Psychiatry Needs Reform

a reply to: EducationSeeker

Frigging lobbyists everywhere,,

a reply to: solve

My understanding is that they actually write legislation.

a reply to: Blaine91555

That negative review by Dr. Barkley, is no more true than what Breggin says.
Just another opinion from a Doc whose pocketbook and reputation are threatened by Breggin.

(From your link):

Dr. Barkley is Director of Psychology and Professor of Psychiatry and Neurology at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center, Worcester, MA. He has been a clinician, scientist, and educator specializing in ADHD and related disorders for more than 20 years. He is the author of more than 150 scientific papers and book chapters on ADHD and related topics and the author or editor of 13 books, including ATTENTION DEFICIT HYPERACTIVITY DISORDER: A HANDBOOK FOR DIAGNOSIS AND TREATMENT(New York: Guilford Press, 1990 [lst edition], May 1998 [second edition]) and TAKING CHARGE OF ADHD: THE COMPLETE AUTHORITATIVE GUIDE FOR PARENTS (New York: Guilford Press, 1995).

All opinions, just like us, right?

Am personally inclined to not believe anyone anymore.
But still find it at least interesting to listen to those whom buck the insanity of our established institutions.

Pharmacology in the psychiatric field is said to have about a 33% success rate.
Don't know about the rate for developmental disorders, such as ADHD and autism.

Intimate experience with the two has shown me a 0 for 5 success rate, with mucho difficulty for the weening-off of these drugs.
So am not saying Breggin is right, just personally interesting. That's all.

It's very understandable that he would come under attack for saying what he does.
But we should also question the critics, along with Breggin, to see if we might glimpse their potential motivation.

We are not advanced enough to mess with people's brain chemistry

All SSRI type drugs are a modern lobotomy and one day will be seen as such

People who have been prescribed multiple psychiatric drugs, institutionalized, sometimes involuntarily, or undergone electroconvulsive shock therapy (ECT) have a place to tell their personal stories on the website Mad in America. They describe themselves as psychiatric survivors; they've come to realize that there is nothing wrong with their brain and that they can get off drugs.

It is emphasized, though, that this must not be done cold-turkey. It has to be a slow taper.

a reply to: EducationSeeker


I'm not sure there can be a blanket statement about this, and also, in the video about "medication spellbinding" this guy says some misleading and inaccurate things.

One can't compare Lithium to Effexor. He calls them "psychoactive substances" that impair cognitive behavior. Lithium does that- it's an opiate or benzodiazapene type, but Prozac and Effