, a former spokesman for Abilify and Bristol Myers Squibb, and author of ElectroBoy: A Memoir of Mania, discusses his side effects from Abilify, the "wonder drug" of Bristol Myers Squibb. From YouTube

Are Psychiatric Medications Making Us Sicker? Read yet another article on this subject here.

Louise Gillett recounts her reaction when she went to a Rethink meeting recently in London.She raises some interesting questions about how independent these organizations really are, and how little objection was raised during the meeting to the medications. But I have the feeling that a lot of sufferers and their families are accepting the label and the medication because they come with the safety net of the benefits.

The selling of OxyContin

2011-11-13T06:11:00.000-08:00

From: The National Post (thanks to Liz for passing this along)

It was a pleasant, informative break from the grind for a crowd of local doctors: lunch and a series of lectures at Vancouver’s chic Four Seasons Hotel, all presented free by Purdue Pharma, which had just rolled out a new pain drug called OxyContin.

The specialists Purdue paid to speak at the 1997 forum, including Toronto’s Dr. Brian Goldman, who now hosts a popular CBC-Radio show, encouraged doctors to overcome fear of such “opioid” medicines and consider them even for patients with chronic non-cancer pain.

Similar, Purdue-sponsored talks were held across the country in the following months and years, while sales reps fanned out to visit family doctors and others, promoting the drug’s continuous-release convenience and its supposedly low potential for abuse

Read the rest here.

More about fish oil

2011-11-12T08:49:00.000-08:00

Fish Oil May Aid Against Manic DepressionStudy Attributes Dramatic Improvement in Patients to Omega-3 Fatty Acids in Supplements
By Marc Kaufman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 27, 1999; Page Z07
Scientists believe they have found a surprising new ally in their efforts to understand and treat the sharp mood swings of manic depression--the fatty acids of fish oil.
A Harvard University clinical trial of 44 patients suffering from manic, or bipolar, depression had such positive results with fish oil that the experiment was stopped after four months and all patients were put on a treatment of 14 capsules per day.
"The group taking the fish oil was performing strikingly better than the placebo group, including significantly longer periods of remission," said Andrew L. Stoll, director of the Psychopharmacology Research Laboratory at Harvard Medical School/McLean Hospital. "A decision was made to stop the trial on ethical grounds."
Based on those promising findings, Stoll said, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) has given preliminary approval for a larger fish oil trial starting this summer. That trial, at McLean and Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, would include 120 people suffering from manic depression and would last for three years.
"If this works, it would be one of the most exciting findings in psychiatry in the past 20 years," said Jerry Cott, chief of the psychopharmacology research program at the National Institute of Mental Health. "This is the first time we would be testing a nutritional supplement that appears to be having efficacy about to the degree of a synthetic medication."
"This could give us real insight into what is the basis of this psychiatric disorder," Cott said. "Right now, we have no clue what it's really about."
In the Harvard study, all the patients continued on their other medications. About half were also treated with fish oil capsules, while the others got olive oil as a placebo. According to Stoll, 11 of the 15 patients taking the fish oil improved after four months, and only two had a recurrence. Six of 20 on the placebo responded positively, he said, and 11 had a relapse. Some patients were not counted because the trial was stopped before they had completed their four-month treatment.
Details of the study will be published in May in a major medical journal.

Read the rest here.

The Brain Bio Centre
Food for the Brain

At the Brain Bio Centre, the best results we’ve seen in helping those with schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders are achieved by investigating a number of possible avenues. These include:
• Blood sugar problems made worse by excess stimulant and drug use
• Essential fat imbalances
• Too many oxidants and not enough antioxidants
• Niacin (Vitamin B3) therapy
• Methylation problems helped by B12 and folic acid
• Pyroluria and the need for zinc
• Food allergies
Quite apart from these nutritional factors, having good psychological support and a stable home environment make a major impact upon those with mental health problems.

Thanks to Duane Sherry for suggesting these links.

Gut and Psychology Syndrome (GAPS)

Words fail me

2011-11-12T01:57:00.000-08:00

Child Cholesterol Tests Are Urged

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Published: November 11, 2011

Every child should be tested for high cholesterol as early as age 9, surprising new advice from a government panel that suggests screening children in grade school for a problem more common in middle age. The panel urges cholesterol screening between ages 9 and 11 — before puberty, when cholesterol temporarily dips — and again between ages 17 and 21. The panel also suggests diabetes screening every two years starting as early as age 9 for children who are overweight and have other risks for Type 2 diabetes.

Astonishing modification to McGorry study

2011-11-11T04:52:00.000-08:00

This article appeared in The Psychiatric Times on Oct. 28, 2011. Treating Mental Illness Before it Strikes details the efforts of the psychiatric community throughout the twentieth century and the beginnings of this century to identify and treat young adults before they become psychotic. Most recently we have heard about the debate on the proposed insertion of a new category of disorder —psychosis risk syndrome — into the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM V), and of Dr. Allan Frances's outspoken views on this subject. Some of us have also read about the proposed McGorry medical trial in Australia, which was heavily critized on ethical grounds because the trial involved putting youth as young as age 15 (most of whom would never go on to develop psychosis) on antipsychotics if there was evidence of a family background of psychosis.

In June 2011, a number of Australian newspapers reported that a high-profile medical trial targeting psychosis in young adults would not go ahead. It was to be conducted by Prof. Patrick McGorry, who had been Australian of the year (an honorary and mostly symbolic title bestowed by the Australian government on an unusually deserving citizen advocating worthy causes). In the proposed trial, youths as young as age 15 would receive Seroquel (quetapine) when they were first diagnosed, not with psychosis but with attenuated psychosis syndrome (previously called psychosis risk syndrome). Treating young adults with this syndrome would nip the danger in the bud—their potential psychosis would be treated before it even arose. The trial was to have been sponsored by the drug’s manufacturer, AstraZenaca, which, like many pharmaceutical companies, was probably eager to test its medication on a younger age group to expand the market for its medications. What could be wrong with such a commendable initiative?

The final paragraph of the article reveals that

Dr McGorry has introduced a slight modification to his study, which will now go ahead. Instead of Seroquel, he will now test the efficacy of fish oil.

Slight modification? This is huge! To favor conducting a medical trial with fish oil rather than with Quetiapine (Seroquel) is astonishing, not least because the drug manufacturer is now out of the picture. Fish oil is becoming popular for its purported benefits in preventing schizophrenia (and depression). Will fish oil be found to do all that its proponents claim it does or will it be found to be ineffective in preventing psychosis? Wouldn't a rather simple solution be to study the prevalence of schizophrenia in Inuit populations where the diet is high in fish oil? Studies show that rates of schizophrenia are pretty much the same (about 1%) in any culture in any part of the world, with some anomalies due to e.g. migration of certain populations. Will this new McGorry trial be properly executed? I have read that, as with niacin and vitamin C, the effectiveness depends on a dosing amount many times in excess of what is considered daily recommended intake.

Read more on the McGorry controversy here.

Inuit eating frozen fish

Occupy the opposition's blogs

2011-11-09T02:22:00.000-08:00

Here's an idea which springs from my own discouragement that there is no civil debate anymore. We bloggers tend to cluster around our own, patting like-minded bloggers on the back and roundly condemning the opinions of others who, of course, rarely venture onto our blogs. It's like all debate these days has been reduced to people bellowing at each other sideways. It won't be heard.

I think it all started with e-mail. Whoever thought it was really cool to just launch into the message without the nicety of starting with Dear So and So, and ending with Your Most Humble Servant? Some twenty year old tech geek, no doubt. I had to take my own sister to task. She works for a major hardware manufacturer and I guess this is how she deals with her supply chain, but really, I thought I was always in her dog house by the way she launched right into her e-mails. I reminded her to say Dear Rossa and to sign off with.... at least her name. That worked for about a week. I myself slip up on many occasions.

So, occupy this! Here's the plan. What do you think? We begin to occupy other bloggers' pavement stones (the Followers or Members box on their blogs). In Parliamentary terms we become the loyal opposition Members, not just loyal to the opinions of the bloggers we agree with, but loyal to the founding principles of Parliamentary democracy. We occasionally comment on their posts. Now, the trick is to be polite and not feel that we always have to have the last word. We make our point and we leave it for other's to read. We don't use profanity or accuse the other person of a being an idiot nor do we make snide remarks about others. We simply provide a different way of looking at mental health that we would like to share with others. Who can argue with that?

Most people are thrilled to have more followers, and will be perplexed that we are there, but they can't prevent us from being there, can they? And remember: It's a two way street.

Is Clinical Psychopharmacology a Pseudoscience?

2011-11-07T05:47:00.000-08:00

Good blog post by Steve Balt, MD.

But at the risk of sounding like even more of a heretic, I’ve noticed that not only do psychopharmacologists really believe in what they’re doing, but they often believe it even in the face of evidence to the contrary.

It all makes me wonder whether we’re practicing a sort of pseudoscience.

Read the rest of it here.

Light: The Perennial Healer

2011-11-04T04:17:00.000-07:00

This interview with Drs. Engelbert Winkler and Dirk Proeckl is published at The Light Connection.

Publishing since 1985 (as The Light Connection), The Life Connection (TLC) is distributed the first of each month, and provides a guide to San Diego County’s resources for improving health, the environment, relationships, and expanding human potential.

We do not represent any one organization or philosophy and believe that diversity of thought strengthens us and allows for greater understanding. We do not necessarily agree with all of the articles published, nor do we think there is any single solution that works for everyone. Ultimately we feel that each of us must decide what is best for ourselves; and that there is power in knowing ourselves.

Light: The Perennial Healer

An interview with Drs. Engelbert Winkler, Ph.D., and Dirk Proeckl, M.D., Ph.D. by Beverly Brodsky

Drs. Engelbert Winkler, Ph.D., clinical psychologist , and Dirk Proeckl, Ph.D., M.D., neurologist and psychologist describe their Lucid Light Stimulator, which they will demonstrate at the First Spiritualist Church on Oct. 15, from 5 to 8pm. See their website: www.gesund-im-licht.at (click on the British flag for English).

BB: I have been studying your website and work with the Lucid Light Stimulator (LLS), with great interest. What does the LLS do?

EW: Our intention is to help people go into the hypnogogic state and beyond. It’s the state in between being awake and dreaming, a kind of altered state of consciousness. We get people to go beyond that state, into a trancelike state, similar to a shamanic state of consciousness.

What motivated you most to come up with this device?

EW: When I was a child, I had a Near-Death Experience. While studying psychology, my main interest was the neurology when an NDE appears. As a psychotherapist, I found a way to use the healing potential of that light state. First, I used ordinary hypnosis to suggest imagining having an NDE. To improve clients’ visualizations, I used external, steady light. People went much deeper in the trance, and reported experiences and changes similar to what occurs after an NDE.

DP: That was the beginning. We studied people’s EEGs; then used both steady and flickering lights, producing a much more intense experience. I came from the neurology, where a flickering light is to map the brain. Later, combining Englebert’s research into mystical states with mine, we had more effective outcomes. Now, with the LLS, we can induce a state like the shamanic experiences, or even the ancient Greek Mystery cults, which initially took place in caves, inducing altered states of consciousness.

What a serendipitous partnership.

DP: We also we contacted some specialists from the United States, including Rick Strassman, about the neurochemistry of DMT.

I read in Dr. Strassman’s book that people taking DMT had both positive and frightening experiences. Do your clients have more consistently positive experiences with your device?

EW: We have a better way of reacting to the negative experiences, because we can just switch it off. The other thing is that we can use it in our therapy.
Tell me about your research.

EW: Consciousness is variable for everybody. It’s our own consciousness, and we can nudge it. That’s not only therapeutic, but also transformational. If you are open to the experience, the healing effect is maximized. When people sit in front of the lamp many do get better, but not everyone.

How can you tell which ones are helped?

W: Only the client can know. It can be used for ordinary therapeutic purposes. Many symptomatic problems, say anxiety or depression, may be a healthy reaction to an unhealthy situation. Working with the lamp changes people’s attitude, and the attitude changes everything.

I understand. How long have you been working with light?

EW: The lamp we are using we’ve had for four to five years, but before we had different prototypes, including the original steady light in hypnosis, going back to 1990.

This is such a wonderful idea. Have you written a book?
EW: Yes, the Western Book of Death, which is about using NDEs with hypnosis for people who feel suicidal. This is not yet available in English.

Have you worked with terminally ill people? What happens?
EW: Yes. Today in hospice a young man went to Brazil to see the healer John of God, and when he returned he described seeing all those colors. His experiences with the lamp were identical to what occurred with the healer.
That’s fascinating. In Stanislov Grof’s book The Human Encounter with Death, he did a study where he gave LSD to terminal patients who lost their fear of death. Would the LLS allow people to achieve their own sort-of psychedelic and near-death-like experience, without drugs, and be healed by it?

EW: Yes. The lamp can be used in that way, but if the patient doesn’t want a psychedelic experience; they just want deep relaxation, it may be used for that. Or if someone just wants the aesthetics, they see beautiful colors and forms. When we worked with Tibetan monks, they reached a state ideal for meditation. It gives you a trip into yourself, and whatever you want to be there, you’ll experience.

What are your plans to bring this to the US?

EW: As you know we are coming in October. Our main interest is just to show the light to as many people as possible. People change in a valuable way. We don’t usually make plans, because since we started working with the Light Device, everything happens in its own way. I don’t think that we have found the lamp; rather, the lamp has found us.

It sounds like a way to shift our consciousness to perfect health—in mind, body, and spirit.
EW: Yes, the idea that there is something like health or disease is unhealthy. If everybody could let themselves be the way they are, everything would be perfect. I know many people who are very ill, yet they are very healthy at the same time.

In my NDE I felt that everything is perfect just as it is. Yet it’s hard to remember that without shutting down the ego.

EW: The ego is the wrong point of reference. From that perspective, everything is wrong.

You say on your website that mind and con-sciousness defy our ability to put a definition on them. Can you explain that?

EW: I don’t think consciousness can be defined. Consciousness is a word, and nothing more. We are making mental images of things that we think are real. If we just say what we experience, everything would be fine.

That is why, as Kenneth Ring says, the light experience is very important. If things go on as they have, we will become sicker. Only a change in attitude can help. The light experience in all times changes attitudes quite dramatically. Our device is not the only way to achieve this change. For some, they can go out in nature and reach the same state. It’s easy to do, but is not generally known.

On Saturday, October 15, from 5-8 pm, Engelbert Winkler Ph.D., and Dirk Proeckl, M.D., Ph.D., will demonstrate their Lucid Light Stimulator. See more information on their website. www.gesund-im-licht.at/ First Spiritualist Church is located at 3777 42nd Street, San Diego, CA. 92105. 619-284-4646 www.1st-spiritualistchurch.org Love Donation $15.

The benefits of out-of-body experiences

2011-11-02T07:47:00.000-07:00

Gianna Kali over at Beyond Meds sent me this article from Discover Magazine, an extract of which appears below. Thanks, Gianna! I'm pleased to have my own intuition about the benefits of out-of-body (OBE) experiences validated by Dr. Sohee Park's research team at Vanderbilt University. You may recall that my son Chris underwent several OBEs when we visited the sound shaman a couple of years ago. You can read about his reactions to this wonderful therapy here, here, here and here. I dragged Chris to this therapy and to other therapies such as The Alexander Technique, because I knew from observing Chris as a child that he had a fragile sense of self, as the Vanderbilt study hypothesizes is the case with many people who have received a schizophrenia diagnosis. The sound shaman helped Chris get a better sense of who he really is. The Alexander Technique together with voice lessons to bolster his love of music have really made a difference in his growing sense of self.

Park’s student Katharine Thakkar was testing the idea that people experience psychotic experiences because they have a weak sense of self. It’s an idea that others have suggested before but it seems like something that would be hard to test with experiments. But not so: over the last decade, psychologists have shown that our sense of self is far from the fixed, permanent feeling that we assume it is. Instead, it is disarmingly pliable. You can tweak it. You can study it. Our brain continuously constructs our sense of self using information from our eyes, skin and joints. By tweaking that information using simple illusions, scientists have warped and displaced our sense of self in the lab.

The study has broader implications for helping people with schizophrenia. Activities that promote a stronger sense of body awareness, such as yoga, dance or playing a musical instrument, might help to alleviate some of the symptoms of schizophrenia.

But for RM, it seems that learning more about his condition was enough. A year on, his diagnosis is unchanged, he still gets out-of-body experiences, and he still hears voices. But gone are the days when his experiences would require a stay in a hospital. He is now hoping to establish himself as a freelance writer, and he’s even had a paper on religion accepted in a peer-reviewed academic journal. For him, knowledge has proven to be a potent treatment. “We check up with him regularly and he’s been doing really well,“ says Park.

Coincidentally, today I received my invitation to an upcoming lecture on the same topic. Keep in mind that your mainstream psychiatrist will be against your participation in these kinds of activities. However, if properly handled by the clinician, they are a pathway to growth.

The Hypnagogic Light Experience: Engelbert and Dirk invite you to a trip with Lucia, the Lucid Light Stimulator (LLS)

Engelbert Winkler, PhD. (clinical psychologist, psychologist for health and psychotherapist) and Dirk Proeckl PhD MD (specialist for neurology and certified psychologist) have invented a LUCID LIGHT STIMULATOR called Lucia Nr. 3.

Lucia Nr. 3 is a neurostimulation lamp which allows the person who is exposed with closed eyes to the lamp to enter immediately into a profound trance which otherwise can be achieved solely after many years of meditation practice, through psychedelic drugs, or through stimulus deprivation, etc.

The computer-operated interplay of its light sources activates a large variety of experiences (the vision of intensive worlds of color and shapes, the impression of existing without a body/immaterialness, etc.) and allows for an individual light experience which is every time anew highly impressive.

Lucia Nr. 3 induces a transcendental experience which otherwise occurs only under extreme conditions like high performance sports, through consumption of entheogen substances or at the onset of death. The neurostimulation lamp opens completely new perspectives for therapy and self-awareness.

Website: http://www.gesund-im-licht.at/ (also accessible in English)

Side effects of a schizophrenia diagnosis

2011-11-01T03:35:00.000-07:00

Was it Mad Magazine that used to run a feature called "Scenes We'd Like to See"? If I remember correctly these were usually truths about certain products or people that political correctness doesn't normally allow to come to the surface.

In that vein, here are some common side effects of a schizophrenia diagnosis that you never see in the pharmaceutical literature. Bear in mind that the diagnosis is not the cause of the condition, but it's a label that can lead to much more havoc than is commonly acknowledged by your health care professional.

"ACME" PHARMACEUTICAL COMPANY (buried somewhere in the fine print or sad voice-over in commercial)

The side effects of a schizophrenia diagnosis affect more than just the patient. Here are some common ones that may be observed both in the diagnosed and in close relatives of the diagnosed.

• Feelings of hopelessness, sadness and despair

• Lowered expectations

• Job loss

• INCREASED CONSUMPTION OF

          • Alcohol

          • Antidepressants

          • Antipsychotic medication

          • Food

          • Clothing

          • Marijuana

          • Marriage counsellors

          • Divorce lawyers

          • Social workers

          • Police

          • Psychiatrists

          • Psychologists

          • Priests, rabbis, prayer groups

Shopping mall shaman

2011-10-27T04:27:00.000-07:00

Practicing Shamanism in a Community Health Center

By Myron Eshowsky .
From Shamanism Spring & Summer 1993, Vol. 5 No. 4 & Vol. 6 No. 1

For six years I worked openly practicing shamanism in a community mental health center. I was able to do this work with the support of my supervisor and the administration. In the course of that time, there were many successes, some non-successes, and a growing acceptance of shamanism as a culturally diverse method for addressing the needs of the center’s clientele. Most importantly, it was a proving ground for returning shamanism to the community setting.

Read the rest of this fascinating article here.

Dress for success

2011-10-26T04:30:00.000-07:00

The appearance this past week of two myth-busting articles on schizophrenia in the New York Times, was long overdue. Still, I couldn't help firing off a cranky comment to the Well section of that paper to argue that it is absolutely ludicrous that mainstream medicine for years has gotten away with promoting the dumbing down of patient expectations.

Think about it. In almost every other area of endeavor, Americans are encouraged to self-promote, to aim big, to dress for success, to follow the American dream. Everywhere . . . except for a schizophrenia diagnosis. You would think, wouldn't you, that emulating what more successful people do would be part and parcel of any recovery. But, apparently the wisdom of this idea has escaped much of the mental health industry, which now appears finally ready to STUDY THIS PHENOMENON further! Oh, for heaven sakes! If you tell people they are sick, most people will believe you. Knowing they are "brain damaged" and have "a biochemical imbalance" will make the road to recovery even harder.

Researchers have conducted more than 100,000 studies on schizophrenia since its symptoms were first characterized. They have tested patients’ blood. They have analyzed their genes. They have measured perceptual skills, I.Q. and memory, and have tried perhaps thousands of drug treatments.

Now, a group of people with the diagnosis is showing researchers a previously hidden dimension of the story: how the disorder can be managed while people build full, successful lives. The continuing study — a joint project of the University of California, Los Angeles; the University of Southern California; and the Department of Veterans Affairs — follows a group of 20 people with the diagnosis, including two doctors, a lawyer and a chief executive, Ms. Myrick.

It was hard for me to keep a straight face when I read how "surprised" the research community was when it discovered this "hidden dimension of the story." In the meantime, my son Chris goes about his daily living while we continue to extract him from the clutches of his dismal diagnosis. He is out most evenings in rehearsals for the upcoming Christmas pantomime, Jack and the Beanstalk. He's a member of several choirs that practice once a week. If he were living back in North America, and not the life of an expat in Europe, I feel sure that he would have a paying job in addition to all of the volunteer work that he does. The work permit here is not an insurmountable stumbling block, but it is a process to go through that we haven't managed to give much thought to until recently. I continue to push the idea of his going back to university to study voice and music. Chris and his brothers, Taylor and Alex, are getting along well and they are doing their bit to encourage Chris to develop his full potential. Why should anyone settle for less?

2011-10-23T00:19:00.000-07:00

Memoir About Schizophrenia Spurs Others to Come Forward

. . . Researchers have long wondered how some people with schizophrenia can manage their symptoms well enough to build full, successful lives. But such people do not exactly line up to enroll in studies.

For one thing, they are almost always secretive about their diagnosis. For another, volunteering for a study would add yet another burden to their stressful lives.

But that is beginning to change, partly because of the unlikely celebrity of a fellow sufferer. In 2007, after years of weighing the possible risks, Elyn R. Saks, a professor of law at the University of Southern California, published a memoir of her struggle with schizophrenia . . . read the rest here

and also from the NY Times:

Lives Restored

A High-Profile Executive Job as Defense Against Mental Ills

The study has already forced its authors to discard some of their assumptions about living with schizophrenia. “It’s just embarrassing,” said Dr. Stephen R. Marder, director of the psychosis section at U.C.L.A.’s Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior, a psychiatrist with the V.A. Greater Los Angeles Healthcare System and one of the authors of the study. “For years, we as psychiatrists have been telling people with a diagnosis what to expect; we’ve been telling them who they are, how to change their lives — and it was bad information” for many people.

Read the rest here

The Danny Diaries: Overcoming Schizophrenia - a mother's experience

2011-10-21T09:55:00.000-07:00

The Danny Diaries: Overcoming Schizophrenia
by Ann Cluver Weinberg

This is a memorable schizophrenia story, written from the point of view of the mother. Why "great"? Because there is no other schizophrenia memoir, written by a mother that shows by vivid example how, by understanding and supporting another person, full recovery can happen. "Danny" has been well for over twenty years and works in a professional capacity in an extremely challenging workplace. They say that the younger the age when schizophrenia symptoms appear, the less optimistic the prognosis. Danny's troubles started in early adolescence, but he eventually recovered, proving how wrong this prognosis can be.

Today's parents are told by doctors and psychiatrists that that their relative has a biochemical imbalance, a damaged brain. They believe that their children are mentally ill. How do you think the child will react to a parent who thinks that there is something wrong with them? Will they gain confidence in themselves? Not very likely. But where do parents turn to for information that runs counter to the medical model of the so-called illness? Memoirs written by ex-patients are a good place to begin. This particular memoir is unique, because it is written by the mother.

We are introduced to Danny as a child through delightful words and conversations that the author wrote down every night in her journal. She did the same for his older sister, Nicola. Both children are the precocious offspring of artistically-inclined parents. The family is South African and living in London in the 1960s. When Danny is a small child, they move back to their homeland. This is a critical time in South African history, as it was still under government enforced racial segregation. The memoir is brimming with South African English words and Afrikaans dialect, which gives the book its special flavor.

Lucy gives Danny lot of freedom to be himself, even if himself is problematic.

What his problem is initially appears to be pot, or dagga, the local term for it. He's smoking too much of it way too young. He's a precociously talented guitarist, and with the freedom that he has, drugs are easy to come by. He lacks the self-discipline to break away from dagga, and the parents, being self-professed liberals and artists, by nature are not disciplinarians and are not effective at stopping the smoking. The mother knows that dagga is only part of the picture. Recreational drug use never helps psychosis, but it adds unneeded complexity and angst to an already difficult condition.

The doctors and psychiatrists are not helpful. As Lucy remarks after a visit to one psychiatrist, "he gave me a stern and gloomy diagnosis, but no practical information about how to help." She is confident in her mothering skills and in her judgment of Danny, and is rightly critical of doctors who are grim about the prognosis for schizophrenia, seeing them as part of the problem, not part of the solution. She knows Danny, the doctors do not. She rarely wavers in her belief that Danny will be well one day. The trouble is, drugs are always within easy reach for Danny. He backslides a lot.

The early 1980s was yet another transition period in determining what schizophrenia was and how to treat it. This is a diagnosis that is subject to trends. After a break of two years, Lucy takes her son back to see the psychologist, "Jeff" who was so helpful with the family the first time. Now he tells her that he believes schizophrenia is a lifelong chronic illness that needs to be treated by medications. He no longer thinks he can be of any help, based on new information. Potential support denied. Lucy is on her own once again to figure this out for herself. Her optimism puts her at odds with the medical community. One psychiatrist in England wants her to institutionalize Danny for life. Truly shocking advice for someone who is only 17. On a plane trip she happens to sit beside a psychiatrist who says that some people with schizophrenia do recover and a good thing to do is to support the person's interests.

Today's treatment for schizophrenia and other mental health problems is skewed disproportionately in favor of medication. If Danny's treatment took place today, instead of in the 1980s, the author's strategy would not change, but she would also have to battle the by now well-entrenched biochemically determined treatment model of the so-called illness. At first, Danny was not on any medication, and then he was occasionally given sleeping pills at night. He was on lithium for a short period of time and was on an antipsychotic for a short time. Lucy comes home after Danny was doing very well and discovers him in a knife-wielding rage. She attributes this more to pot smoking (his rages usually lagged pot smoking by a few days), than to the fact that she had abruptly discontinued his antidepressant a week earlier because he was doing so well. In those days, there was no information about the dangers of going cold turkey off these medications. Dropping them quickly can cause rebound psychosis.

Lucy encourages her son in many ways—to drive a car, to be involved in music, to develop more self-discipline through Karate, etc. She reads Erik Erickson, and frames what Danny is going through as a difficult, extended maturation process. There is an astonishing statement by Danny towards the end of the book, which I won't reveal, that, if I interpreted it correctly, backs up the author's contention that Danny's problems were a child's struggle to become an adult in his own right. Doctors call this struggle "schizophrenia," but they maintain schizophrenia is a "disease."

Do you consider your own child "mad"? Have you ever considered that changing your attitude may change the outcome? Here is what the author does:

I explained to him (Oliver, her husband) my now clearly formulated philosophy of not even thinking Danny mad, or an addict, or helpless, or hopeless, etc.

Early the next morning Lucy finds his bed empty and Danny in the garage with his new Kawasaki.

"Danny!" I exploded, "Haven't you been to sleep all night?

"No. Me and Anthony rehearsed late late. And then I was just too fascinated by my bike. I couldn't leave it."

I thought. He is like a farmer sitting up all night with a horse.

Like a farmer sitting up all night with a horse. Exactly! The author shows the reader how to change what may be disturbing or unusual behavior to an understandable motivation, and then keep up a cheerful attitude even though you may have doubts. The child will adapt well to this strategy over time. I've done the same for my own son. Read this book (please!) for many of these insights.

I would love to see this book widely disseminated because here is a mother telling you that yes, schizophrenia is an understandable condition. This condition, seen here in the light of a difficult transitioning from childhood to adulthood (many people have said this, not just the author), can be overcome by seeing the person, not the medical model of the disease. Her viewpoint is very relevant today, when the purely medical model of the disease is being challenged as never before.

Consider asking your local library to order a copy.

Order this book online at Amazon.com or http://www.trafford.com/ / email orders@trafford.com, or in South Africa contact the author at sapler.press@artslink.co.za

Product Details
Paperback: 420 pages
Publisher: Trafford Publishing (February 3, 2010)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1426919603
ISBN-13: 978-1426919602
Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.9 x 1.3 inches

Like-minded parents muscle their way into the ISEPP conference

2011-10-20T05:59:00.000-07:00

I was pleased to be asked to contribute a blog post to the upcoming International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry (ISEPP) conference in Los Angeles, Oct. 28-29. The conference is entitled: Alternatives to Biological Psychiatry: If we don’t medicate, what do we do?

The content of my post (below) is the usual stuff that I yammer on about, that everybody talks about alternatives to the current mainly drug based treatment for schizophrenia, but what is anybody actually DOING about it?

Actually, it is parents who are disastisfied with the current group think about mental health, who, through trial and error, have figured out how to put the pieces of their child back together. We are reluctant to deliver our relative into the hands of professionals, having learned through experience that if you want to do something right, do it yourself. Unfortunately, parents who have figured it out, are rarely invited to speak at conferences, which are the domain of mental health professionals. That being said, the ISEPP conference is a terrific opportunity to shape and direct the future of alternatives to biological psychiatry. Fellow bloggers, Becky Murphy and Duane Sherry have also contributed posts to the ISEPP blog. Read Becky's contributions here and Duane's here.

A Mother’s Search Through Alternatives to Biological Psychiatry: If we don’t medicate, what do we do?

By: Rossa Forbes

First of all, I am delighted to have the chance to speak to this issue in my blog post to ISEPP. That’s the big question, isn’t it?

If we don’t medicate, what do we do?

Where is the how-to guide?

In December 2003 when my then nineteen year old son, “Chris,” was first hospitalized and given a diagnosis of “schizophrenia,” I had no idea that there were any alternatives to the medications. Certainly, no doctor informed my husband and I that there are competing schools of thought about schizophrenia and other so-called mental illnesses. Instead, we were told the usual claptrap that he had a brain disease and drugs would control it but not cure him. That negative message stopped us in our tracks for at least two years. My son did not get better during that period, even in an expensive outpatient program that he attended daily. He was as much a mystery to the psychiatrists when he left—as medicated as when he entered.

However, I got better, meaning I got smarter and started to investigate what I could do for him. I decided to take my inspiration from psychiatrists and others who have a generally more upbeat perspective on schizophrenia—Abram Hoffer, Thomas Szasz, R.D. Laing, Dr. Peter Breggin, and Dr. Loren Mosher. I went even further afield and read Carlos Castaneda, Hermann Hesse, and Daniel Paul Schreber and began to sense a wonderful magic to this so-called disease. I am not romanticizing this condition, but it’s important to see the magic. I read about the German New Medicine of Dr. Ryke Geert Hamer and I saw how trauma or shock registers in the body as cancer, schizophrenia and other health problems. Dr. Hamer also says that rendering a diagnosis sets in place feelings of hopeless and despair that prevent healing. How right he is. Armed with this information, I put together my own healing program for my son. This generally amounted to dragging him (and me) through some weird and wonderful stuff. I figured that chances are, as his mother, I had a role in why he reacted to life as he did, and I may as well take this opportunity to heal myself, too.

Read the rest here.

A lotta humor

2011-10-18T08:34:00.000-07:00

October 18, 2011

A Letter from Goldman Sachs

Concerning Occupy Wall Street

NEW YORK (The Borowitz Report)– The following is a letter released today by Lloyd Blankfein, the chairman of banking giant Goldman Sachs:

Dear Investor:

Up until now, Goldman Sachs has been silent on the subject of the protest movement known as Occupy Wall Street. That does not mean, however, that it has not been very much on our minds. As thousands have gathered in Lower Manhattan, passionately expressing their deep discontent with the status quo, we have taken note of these protests. And we have asked ourselves this question:

How can we make money off them?

The answer is the newly launched Goldman Sachs Global Rage Fund, whose investment objective is to monetize the Occupy Wall Street protests as they spread around the world. At Goldman, we recognize that the capitalist system as we know it is circling the drain – but there’s plenty of money to be made on the way down.

The Rage Fund will seek out opportunities to invest in products that are poised to benefit from the spreading protests, from police batons and barricades to stun guns and forehead bandages. Furthermore, as clashes between police and protesters turn ever more violent, we are making significant bets on companies that manufacture replacements for broken windows and overturned cars, as well as the raw materials necessary for the construction and incineration of effigies.

It would be tempting, at a time like this, to say “Let them eat cake.” But at Goldman, we are actively seeking to corner the market in cake futures. We project that through our aggressive market manipulation, the price of a piece of cake will quadruple by the end of 2011.

Please contact your Goldman representative for a full prospectus. As the world descends into a Darwinian free-for-all, the Goldman Sachs Rage Fund is a great way to tell the protesters, “Occupy this.” We haven’t felt so good about something we’ve sold since our souls.

Sincerely,

Lloyd Blankfein
Chairman, Goldman Sachs

Occupy Wall Street & the Mental Environmentalism movement

2011-10-17T06:16:00.000-07:00

Adbusters Media Foundation is a not-for-profit, anti-consumerist, pro-environment[1] organization founded in 1989 by Kalle Lasn and Bill Schmalz in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The foundation describes itself as "a global network of artists, activists, writers, pranksters, students, educators and entrepreneurs who want to advance the new social activist movement of the information age."[2]

The Adbusters Media Foundation publishes the reader-supported, advertising-free Adbusters, an activist magazine with an international circulation of 120,000[3] devoted to challenging consumerism. Notable past and present contributors to the magazine include Christopher Hedges, Matt Taibbi, Bill McKibben, Jim Munroe, Douglas Rushkoff, Jonathan Barnbrook, David Graeber and others.

Adbusters has launched numerous international campaigns, including Buy Nothing Day, TV Turnoff Week and Occupy Wall Street, and is known for their "subvertisements" that spoof popular advertisements.

In English, Adbusters has bi-monthly North American, Australian, and International editions of each issue. Adbusters' sister organizations include Résistance à l'Aggression Publicitaire[4] and Casseurs de Pub[5] in France, Adbusters Norge in Norway, Adbusters Sverige in Sweden and Culture Jammers in Japan.[6]

The subtitle of Adbusters magazine is "The Journal of the Mental Environment".

Their philosophy is that if a key insight of environmentalism was that external reality, nature, could be polluted by industrial toxins, the key insight of mental environmentalism is that internal reality, our minds, can be polluted by infotoxins. Mental environmentalism draws a connection between the pollution of our minds by commercial messaging and the social, environmental, financial and ethical catastrophes that loom before humanity. Mental environmentalists argue that a whole range of phenomenon from the BP oil spill to the emergence of crony-democracy to the mass extinction of animals to the significant increase in mental illnesses are directly caused by the three thousand advertisements that assault our minds each day.[citation needed]

In a 1996 interview, Kalle Lasn explained the goal of Adbusters: "What we're trying to do is pioneer a new form of social activism using all the power of the mass media to sell ideas, rather than products. We're motivated by a kind of `greenthink' that comes from the environmental movement and isn't mired in the old ideology of the left and right. Instead, we take the environmental ethic into the mental ethic, trying to clean up the toxic areas of our minds. You can't recycle and be a good environmental citizen, then watch four hours of television and get consumption messages pumped at you."[9]

Moving on, but conflicted

2011-10-17T04:47:00.000-07:00

Some of the most vulnerable times for Chris were the times following release from a mental institution. Three years ago I did my darndest to keep him out of hospital because I felt he would get worse the longer he stayed, which turned out to be three months. During that time he watched someone slit his wrists and bleed all over the bathroom sink. That's the one that I heard about. I have no idea what else went on during his time there. I decided in the end that a psych hospital is a learning experience, and chances are, Chris gained some valuable insights.

As it happened, Chris emerged three months later in reasonable shape, but, as I said to the psychiatrist, he was in better shape on in-take than he ever had been, so they were getting a better product to start.

However, on being sprung from the institution, his mind was still very much in fantasy land despite the vaunted drugs and the psychiatry, and that took time to straighten out. An old college friend of Chris's, who was then aged 25 and in grad school, came to visit, and Chris insisted that they play Magic: The Gathering together. That shows how he was still clinging to fantasy. He first got interested in myth and Magic cards at the age of ten. It seemed a giant regression for him to be playing Magic at aged 25, but I said nothing. Over the course of the next year, Chris began ruminating a lot on his childhood, and past transgressions. He telephoned a few old friends from childhood who he hadn't seen for years and apologized to them - for what I really have no idea. I suspect it had to do with the odd sly kick directed their way. This kind of behavior is not acceptable, but to my way of thinking it's part and parcel of childhood. As a child, Chris professed to be as good as gold, and being too good is always grounds for suspicion that the person isn't as good as they claim to be. Chris seemed to be feeling awfully guilty about his past deeds, not a healthy sign, but then again, perhaps a way of coming to grips with his past. His apologizing to people sounds like what people are encouraged to do in Alcoholics Anonymous. Perhaps Dr. Stern was urging him to do this.

I saw this post hospital phase of Chris's development as very positive, his learning to move beyond childhood and into adulthood.

One problem, though, on leaving the hospital, was that a couple of older people in the community (a man and a woman artist) who were mentally unstable were attracted to Chris. At first, I was glad that they were there, to offer friendship and to receive it. Chris had no friends at this point, and they had virtually none. He thought the older man was extremely interesting and learned, and yes, he was all of that. He and Chris would get together for coffees occasionally and talk about mythology and literature and the state of the world. Chris helped the man move several times. This man had a habit of very suavely talking his way into getting people to house him, but it rapidly went downhill from there as he always got verbally abusive and was kicked out usually after only a few days. I almost took him in, but I had the foresight to call someone I could trust, and was told under no circumstances should I do this. Nonetheless, the man kept telephoning me, always with a new excuse as to why he needed accommodation. When I didn't bite, he got verbally abusive. I began to not answer the phone, never sure what number he was calling from.

I felt very sorry for this man, because I could see that he was isolating himself and consequently, his mental problems were getting worse. I also felt guilty that I did not want to do more to help him. He was repeatedly urged by others to see a psychiatrist, but always refused, claiming that it was the other person who needed to see one. But it was when he moved beyond verbal abuse and started getting violent, not with Chris, with other people --a push here, a shove there--that I lost any sympathy I still was harboring.

On his own accord, Chris began distancing himself from the man, and the woman artist. He can see that they haven't dealt with their demons. He now sees them as "mentally ill," and this bothers him because he knows that he got the same label, and it was unjust. Chris is moving on emotionally, but it is sad that the other two people have not sought the help they need. One person can only give so much.

Around the blogs

2011-10-12T01:55:00.000-07:00

"I was fine to speak to when she thought I was 'Owning my Illness' but once I disclosed that I was 'In Denial' she just couldn't cope."

Louise at Schizophrenia at the Schoolgate makes some interesting observations on competition for scarce resources in mental health charities, and how even mental health advocates discriminate when it comes to a diagnosis of schizophrenia.

Pamela Spiro Wagner will be exhibiting her stupendous artwork on schizophrenia and recovery on the 4th floor of ArtSpace, Hartford during the week-end of Nov. 12-13. Open Studio Hartford is a Hartford (Connecticutt) regional event that celebrates the arts!

Stephany at Soulful Sepulcher announces that the Child and Adolescent Bipolar Foundation (CABF) has a name change and huge expansion plans! Still the same old pharma compromised Scientific Advisory Board, though. Also, don't miss the announcement of a new searchable adverse drug events database also posted on her blog.

And finally, not from a blog, but direct from Oz via YouTube, lounge lizard Bob Downe sings I Will Survive! Go for it, Bob!

The Danny Diaries

2011-10-11T00:16:00.000-07:00

The Danny Diaries, by Ann Cluver Weinberg, is available through Trafford Publishing and Amazon, both e-book and hard copy versions.

Product Description
The Danny Diaries is a book about a gifted, delightful child who had a teenage psychotic breakdown and was diagnosed as schizophrenic. This is a detective story for the reader. Why did he break down? Was it drugs? Was it growing up too quickly? Did he have too much adulation too young? Was society to blame?

And how did he recover? Once more the reader has a detective story to help him or her decide. His mother wrote down his spoken words from when he was fifteen months old, and she has chosen a selection of these both to delight and help the reader. Some of his psychotic speech does come into the book - only as examples, since it is not decipherable. "His weird talk" his sister called it.

People ask, "Is he really off all medication?" Yes! He has been sane and stable and happy for over 20 years.

The book will help parents of disturbed teenagers, but for everyone else it is a good, true story-with an innocent beginning, a chaotic middle, and an ending which is both triumphant and comforting. The book is also for anyone who has doubts about a lot of psychology and therapy. Real life goals are what work in the end.

Ann Cluver Weinberg is a South African author of poetry, stories and biographies who has been published and broadcast in South Africa. She is known for her robust honesty, her lyrical clarity, and her ability to give a universal experience from her very personal and well-observed stories. She lives in Johannesburg.

Breaking the Silence on Mental Health

2011-10-10T05:59:00.000-07:00

Today is World Mental Health Day. I took my dog and pony show to a lunch time presentation on mental health and stigma, given by the former Prime Minister of Norway, Mr. Kjell Magne Bondevik.

Prime Minister Bondevik briefly considered resigning as Prime Minister in 1998 due to depression. He was urged not to resign, but to seek treatment and make this known to the Norwegian public. Three and a half weeks later, he resumed his duties, having succesfully engaged in walking and talking therapy with his psychiatrist, who took him on long walks up the mountains. Medications were also part of this therapy. He received top drawer treatment being the Prime Minister, and a Norwegian one at that, but he was also suffering from a top drawer diagnosis, depression, a time-limited condition. More importantly, the public thinks it understands, and is therefore sympathetic to depression, because it is so easily relatable to sad events in one's own life. Schizophrenia is not at all easily understood by the public. There are some people whose schizophrenia, like their depression, may be biochemical in nature and therefore can be "corrected" employing short term orthomolecular or drug therapy, but for a lot of people, the cause of the condition is higher up the food chain, so to speak, and related to the same things that make a depressed person, depressed.

I was madly scribbing some ideas to challenge his contention that people should be open and honest about their mental health problems. I think three and half weeks of major depression makes him a credible spokesperson, but I doubt he's got the full picture of what a major mental health label will do for someone over the long term.

So, I raised my hand and said that anti-stigma campaigns were all well and good, but the cause of stigma is more complex. Why do people discriminate in the first place? I said that as a mother of a son with a diagnosed major mental illness, I would not be so open about opening up and I cited the Sheila Mehta (Auburn University) study*, which found that stigma is increased if people think you have a mental illness caused by a biochemical imbalance as opposed to a mental illness resulting from understandable events in a person's life. Today, of course, everybody thinks mental illness is caused by a biochemical imbalance. I can run the numbers. This means that a large number of people are willing to discriminate against you.

I made my point. I sat down. Mr. Bondevik's answer didn't address my point about belief in the biochemical basis of the condition increasing stigma. He said it was everyone's personal decision about how much they wanted to open up about their mental illness. Fine, sure, but the Mehta study has raised some provocative issues about stigma that need further thoughtful discourse.

People who know that Chris was diagnosed with a major mental illness (in this case, the S-word), from what they have said to me, think Chris is somehow fundamentally flawed, will always be a "burden" to some extent in Ian's and my life, and they feel that as long as he stays on his medications he will be able to "cope." Gee, Chris is doing well," they may say, "the medications must be working." Had I not blabbed away the diagnosis in the first place, and did not let people know Chris has been on medications, the Mehta study suggests that people would not single him out as different, and therefore not apply the same pessimistic outlook.

_______________________
Mehta, S. , & Farina, A. (1997). Is being sick really better? Effect of the disease view of mental disorder on stigma. Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology, 16(4), 405-419.

The diagnosis creates chronic stress and prevents healing

2011-10-06T03:54:00.000-07:00

Today's big idea was prompted by a reader in a discussion group to which I belong. Commenting on an article in the New York Times, Talk Therapy Lifts Severe Schizophrenics, she wrote, "It’s interesting that these are patients doctors had given up on as hopeless, who would “never get better” ...might not the docs’ own expectations play a role in their previous stagnation?"

Replying to her questions was easy. I simply went to my book manuscript and lifted a section from Chapter 15, The Levels of Healing, which is printed in italics below. I bolded what he has to say about the diagnosis.

Dr. Ryke Geert Hamer is a German physician and researcher known for his "10 Iron Rules of Cancer." He considers schizophrenia, a cancer-equivalent. (Bear in mind when reading the passage, it's not just the doctors' expectations that prevent healing - also contributing to whether the person "heals" are the expectations of the family, which have been heavily influenced by the diagnosis.)

Most cancers or cancer-equivalent ailments, according to Dr. Hamer, begin with “Dirk Hamer syndrome”——a severe, highly acute, dramatic, and isolating conflict-occurrence shock that registers simultaneously on three levels: in the psyche, in the brain, and in an organ. The shock registered to the brain can be identified as concentric circles (or Hamer Herds) using computed tomography (CT). Where in the brain the Hamer Herd is located determines the theme of the conflict. By finding the location of the Hamer Herd in the brain, it can be predicted in which organ the cancer will arise and vice versa. Dr. Hamer maintains that the actual cause of the cancer is an unexpected shock but that the hopelessness, despair and meaninglessness felt by the patient after the diagnosis of the cancer and other diseases creates chronic stress, which prevents these diseases from healing.

In the case of the “schizophrenic” brain, according to Dr. Hamer, there are two (and sometimes three) such concentric circles, which register as a result of two (or three) shocks. Dr. Hamer does not indicate where the conflict/shock originates.

Plastic versus concrete

2011-10-05T05:46:00.000-07:00

I have swiped another excellent post from today's Beyond Meds in order to make a schizophrenia related point. That point is about how psychiatry tries to scare us (patients/families) into medication compliance by telling us that "untreated" schizophrenia, meaning in pharma-speak, pharma treated mental illness, leads to brain damage. Never mind the fact that there is no sign of brain damage in the untreated schizophrenic brain on the autopsy table, as psychiatrist Thomas Szasz insists there should be in order to show damage.

Beyond Meds guest blogger Alto Strata, in her blog post entitled Neuropsychiatry: Same baloney, different sandwich, writes

And there has to be some stick to use to drive them to drugs, so psychiatry has enthusiastically taken up the cudgel of depression as progressive brain damage.

The progressive brain damage trope doesn’t fly — clearly many people recover from “depression” and other mood disorders without drugs and seem to be as good as anyone else.

It is an absurdity and an offense to humanity to argue, for example, that 2 weeks of grieving, which can be diagnosed as major depression, becomes brain damage if allowed to continue longer. In general, the brains of “depressed” people, even ridden with all those diseased circuits, work fine. Many are even intellectual leaders and creative geniuses.

Imagine, you are like me, a vulnerable parent, arriving at the emergency entrance of the hospital with your "loved one" in tow. You are panic stricken. Your "loved one" sure is acting weird, no doubt about it, and this is the perfect opportunity for the doctors to spring upon you the news that, without medications, your relative's brain is going to look like Swiss cheese. You don't need much convincing that there is something definitely wrong with his or her brain, because he/she sure is acting strangely, and you cling to the drugs like a shipwrecked sailor to a life raft. You think you're being responsible, and you are, based on the information that you've just been given. Unfortunately, it's false information. Remember, schizophrenia is not seen on the autopsy table, nobody has discovered a gene for it, and it is repeatedly alleged that neuro-imaging anomalies are often due to the effects of medication.

Back in Dec. 2003, the intake psychiatrists at the Centre for Addictions and Mental Health (CAMH) in Toronto had either never heard of neuroplasticity, or else they were trying not to let the latest research escape into the hands of the general population until they got the new story line straight. The doctors told my husband and me in all earnestness that my son's brain was going to slowly solidify like drying concrete (new word "neuroconcretivity" LOL) if he didn't get on those drugs toute de suite. That was only in 2003. Then, suddenly, around 2005, I would say, we start hearing that the brain has endless capacity to reinvent itself, busily erecting new turnpikes in the neuronal information highway. The brain was now plastic.

Is being plastic good or bad? I dunno, it initially sounded to me like good news, but the pharmaceutical companies are dealing with the new findings like it's business as usual: "The brain needs to be protected from progressive brain damage."

Damage caused by what, exactly? The fact that neurons may have taken a detour around the diagnosis? The damage in lost revenue, perhaps?

B vitamins for brains

2011-10-03T09:13:00.000-07:00

Here is yet another B vitamin study raising tantalizing links between ingestion of high doses of B vitamins and staving off dementia. Dr. Celeste de Jager of Oxford University, who led the trial, said, "A lot of the time brain changes start in your forties and fifties before you get clinical symptoms. I would think that in middle age people should start thinking about their vitamin levels."

A full scale national (U.K.) trial to establish whether the breakthrough can actually delay the slide into Alzheimer's and other forms of dementia is expected to begin within the next year.

Let's not forget that Dr. Abram Hoffer also endorsed high doses of B vitamins, especially Vitamin B3 (niacin) for not only schizophrenia but also for preventing dementia, although, in the latter case, he did not conduct clinical trials. Anecdotally, he noticed that after he started recommending niacin to his older relatives, over a twenty-five year period, none developed dementia. He recommended a daily 3 grams of niacin or niacinimide for people in their fifties and older, along with an equal amount of vitamin C and a B complex.

The endorsement surrounding B vitamins, and vitamins in general, is rather timid, and vitamins may never become officially sanctioned by the medical profession because, after all, vitamins in their pure form can't be patented. They are low cost. If you want to get serious about getting the best benefits from them, you often have to take megadoses, and that's when it gets tricky. Very few doctors will go on record to endorse high doses of vitamins. Their patients, on the other hand, often take their health concerns into their own hands. Nobel prize winning chemist Dr. Linus Pauling collaborated with Abram Hoffer in research into high dose vitamin C as an adjunct cancer therapy.

Here's what Dr. de Jager has to say. It's hardly bold. To my way of thinking, if you want results, you probably need consistent and high daily doses of certain vitamins targetted to the specific condition.

"People should not begin taking supplements without consulting their doctor because they can have a harmful impact on other conditions such as cancer," she added.

Asked if she would take the vitamins as a precaution, Dr de Jager said: "I would ask the doctor to check my B12 and my folic acid levels for starters."

"I take supplements when I'm feeling a bit low, I don't take one every day but I would certainly have multi-vitamins and B vitamins in my cupboard."

An excellent web site with factual information on vitamins and supplements is www.doctoryourself.com

Do psychiatric institutions want to make people well?

2011-10-02T09:20:00.000-07:00

excerpt
MARCH 1961
HARVARD UNIVERSITY I walked through the first tall cellblock, across the prison yard to the hospital. Bell, peephole, metal hinges creaking. Entered the hospital. Knocked on the door of the prison psychiatrist. It opened and facing me was good news. The prison psychiatrist was black and definitely avant-garde. Hurray! Philosopher Thomas Kuhn said that when you wish to introduce change-technology to a culture, you'll find your best allies among the outsiders, those whose alienation from the establishment makes them more open to change.

Aside from being a black psychiatrist Dr. Jefferson Monroe [Madison Presnell] stood out in the primitive period of 1961 as another kind of rarity—a sophisticated psychiatrist. Impeccable, graceful, hip. He had a twinkle in his eye and a wise, cool way of looking at you. He was definitely ready for something neew.

A few days later Dr. Monroe paid a return call at the Faculty Club and then came to a staff meeting at the Center. We put him on the Harvard payroll as a consultant. The following Sunday he brought his wife over for cocktails.

"Your plan to teach prisoners to brainwash themselves is simply delicious. There's even a slight chance you can pull it off. Do you know what that might mean?"

"A great boon to society," I suggested.

Dr. Monroe crossed his legs gracefully and laughed. "My dear, you don't really understand what you're getting into, do you? Sooner or later you're going to discover that law enforcement people and prison administrators have no desire to cut crime. They want more crime and more money to fight it. I'll cover you from the medical and psychiatric end, but sooner or later, if your methods work they'll start coming down on you. Reporters, bureaucrats, officials. 'Harvard Gives Drugs to Prisoners!' And you're going to have to do the impossible. Cure prisoners with your left hand while you try to hold off the entire bureaucracy with your right. "

"So what? If it works."

"Being human, sooner or later you'll make a teeny little mistake. One of your subjects will revert. 'Harvard Drug Parolee Robs Bank.' "

"As long as we do everything out front, no secrets," I said, "we can make a few honest mistakes."

"Maybe," said Monroe. "Look, here's the deal. I'll back you all-out, until you goof. When they start coming down on you, exactly at that point I'll have to protect my own pretty black ass. 'Cause, I'm not you. I'm not the new Freud. So I'll win with you, but I can't afford to lose with you."

On that basis we agreed on a plan: Monroe would line up volunteers in the prison population for the drug project and I'd line up Harvard graduate students willing to put their nervous systems on the line taking drugs with maximum security prisoners.

Bruce E. Levine's review of Revolutionary Road

2011-10-02T06:05:00.000-07:00

I missed this wonderful review of Revolutionary Road by Bruce E. Levine* when it appeared in the Huffington Post in 2009. In it, he focuses on a minor but key character by the name of John Givings. Please read this review in its entirety. I've posted a few excerpts below.

The current PC explanation of serious mental illness brought to us by Big Pharma -- follow the money trail -- is that it is caused by this or that neurotransmitter or brain structure and has nothing to do with oppressive families and dehumanizing environments. It is also now PC to mock the notion that mentally-ill diagnosed people may sometimes be like canaries in the mine, more sensitive and reactive to insidious toxins.

John Givings -- though psychiatrically hospitalized and a recipient of multiple electroshock treatments which have damaged his mathematical abilities -- is clearly not delusional about oppressive family relationships, not wrong about meaningless jobs, not incorrect about gutless frauds, and not mistaken about a dehumanizing society. He, like many people I have known diagnosed with mental illness, feels alienated and powerless. And he is no diplomat. Truth serves as his only source of potency, and he uses it as both a constructive tool to celebrate and validate courage and as a hurtful weapon to castigate and punish gutlessness.

It is convenient for many people -- and lucrative for drug companies and the institutions that they support - if all disruptive, crazy-sounding, tension-producing people can simply be handed off to doctors to be labeled and drugged. If we can neatly compartmentalize and medicalize the John Givings of the world, then families and society don't have to halt the assembly line and ask questions such as: "What is exactly happening in this person's life that has made him or her so angry or frightened? Why does he or she feel so alienated? Is society oppressive for many people, and is this person simply more unbridled in their reaction to that fact? Is there something suffocating about nuclear families in which temperamentally mismatched people are forced to have relationships? Should we be satisfied with a paycheck and a full belly -- or is that not enough?

I have met many angry, rude, tension-producing people labeled with severe mental illness. Some of them are completely dominated by their own victimization and seek only to inflict payback pain on those around them. Others though, when feeling safe, state truths which, if taken seriously, would create a more loving family, a more caring community, and a more stimulating world.

When April and Frank take John seriously, he relaxes, stops being hurtful, and shares with them, among other insights, that "maybe it does take a certain amount of guts to see the emptiness, but it takes a whole hell of a lot more to see the hopelessness. And I guess when you do see the hopelessness, that's where there's nothing to do but take off. If you can."

___________________________
Bruce E. Levine, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist, and his latest book is Get Up, Stand Up: Uniting Populists, Energizing the Defeated, and Battling the Corporate Elite (Chelsea Green Publishing, April 2011). Dr. Levine, also the author of Surviving America's Depression Epidemic: How to Find Morale, Energy, and Community in a World Gone Crazy (Chelsea Green Publishing, 2007), has been in private practice since 1985 and has presented talks and workshops to diverse organizations throughout North America. He is also the author of Commonsense Rebellion: Taking Back Your Life from Drugs, Shrinks, Corporations, and a World Gone Crazy (Continuum, 2003), and he has authored the chapter "Troubled Children and Teens: Commonsense Solutions without Psychiatric Drugs or Manipulations" for Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry (Peter Lehmann Publishing, 2007). Dr. Levine has been a regular contributor to and AlterNet, CounterPunch, and Z Magazine, and his articles and interviews have been published in numerous other magazines. He is an editorial advisor for the Icarus Project/Freedom Center Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs and on the editorial advisory board of the journal Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry.

Shamanic initiatory illness - it can happen to you

2011-09-28T05:06:00.000-07:00

I have a bunch of half-baked ideas swirling around in my head after reading the following description of kundalini and shamanic initiatory illness at the Beyond Meds blog (also reprinted below). I'm nowhere near as knowledgeable about kundalini and altered states as most others who write on this topic. I haven't experienced protracted drug withdrawal, which is how some people may experience kundalini, but I've undergone something like a shamanic initiatory illness — the experience of becoming "sick" in synch with someone else and then getting better once the other person shows signs of recovery.

I had a gut feeling all along that I would know that Chris was on the path to recovery when I got physically sick. My original thinking is that this sickness would be a stress reaction on my part that would emerge after the major stress with Chris was over. I had no idea what form this illness would take, and hoped it wouldn't be something life threatening. As it happens, for a period of about two years, and ending a year ago, I had inexplicable spells of vomiting. Since I rarely vomit, it was a concern to me that every three months I had violent (and I mean violent) spells that would last a couple of hours, or, in one case, about three days. The first time this happened was after I meditated on a full stomach — not the smartest thing to do, I learned to my regret. More often than not, I couldn't link the vomiting to anything specific I had done.

I wondered, during this period, if I was literally purging myself of sadness, guilt, trauma, and preparing myself for a new phase of life. Chris's crisis situation reached a peak in early 2009 when he went into the psychiatric hospital for the third time. By November 2010, tired of the recurring vomiting and now swollen ankles, I finally decided to see a doctor, who ran some blood tests. My liver enzyme levels were alarming. I read with horror what normal levels were supposed to look like compared to what mine were. I booked an appointment for another blood test and then to discuss the results with a specialist.

In the meantime, I meditated on my health problems, using decree and divine light as the mechanism of healing. I went for a Thai massage and imagined the masseuse bathed in golden light while she worked on different parts of my body. The swollen ankles disappeared right after the massage. By the time I saw the specialist, he reported that the test results were normal. I have not had a problem since.

One explanation for this cleansing process that I went through and for Chris largely overcoming his mental health problems might be that we both learned to see Chris's so-called illness as in a more positive perspective. We embraced the "mental illness" and the physical illness, meaning we saw the good in it and a process we knew we had to go through. There was a reason for it, and we might as well learn something from it and maybe even enjoy it while it lasted. I started to see Chris as a shaman, a healer, who was put here in part to bring healing to those around him. I encouraged him to find out who he is by visiting other shamans and learning from them. So, in my own way, I, too, became a shaman. The process of becoming a shaman is democratic. Anyone who believes can join.

Kundalini is a neuro-psycho-spiritual developmental potential that traditionally resides latent at the base of the spine until it is activated. It can be activated on purpose by spiritual practice, or by accident through physical or psychological trauma. Once it is activated, it involves a deep cleanse or purge of the body, psyche, and spirit. Psycho-physiological traumas from throughout the lifespan are repaired. The grueling symptoms listed above are merely the side effects of this repair process.

The final result is a rewired neuro-endocrinological system. The person who goes through the process and comes out the other side takes a quantum leap in health, happiness, peace, wisdom, sense of mission, and, potentially, “extended human capacities,” or what we call psychic abilities. It’s like being born again into a second life without actually dying in between. And it’s supposed to result in a literally more evolved human being.

A shamanic initiatory illness is a transformative ordeal that either comes on unexpectedly with no known precipitating event or can be activated on purpose by spiritual practice. It shows up as an odd amalgam of mental and physical symptoms, as mentioned above; is typically very debilitating; and takes the individual to very odd and dark mental and physical places. Interestingly, the illness seems to create a field that affects family and friends around the sufferer, who sometimes go through their own tough times in parallel.

Most initiations seem to be involuntary and un-asked-for, and, consequently, resisted. Eventually, the resistance in broken down, and the sufferer agrees to be a shaman. Symptoms can remit quite dramatically once the initiate starts to “shamanize” in some way, such as performing healings (using herbal knowledge, psychic healing, or a combination) or divination, involving knowledge and abilities s/he did not have before the illness. Shamans are considered to be more advanced in their development or more evolved than people who have not gone through the initiation.

Jayme at Rayne's World, in a similar vein, relates how she overcomes dissociation, one of her many debilitating symptoms.You can read the full post here.

She writes: This method also worked with Dissociation. The diagnosis used to be called Multiple Personality Disorder. If I have other personalities inside of me, why not get to know them and embrace them and learn from them? They are there for a reason, and they are me! I could write a whole post on this subject alone (and maybe I will), but trying to fight off any aspect of myself, whether it is depression, anxiety, or multiple personalities, is only denying myself yet another human experience. I refuse to do that anymore. I have a right to experience being human because I am human!

So, what really happens when I embrace all these symptoms rather than fix (mask) them through psychiatric “treatments”? Hmmmm…. well, I very rarely have any of these symptoms anymore, and when I do, they don’t last nearly as long. To be honest, I can’t remember details of their recurrences anymore because they don’t stand out like they used to. They are no longer “bad” or “horrible” in my mind or my experience, so why make a note of them? It’s like having a rainy day. Who cares? It just happens. Anyway, my goal was never to make the symptoms go away. It just happened.

Probably the greatest benefit of using this method is the lack of fear and guilt I now have toward any of these symptoms creeping into my life.

The deal of the century

2011-09-27T00:13:00.000-07:00

I don't know if Thomas Szasz has children, but for what it's worth, here's what he has to say about why so many parents would prefer to see their children as "mad." I've often wondered about the exact same thing. Bearing up heroically under the strain of our child's "mental illness," we've stupidly handed ourselves and our child a life sentence because we shy away from looking at our own lives as a possible contributing factor to the problem. This quotation is taken from a new e-book, The Szasz Quotationary

Why do so many parents prefer to dispose of their young-adult children as mad rather than divorce them as unwanted? The answer is obvious and painful. Divorce leaves the son free to embarrass the parent, precisely what the parent wants to avoid; it also leaves the parent open to censure by kin and friends for “abandoning” his own child. Psychiatric disposition protects the parent at the expense of the child. The masks of diagnosis and treatment conceal the true nature of both the problem and the solution. It affects the separation of father from son that the father desires; at the same time, it casts the parent in the role of tragic victim, afflicted with a defective child for whom he “cares” with the medical treatment science has to offer.

Comment from an Amazon reviewer:

Tom Szasz' thought has been an inspiration to me for a lifetime. To me, he is a true philosopher, one whose thoughts help you live. As a neurologist I saw patients with horrendous diseases like ALS and some who did not have ALS but thought they did. What I learned - among so much else - from Dr. Szasz is that I didn't have to fret about mental illness. I could divide problems into organic i.e. real disease and no disease and not worry about mental illness, a metaphor. No disease means no disease. Fear, anxiety, "voices" (inner speech), depression, alcoholism etc etc etc aren't diseases, should not be treated with more drugs, the loss of civil rights or the acquisition of money and fame.

His thoughts aren't just about medicine. They are about thinking logically for oneself.

And they are distilled and organized in this Quotationary by a master of the art, Leonard Roy Frank.

Ten dollars AND it is voice enabled - this is the deal of the century.

John Friedberg, M.D.

Tohuhgt for tdoay

2011-09-23T03:34:00.000-07:00

I cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg.The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid. Aoccdrnig to rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoatnt tihng is taht the first and last ltteer be in the rghit pclae.The rset can be a taotl mses and you can still raed it wouthit a porbelm.This is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Amzanig huh?

Physicists clock Superman particle

2011-09-23T02:33:00.000-07:00

The following quotes about today's big news story (apart from oligarch Aleksandr Lebedev clocking fellow oligarch Sergei Polonsky on Russian television) are a mishmash from different on-line sources.

A neutrino beam appears to have moved faster than the speed of light in an experiment whose results need to be confirmed independently, CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, said.

According to conclusions drawn by the theoretical physicist Albert Einstein, nothing can exceed the speed of light.

Even this small deviation would open up the possibility of time travel and play havoc with longstanding notions of cause and effect. Einstein himself — the author of modern physics, whose theory of relativity established the speed of light as the ultimate limit — said that if you could send a message faster than light, “You could send a telegram to the past.”

Antonio Ereditato, spokesman for the researchers*, said that measurements taken over three years showed neutrinos pumped from CERN near Geneva to Gran Sasso in Italy had arrived 60 nanoseconds quicker than light would have done. The margin for error in the measurements was 10 nanoseconds, which means that even taking that into account, the neutrinos' speed was still faster than light.

Alvaro de Rujula, a theorist at CERN, called the claim “flabbergasting.”

“If it is true, then we truly haven’t understood anything about anything,” he said, adding: “It looks too big to be true. The correct attitude is to ask oneself what went wrong.”

(Editor's note: You may ask what this has to do with schizophrenia. It's easy. Just about everything, hahah.We don't understand anything about anything. The one constant we do know is we know nothing. Whatever we think we know will change.)

________________
The researchers are affiliated with the University of Bern, the same Swiss city where Einstein worked in the patent office while publishing his early theories on relatively and the electromagnetic radiation of light.

Three upcoming conferences - Los Angeles, San Francisco and Ann Arbor

2011-09-22T07:24:00.000-07:00

Working with Voices

A TWO-DAY EXPERIENTIAL WORKSHOP WITH RON COLEMAN
Ann Arbor Michigan, Oct. 10-11, 2011

Ron Coleman returns to Ann Arbor to teach methods that he & many others have used in their own recovery from serious psychological problems. This workshop brings together mental health workers & people who hear voices for 2 days of learning & exploration. Ron shows how to create a safe environment, a space free of hierarchies & labeling, in which diverse ideas can be heard.

GOALS OF THE WORKSHOP:
To learn practical skills to increase self understanding such as voice profiling; to learn how voice hearing can be seen as a means of coping with difficult experiences; &, to learn ways people can begin to change their relationship with voices to regain choice & control in life. “Working With Voices” also fosters connection among voice hearers & their supporters.

ISPS The International Society for the Psychological Treatments of the Schizophrenias and Other Psychoses, Beyond Pandora's Box: Exploring Integrative Approaches to Treating Psychosis
October 14-16th, 2011, San Francisco CA

Keynote Speaker: Richard Bentall, Ph.D. Author of Madness Explained and Doctoring the Mind

"The Psychology of Paranoid Delusions "

Honoree: Ann-Louise Silver, M.D. Founding President, ISPS-US.

"Early Onset Psychosis: Do We Want It in the DSM-5?"

International Society for Ethical Pyschology and Psychiatry
Alternatives to Biological Psychiatry: If we don't medicate, what do we do?
Los Angeles, Oct. 28 - 29, 2011

Panel Presentations, Roundtable Discussions, Meet the Authors; More!

Confirmed Speakers
■Paula J. Caplan, Ph.D.

"When Johnny and Jane Came Marching Home: How All of Us Can Help Veterans"

■Nicholas Cummings, Ph.D

"Restoring Psychotherapy as a First-Line Intervention"

■Thomas Szasz, M.D.

"Varieties of Psychiatric Criticism"

■Robert Whitaker

"Psychiatry's Response to Anatomy of an Epidemic: What the Emperor Says When He Has No Clothes"

■David Antonuccio, Ph.D.

"It May Be Time To Stop Calling Them 'Antidepressants: Skills, Not Pills, for Depression'"

■Scott Shannon, M.D.

"The Ecology of the Child: A New View of Pediatric Mental Health"

■David Stein, Ph.D.

"A Unified Model for Matching Therapy with Etiology: Better Therapy Is the Most Effective Weapon Against Reliance on Drugs!

■Jacqueline Sparks, Ph.D.

"Listening to Clients, Not Disorders: A Revolution in Therapeutic Services"

■David Oaks

"Where's Your Canoe? Uniting the Many Islands in Our Movement for Deep Change in Mental Health"

■David Cohen, Ph.D., LCSW

"The Ethics and Politics of 'Neuroenhancement'"

■Thomas Scheff, Ph.D.

"A General Theory of 'Mental Illness'"

■Tomi Gomory, Ph.D.

"Working with Human Troubles: Three Possible Models of Practice for the Helping Professions-Two Medical and One Educational."

■Joanne Cacciatore, Ph.D.

"The Zen of Death: A Mindfullness-based Traumatic Bereavement Intervention"

■Howard Glasser

"Transforming the Difficult Child"

■Ann Rider, MSW

"Narrative Therapy in Peer Support: An Alternative Approach"

■Bose Ravenel, M.D.

"Treating Behavioral Problems Without Drugs: An Integrative Approach to ADD, ODD, and Childhood Bipolar Disorder"

■Ron Unger, LCSW

"Learning to Not Be “Psychotic”: Cognitive Therapy for Psychosis"

■Mark Foster, D.O.

"Ghosts in the Machine: Lessons from the Front Lines of a Mental Health Revolution"

■Claudia M. Gold, M.D.

"Over-reliance on Psychiatric Medications for Children: A Pediatrician's View"

■Willa J. Casstevens, Ph.D. (w/ J. Coker and T. Sanders)

"Exploring Voices in A Mentored Self-Help Approach to Voice Hearing"

■Brian Kean, Ph.D.

"Psychotropic Medication in the Classroom: How Should Teachers and Education Students be Informed About This Complex Dilemma?"

■Virgil Stucker, MBA

"Restoring Mental Health Through Relationship-Centered Care and Philanthropic Action"

■Jill Littrell, Ph.D.

"Immune System Contribution to Major Depression and What to Do About It"

■Jeanne Stolzer, Ph.D.

"Alternatives to ADHD Medications: A Bioevolutionary Perspective"

■Jacob Z. Hess, Ph.D.

"'If McDonald's is the only place in town, we all eat Big Macs': The case for diversifying community mental health education in the U.S."

■Brad Hagen, Ph.D.

"The Greater of Two Evils? How People with Transformative Psychotic Experiences View Psychotropic Medications.

■Dathan A. Paterno, Psy.D.

"Desperately Seeking Parents: How to Reclaim Your Family"

■Phil Sinaikin, M.D.

"Psychiatryland: Marketing and Manipulation Tactics of the Biopsychiatry - Psychopharmacology Industry"

■Jennifer Spaulding-Givens, Ph.D.

"Florida Self-Directed Care: An Exploratory Study of Participants' Characteristics, Goals, Service Utilization, and Outcomes"

■Fred Baughman, M.D.

"An Epidemic of Sudden Cardiac Deaths in the Military Related to Psychotropic Drug Cocktails for PTSD"

■Jay Joseph, Psy.D.

"The "Missing Heritability" of Psychiatric Disorders: Elusive Genes or Non-Existent Genes?"

■Noelene Weatherby-Fell, Ph.D.

"A Non-Medical Intervention for Supporting the Mental Health of Teachers and Students"

■Robert Grome, Ph.D.

"The Differential School-Clinic: A Topological Approach To The Cure-Symptom"

■Mike Mullin, M.D.

"Nutritional Supplements and Diet in the Treatment of Pediatric Mental Health Issues"

■Michael Bloom, Ph.D.

"Human Evolution and Ethical Use of Antidepressants"

■Keith Hoeller, Ph.D.

"America's Medical Inquisition: Szasz's The Manufacture of Madness 40 Years Later."

■Alexander Bingham, Ph.D.

"Phenomenal Healing: Embracing the Next Step in the Evolution of Psychological Research and Practice in a Post-Medication World."

■Burton Seitler, Ph.D.

"So Close and Yet So Far Away: Successful Non-Medication Psychoanalytic Treatment of a Youth Experiencing a Psychotic Reaction to the Traumatic Loss of His Mother"

■Judith Parker, Ph.D.

"What Can We Know? Making Sure Children Benefit from Psychotherapy"

■Pär Daniel Andréasson

"Mindfulness-Based Approaches in Family Therapy: A Review and Integration of Current Research and Future Directions in Practice"

■Laura K. Kerr, PhD, MFTI

"If Not Biomedical Psychiatry, Then What? Trauma-Informed Care"

■Debbie Felio, MA, LPC

"The Path of P.E.A.C.E. - Treating the Family and Community"

■Robert McKeever, Ph.D. Student

"Beyond the Medicine Cabinet: A Comparison between Online D-T-C Advertisements for Psychiatric Medications and Other Medications in the Digital Marketplace"

■James Dugo, Ph.D., and Sandra Lema-Stern, Ph.D.

"Working with Resistant and Aggressive Clients in Therapy"

■We are adding speakers to our program daily!

Day residue

2011-09-19T04:31:00.000-07:00

Normally, I don't have anxiety-provoking dreams, but last night was different. Okay, I know I had too much to drink, and the Ben & Jerry's for dessert didn't help, but by 3 a.m. I was awake from my dream and heart pounding-in-my-throat anxious. The dream was the usual day residue. The family friend who telephoned earlier in the evening (whom I'm convinced is a spy) made a spy-like apearance in my dream. I had also read a poignant story in the New York Times earlier in the day about the struggle of a young, autistic man to become independent. So that went into my dream, too, and resulted in anxiety—about Chris. In my dream Chris was planning to go back to college and, rather than rejoice, I didn't think he was ready and I didn't want him to go! When I woke up I realized how much I'll miss him and his brother Alex, when they eventually leave home. The autism story had really shaken me.

Reality tells me that Chris is doing fine, but finding comfort in reality is something best done in the daylight hours when I'm more fearless. So, in order to get to sleep I had a talk with myself to go back and set the outcome of that dream differently, to something more accommodating of the fact that Chris is going to leave the nest eventually. I can't remember how it all worked out, but I managed to get back to sleep.

Chris phoned me at work this morning with the wonderful news that he was asked to be part of an octet at an upcoming concert featuring the music of Vaughn Williams, Purcell and some other English guy. I recalled that, when we had guests over last night, Chris sat in the living room with Alex and the rest of us, very at ease with the conversation and making interesting comments of his own. I can remember that it wasn't so long ago (after his third hospitalization) that he was too socially withdrawn to be around company. I had wondered at the time if he would ever snap out of this painful period of his life.

Life goes on. People grow and change.

David Healey and Robert Whitaker address suicide rate in New Zealand

2011-09-18T05:51:00.000-07:00

I'm passing on this e-mail from Vince Boehm and video link that I received in my maibox today via ISEPP.

"Risk of suicide" was one of the many reasons given by my son's psychiatrists for wanting to keep him on medications, not that he was suicidal, but because "statistics show that people with a diagnosis of schizophrenia have an increased risk for suicide during the first five years after diagnosis." I always felt that the specter of suicide was invoked often for the wrong reasons -- not because patients were suicidal, but in order to keep them meds compliant. I was being made to feel irresponsible by continuing to inisist that my son was unlikely to commit suicide and I would prefer to work with him in non-drug interventions. The problem is, how do one ever really know that someone else is or is not suicidal? That's where I feel drug companies have gained the advantage. You don't know, and nobody wants to assume the risk, so medications are prescribed as some sort of "insurance policy."

People can and do commit suicide while on meds and when off meds, so it's kind of murky to now whether the meds would have prevented it or caused it. On the other hand, there is valid scientific concern about the effect of antidepressants on suicide ideation in children and teenagers because antidepressants are being used off-label and little to no research had been done for this age group before this practice became widespread.

Here's the e-mail from Vince Boehm about the video link:

CASPER (Community Action on Suicide Prevention Education & Research), the New Zealand organization organized by two mothers who lost children to suicide, invited two of our prominent list members to present at their conference this past month. New Zealand has the highest rate of youth suicide in the OECD, twice the rate of the US and Australia and five times the rate of the UK. More young people in New Zealand die of suicide than all medical causes combined, with 10% of the deaths of New Zealand's 10-14 year-olds being suicides.

David Healy is an Irish psychiatrist who is a professor in Psychological Medicine at Cardiff University School of Medicine, Wales. He became the center of controversy concerning the influence of the pharmaceutical industry on medicine and academia. For most of his career Healy has held the view that Prozac and SSRIs (selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors) can lead to suicide and has been critical of the amount of ghost writing in the current scientific literature.

In his segment of this compelling video, Healy delivers a powerful indictment of suicide and violence caused by psychiatric meds. Robert Whitaker is a friend and a former medical writer at the Albany Times Union newspaper. In 1992, he was a Knight Science Journalism fellow at MIT. Following that he became director of publications at Harvard Medical School. In 1994 he co-founded a publishing company, CenterWatch, that covered the pharmaceutical clinical trials industry. CenterWatch was acquired by Medical Economics, a division of The Thomson Corporation, in 1998. His articles on psychiatry and the pharmaceutical industry have won a George Polk Award for Medical Writing. and a National Association of Science Writers' Award for best magazine article. In 1998, he co-wrote a series on abuses in psychiatric research that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Public Service. He is the author of four books. His most recent book is Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America. His Mad in America has become a classic and belongs in your library.

These two books are destined to be mental health's Silent Spring, the book that launched the environmental movement.

Judge Rotenberg Center - a shocking story

2011-09-14T06:52:00.000-07:00

I apologize for the length of this post. However, the webpage for the original article is not available right now. Please read this letter from a former teacher's assistant at the Judge Rotenberg Center, a residential facility in Canton, Massachussetts that, according to its website, offers "very effective education and treatment to both emotionally disturbed students with conduct, behavior, emotional, and/or psychiatric problems and developmentally delayed students with autistic-like behaviors."

The Rotenberg Center appears to have a two-pronged strategy to appeal to desperate relatives: To get children and adults off the heavy medications and to employ behavior modification in a system of punishment and rewards. This strategy is entirely superficial, as if severe mental health problems are merely a question of getting off the meds and then fixing the "bad behavior." When I looked at their website, I was struck by how the treatment is entirely focused on behavior-modification, instead of finding out the psychological underpinnings of a person's distress. It's hard to believe in this day and age that such a place exists, but it does.

Rather than exploring human alternative treatments, the Rotenberg Center routinely employs shock devices as a disciplinary measure, sometimes up to thirty times a day. This is not done for "medical" reasons nor is it done in privacy. According to the letter writer, students regularly witness electric shocks being performed on their classmates. The teacher's assistant found he was getting stress reactions to watching this. You can imagine what this did to the patients!

Canton Patch
September 13, 2011 9:00am
http://canton.patch.com/articles/letter-to-the-editor-a-former-judge-rotenberg-center-worker-speaks-out

Letter to the Editor: A Former Judge Rotenberg Center Worker Speaks Out
Greg Miller worked for the Rotenberg Center in Canton for three years and speaks about his experience.

Warning: Some of the content in this letter may be disturbing. Reader discretion is advised.

By Greg Miller

There is so much for me to share about my three years of experience as a staff in Judge Rotenberg Center that I wanted to share them in writing.

Please note that other former JRC teachers and staff and even psychologists have contacted me in the past to tell me that they appreciate my speaking on behalf of the students, and to tell me of legal threats that keep them from speaking out vocally against JRC’s practices. I can share only my own experiences and opinions. No doubt JRC has attempted to discredit me and what I have to share.

My Background

I worked for the Judge Rotenberg Center for over three years, between 2003 – 2006. I worked as a Teacher’s Assistant, and I turned down offers to work at JRC as a classroom teacher because I was too busy with my studies. I have a Master’s Degree in Elementary Education from Lesley University. I previously taught as a classroom teacher in Watertown Public Schools, Lincoln Public Schools, and Winchester Public Schools. I worked too many hours as a classroom teacher to be able to also study alternative medical approaches for the treatment of children with learning difficulties and autism, and JRC offered me an opportunity to continue to work with children and youth while putting myself through school with ideal work hours.

The reason why I remained at JRC for three years instead of leaving on my first day of training was that I liked JRC’s commitment to getting students off of psychiatric drugs. Students were arriving at JRC looking very drugged up and in very rough conditions. I was a very dedicated worker and supporter of JRC at the start of my employment.

JRC always treated me fairly as an employee.Then my opinion of JRC started to change significantly to where I felt I needed to leave JRC and to speak out against its practices. I started to get signs of traumatic stress while working at JRC, and my doctor advised me repeatedly that I should leave JRC for my own health reasons. I became more aware of what was actually happening to individual students at JRC that parents were not permitted to see, and I wondered how many parents would actually be supportive of JRC if they saw what was happening to their children as I did.

My Opinion on the Use of JRC Shock Therapy

I believe that electric shocks are harmful not only to the student receiving a shock, but to all other students in the room witnessing the traumatic shock incidences. Electric shocks are not necessary to help JRC’s population of students. I saw much use of electric shocks that I felt were unwarranted to appear in student plans, and it seemed to me that individualized student plans were designed without proper oversight or adequate safeguards to prevent misuse of the shock devices.

I was having signs of traumatic stress including nightmares, night sweats, and elevated blood pressure, so that my doctor advised me that I needed to leave JRC. So imagine what it is like and what harm is being done to students who are actually on electric shock devices, who are committing no "wrong" behaviors, but who must witness their classmates getting shocked all day long!

I have witnessed the traumatic effects of electric shocks not only on the students receiving shocks, but also on other students in the room witnessing the shock “treatments” even though they have exhibited no behaviors. It was not uncommon to have incidences where I would reach for my pencil in my JRC apron pocket, on which hung the remote controls, to have students crying out and or jumping up, or throwing their task up in the air, and even grabbing me, because they thought I was going to shock them.

These were all behaviors that would cause students to be shocked depending on the individual student’s plan, so groups of students would all get shocked together, all out of their reaction of fear due to myself or another staff reaching for a pencil in our pockets. If any staff chose not to shock students at such times, we would immediately lose our jobs for “refusing to follow student plans.”

I have participated as required in following student plans to shock multiple students, including when they reacted to watching a fellow classmate tied up in a restraint chair getting attacked by a staffer with a plastic knife (being held) to the student’s throat. This was a judge-approved Clockwork-Orange-type “treatment” for a student who swallowed a small X-Acto knife blade. A staffer, according to the plan, would run up to the student who had all four limbs tied all day long to a restraint chair, and pretend to force a plastic knife down the student’s mouth while another staff pressed the remote control to give a shock to the student. The staff would repeatedly yell in a gruff voice, “Do you want to swallow a knife?” Sometimes a number of students watching this would act out in fear and receive shocks for jumping out of their seat, crying out, or dumping their task in reaction to the violence. I highly doubt that the judge ordered all 40 plus other students in the same classroom to have to watch this violent “treatment” of their classmate with his arms and legs tied to a chair. This took place day after day for weeks, with their classmate unable to defend himself in any kind of way. I felt nauseated just being in the room during those treatments, and I was not one of the humans with electric shock devices strapped to my body, so I could only imagine what the students were going through.

I have witnessed terrible injuries including bloody scabs all over the torso, arms, and legs caused by the electrodes. While I have heard of Dr. Israel previously claiming that the injuries were due to staff not properly rotating electrodes after shocking a student, the reality was that some students exhibited behaviors resulting in up to 30 shocks in a day. Some students stopped their behaviors after receiving their maximum 30 shocks for the day. Most of the shock devices used two electrodes to pass current through a specific distance of human flesh to maximize the amount of pain from the same amount of current. Two red skin marks from electrodes per shock, times 30 shocks in a day, quickly adds up so that very soon electrodes will be placed over previous marks resulting in bloody scabs. In these cases, the multiple patches of bloody scabs have nothing to do with staff failing to rotate electrodes after shocking students. Rather it exemplifies that the electric shocks approach were not appropriate for the student, and that other approaches should have been found.

Dr. Israel has previously compared the electric shock devices to bee stings. I vividly remember nearly getting the wind knocked out of me during training at JRC back in 2003 when (I was) permitted to test out the weakest of JRC’s electric shock devices on my own arm. That was no bee sting!

I have worked with a young lady who was so underweight while on electric shock devices that she had a test tube sewn into her stomach to feed her when she would not eat enough. Upstairs there was a photo of her on the wall near Dr. Matthew Israel’s office from when she first entered JRC, looking comparatively plump.

I have witnessed a student with autism getting shocked for sitting at his desk with his eyes closed for more than 15 seconds because his mother didn’t like the fact that he closed his eyes. I wondered what it might feel like for me to try to shut my eyes at night to go to sleep after I had been shocked several times during the day for closing my eyes! Initially in his behavioral plan, the student was shocked for closing his eyes while walking down the hallway with the reason that it was “health dangerous” to close one’s eyes while walking down a short carpeted hallway. Later, JRC added more and more places where this student would get shocked for closing his eyes. Students with autism characteristically see the world as over-stimulating and overwhelming. I saw a photograph of the student at a young age with his eyes closed while holding up a large fish on a fishing trip. I don’t believe students should be shocked for having autism.

Besides shocking a student for the behavior of “closing eyes” while sitting at one’s desk for more than 15 seconds, or while walking down the hallway, shocking students for reacting to their classmates getting shocked, or shocking a student with all four limbs tied to a restraint chair while a staff violently attacked the student with a plastic knife to teach him a lesson, there were many other behaviors for which students were shocked that felt absolutely wrong to me. Students during my time at JRC were shocked for tearing a paper cup or Kleenex while sitting and watching television during their break, shocked for standing up and raising a hand and asking to go to the bathroom, shocked for pulling apart a loose thread, shocked for going to the
bathroom in one’s clothes after signing that they need to use the bathroom for over two hours, shocking a blind, nonverbal girl with cerebral palsy for making a soft moaning sound in an effort to communicate and also shocking her for holding a staff’s hand, to name a few examples of many.

I am still unaware of even one study done that demonstrates that student behaviors remain “changed” after leaving JRC, once off the shock devices.

I was told repeatedly as a staff member at JRC that not only were these student behavior plans permitted by the judge, but some of the plans were ordered by the judge. Looking back, I question what the judge knew. Certainly JRC had a huge lack of oversight and it seemed that there was inadequate protection for the students.

On more than one occasion, I remember arriving to work and being surprised by drastic changes to individual student plans, where many behaviors for which a student would be shocked were eliminated from the student’s plan or else moved to a “minor” category for which the student would not be shocked. I remember being told by a student’s case manager that the behavior plans were changed because the student had an upcoming court date to prepare for. I do not believe that the judges were given the full picture of what they were approving when approving electric shocks on students.

After looking back, and to summarize some of the atrocities I witnessed and participated in while working at JRC, it is difficult for me to understand how I could have done something so cruel to other human beings. No doubt I was operating on misinformation, and misled to believe many of the same arguments that I hear parents arguing today. I truly believed that JRC was the only school that could help this population of students without the use of psychiatric drugs that turned children into zombies and ruined their livers.

Some children, not all, do respond to the threat of pain as long as they are strapped up to electric shock devices. But it is my strong opinion that JRC used electric shocks for many behaviors when other alternatives were available, and to the exclusion of more effective treatments. Psychologists leaving JRC told me that they had other treatments based on real research in established psychological journals that they wanted to use, but they were not allowed to use those other methods because Dr. Israel favored exclusively the use of electric shocks.

Dr. Israel was out to prove the power of his electric shock devices, and in doing so, somewhere along the line the shock devices must have become more important to him than individual students. It is my opinion, as a former JRC teacher who later worked at another school serving a very similar student population as the JRC students with autism, that NO shocks are necessary to control student behaviors at JRC.

If I was given the opportunity, I would sincerely apologize to each and every student I shocked at JRC. I certainly applaud Senator Brian A. Joyce and many others who have worked so diligently to end what I consider to be torture. Torture that is allowed and exists only in Canton, Massachusetts.

Please vote for Combat Arts for Recovery!

2011-09-14T01:11:00.000-07:00

Corinna West, founder of Combat Arts for Recovery has provided an update on where her program is currently in relation to the competition. Her program is one of 12 semi-finalists out of 55 entries to the Team USA grants competition. If chosen as the winner, her program stands to earn $12,000 to promote combat sports for mental health issues.

Hi friends,
At this point 82 people have communicated with me that they were voting or trying to vote for Combat Arts for Recovery. Thanks so much for your vote. I really appreciate your efforts. If all 82 of you voted once each day we would have it made, and now the Olympic Committee has fixed the worst of the bugs in the program.From now on, for the next six days, if each of you could vote once per day, we would win in no time. We need to catch up to the figure skaters. This program is designed to help bring disadvantaged people into the Olympic movement, but I'm not sure how disadvanted someone can be if they can afford to hire a private coach and rent out a whole hockey rink each time they practice. We are also the only fighting sport in the whole finals. We are also the only program helping people with mental health labels. We need your help.

Go to https://www.facebook.com/USOlympicTeam
Click Team USA Grants on the left, then accept non-secure browsing, accept the Facebook application, then vote for Combat Arts for Recovery. If you have trouble, try clicking the video and then click logout right by the comments. Please email me with any problems.My blog about this program is here for more information: http://corinnawest.com/why-to-vote-for-combat-arts-for-recovery/. If you want to help further, invite 25 (or all) of your friends using our Facebook invite. Or send out a bulk email and post my blog to your Facebook status. http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=210484989010592

Thanks so much for voting for me. This is a wonderful program which can bring two communities together.

Schizophrenia - needed by bad psychiatry

2011-09-13T04:05:00.000-07:00

I try to avoid Dr. David Allen's blog Family Dysfunction and Mental Health, because, Dr. Allen, alas, does not understand schizophrenia and seems resistant to ex-patients explaining to him that their issues relate in some way to overt trauma or family dysfunction. Some of my blog's energetic readers have taken him on in the past, but to no avail. He, like 99.9% of psychiatrists, thinks schizophrenia is always the special case, some kind of weird creature unrelated to trauma and not treatable in a trauma-related context. Family dysfunction only has an impact on other conditions, apparently.

None-the-less, Dr. Allen's latest blog post, linking the increase in psychiatric diagnoses to the disability benefits juggernaut is quite interesting, and he makes some good points. I also have to give Dr. Allen credit that his blog is open to all, unlike some sites where you have to be a mental health "professional" to sign in and comment.

However, then there is Dr. James Woods comment to the Allen post below. Can you imagine getting better if Dr. Woods (or 99.9% of psychiatrists) was your shrink? Before you take on a shrink (and yes, they can be helpful), find out how schizo positive he or she is. My educated guess is that most psychiatrists will say all the right things, but keep you on the drugs and other dependencies because they really see you as mentally disabled. Here's a nasty thought of mine. Homosexuality as a mental illness label got away from psychiatry in the 1970s through mass action by the gay rights movement, but "schizophrenics" will have difficulty organizing themselves against psychiatry if they are on disability and heavily drugged. Truly a malicious thought on my part.

Kudos for an extremely well-written and timely article, David.

As a psychiatrist myself, I try to avoid disabling people and rather concentrate my efforts on enabling people.

While certainly there are some diseases such as classic autism, moderate to severe schizophrenia, moderate mental retardation etc. which require disability, (and I am delighted to participate in securing disability services for these patients) we must remember as psychiatrists that many of our disorders are episodic; and tend to get better with treatment.

We need love (sic) work and play.

James Woods M.D.

I guess Dr. Woods does not consider people with schizophrenia as people, otherwise he, too, would avoid disabling them. Anyone want to picket his office? Oh darn, he didn't leave an address!

Combat arts for recovery

2011-09-12T06:24:00.000-07:00

Several people I have corresponded with through this blog have positive things to say about becoming a disciple of martial arts. One such person is Jane Alexander, who studied internal martial arts — ba gua, tai chi chuan and chi kung healing under Master Bruce Francis.

Another such person is Skyblue Cure. In one of his blogs (below) he explains why movement therapies are more important than "talk" therapies, although he believes that his emotional cure came first, allowing him later to benefit from martial arts. He cautions against martial arts for someone likely to suffer a psychotic break. I'm not judging the validity of martial arts for someone who has been diagnosed with e.g., schizophrenia, but it's good to be aware that there are people who think MA has been helpful in their own particular case.

"Nowadays, I see psychotherapy is regarded as a "support system" and referred to as "talk therapy". I see this in all the public information distributed by governmental mental health organizations in North America. It is obvious that the definition of the term itself has been modified and co-opted by the pharmaceutical companies in the selling of their drugs as the only solution for the human condition. "Psychotherapy" has become a support system to ensure "compliance" for patients to take their drugs.

There is the tendency to think of it as a means to protect the sensitive rather that to transform the sensitive into the tough.

Psychotherapy is more than "Talk". Eclectic, confrontative, Gestalt, bio-energetic psychotherapy involves emotional expression and doing things with the body that changes the nature of emotional expression. This affects both the body and the emotions, is permanent in effect and is far more than the verbal "talk" function of the voice box.

Changing the nature of emotional expression can be done in many ways, martial arts being one of these ways. In my blog I have spoken about the benefits of taking the body/mind approach through other activities such as sound therapy, the Alexander Technique, Family Constellation Therapy. Another of my blog reader wrote of the benefits of Direct Confrontation Therapy. Then there is Low Expressed Emotion, another excellent approach to lowering the emotional tone in our everyday interactions. Martial arts are also an excellent way to work with issues of unresolved anger that create energy blockages.

So I was intrigued to learn through MindFreedom, that Corinna West, a former Olympic athlete, has created a program called Combat Arts for Recovery. Her program is one of 12 semi-finalists out of 55 entries to the Team USA grants competition. If chosen as the winner, her program stands to earn $12,000 to promote combat sports for mental health issues.

Please read what she says about the program, and consider voting for this worthwhile endeavor.

Local sports clubs are providing scholarships to people with emotional difficulties. Mental health service providers can use advocacy skills to encourage their doctors to prescribe exercise instead of medication. This is a first step in my business' goal of providing a mental health system so cheap that people in recovery can pay for it themselves. This will include almost all peer provided services and no medications. I plan for outcomes that should rival the Open Dialogue model in Finland where most people completely recover without even getting labeled.

Please vote for our program at http://www.facebook.com/USOlympicTeam. You can vote once per day per email address until September 18. Right now we are a little behind and we need as many votes as possible. Once you've voted for Combat Arts for Recovery the first day it should just be three clicks the other six days.

For more information about the program or for more detailed voting instructions, check my website at: http://corinnawest.com/why-to-vote-for-combat-arts-for-recovery/

Corinna West, MS, CPS
Creative Director, Wellness Wordworks
PO Box 172351, Kansas City, KS 66117
816-392-6074
http://corinnawest.com/

The King is wearing no clothes, and I bought his suit!

2011-09-08T08:58:00.000-07:00

More commentary in the Guardian on wearing the the new black in Europe (a mental health diagnosis).

A new survey from the European College of Psychopharmacology, a meta-analysis of a gathered mass of earlier research, reports that a staggering 164.8 million Europeans – 38.2% of the population – suffer from a mental disorder in any year

A couple of thoughts came to mind when I read the article. One, is that there is no mention of schizophrenia. By omitting "schizophrenia," it's an easy sell to convince readers that, yes indeed, the mental health industry has gone too far in labelling everyone because these labels can be short hand terms that we toss around for people we are just trying to make a bit of fun of, and who we really don't think are "clinical."

Of course, the prevalence of schizophrenia is the same as it's always been (about 1 in 100), so it appears that schizophrenia is not part of this label creep. But the prevalence of its near identical sibling, bipolar disorder, has skyrocketed. I think a large part of this upward trend for bipolar, is not just the resulting side effects of increased use of drugs which can trigger mania, but has to do with the fact that nobody wants to be called "schizophrenic." It's so much more acceptable to be "bipolar."

Keep in mind that psychiatrists want to OWN schizophrenia. It's their bread and butter, after all. So far, they manage to deliberately obscure the fact that many people actually RECOVER from this state, usually by taking themselves outside of the psychiatric model of the so-called "disease." When the public appears to catch on to this diagnostic label creep for relatively mild neuroses, psychiatry has always succeeded in the past and will continue to succeed in future, to convince the public that schizophrenia is a true mental illness. And, the public will nod its collective head in agreement that schizophrenia is a terrible scourge and there is no remedy but compassion for this dreadful disorder of the brain.

With all the focus on biochemical solutions to the problems of the psyche, brought to you by none other than big pharma, I have been waiting for my chance to repeat what John McCarthy ruefully says (in his delightful Irish way) about his reliance on psychiatry for 20/30 years. "The King is wearing is no clothes and I bought his suit." Please read the full interview at Beyond Meds.

In the interview, McCarthy echoes Ron Unger's post, about trying too hard to recover.

McCarthy says: "But God what I have learned from the upside: madness is an emotional feeling just like joy, love, happiness, sadness, all the others, but I shut the door in its face as I was taught to do. Rejected all it had to give, and it, madness got mad at me. I fought it, it fought back and it won. I learned so painfully and slowly, to let it in, be comfortable with it, and it has rewarded me for my kindness to it.

Beautifully said.

Abnormal is the new black

2011-09-06T09:14:00.000-07:00

I received this message in my in-box from Vince Boehm, a psych rights activist:

**** note: This is a private list. I send out alerts, useful news items, and comment to a group of mental health professionals, decision makers and activists. (OK to repost and to include this header and comments). If you do not want to receive any of these emails, please let me know. To preserve privacy, I blind copy the entire list. Vince Boehm ****

While this article is obviously framed in terms favorable to the industry, and similar reports with like numbers have been published for the U.S. market as well, I have a hypothetical question.

With the percentages of labeled people seemingly creeping up relentlessly towards a 51% majority, what happens when these numbers cross that line?

Will then the "abnormal" become "normal"?

Just a thought.

Vince
http://news.yahoo.com/nearly-40-pct-europeans-suffer-mental-illness-230827577.html

Nearly 40 percent of Europeans suffer mental illness

LONDON (Reuters) - Europeans are plagued by mental and neurological illnesses, with almost 165 million people or 38 percent of the population suffering each year from a brain disorder such as depression, anxiety, insomnia or dementia, according to a large new study.

With only about a third of cases receiving the therapy or medication needed, mental illnesses cause a huge economic and social burden -- measured in the hundreds of billions of euros -- as sufferers become too unwell to work and personal relationships break down.

"Mental disorders have become Europe's largest health challenge of the 21st century," the study's authors said.

At the same time, some big drug companies are backing away from investment in research on how the brain works and affects behavior, putting the onus on governments and health charities to stump up funding for neuroscience.

"The immense treatment gap ... for mental disorders has to be closed," said Hans Ulrich Wittchen, director of the institute of clinical psychology and psychotherapy at Germany's Dresden University and the lead investigator on the European study.

"Those few receiving treatment do so with considerable delays of an average of several years and rarely with the appropriate, state-of-the-art therapies."

Wittchen led a three-year study covering 30 European countries -- the 27 European Union member states plus Switzerland, Iceland and Norway -- and a population of 514 million people.

A direct comparison of the prevalence of mental illnesses in other parts of the world was not available because different studies adopt varying parameters.

Wittchen's team looked at about 100 illnesses covering all major brain disorders from anxiety and depression to addiction to schizophrenia, as well as major neurological disorders including epilepsy, Parkinson's and multiple sclerosis.

The results, published by the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ENCP) on Monday, show an "exceedingly high burden" of mental health disorders and brain illnesses, he told reporters at a briefing in London.

Mental illnesses are a major cause of death, disability, and economic burden worldwide and the World Health Organization predicts that by 2020, depression will be the second leading contributor to the global burden of disease across all ages.

Wittchen said that in Europe, that grim future had arrived early, with diseases of the brain already the single largest contributor to the EU's burden of ill health.

The four most disabling conditions -- measured in terms of disability-adjusted life years or DALYs, a standard measure used to compare the impact of various diseases -- are depression, dementias such as Alzheimer's disease and vascular dementia, alcohol dependence and stroke.

The last major European study of brain disorders, which was published in 2005 and covered a smaller population of about 301 million people, found 27 percent of the EU adult population was suffering from mental illnesses.

Although the 2005 study cannot be compared directly with the latest finding -- the scope and population was different -- it found the cost burden of these and neurological disorders amounted to about 386 billion euros ($555 billion) a year at that time. Wittchen's team has yet to finalize the economic impact data from this latest work, but he said the costs would be "considerably more" than estimated in 2005.

The researchers said it was crucial for health policy makers to recognize the enormous burden and devise ways to identify potential patients early -- possibly through screening -- and make treating them quickly a high priority.

"Because mental disorders frequently start early in life, they have a strong malignant impact on later life," Wittchen said. "Only early targeted treatment in the young will effectively prevent the risk of increasingly largely proportions of severely ill...patients in the future."

David Nutt, a neuropsychopharmacology expert at Imperial College London who was not involved in this study, agreed.

"If you can get in early you may be able to change the trajectory of the illness so that it isn't inevitable that people go into disability," he said. "If we really want not to be left with this huge reservoir of mental and brain illness for the next few centuries, then we ought to be investing more now."

(Reporting by Kate Kelland; Editing by Matthew Jones)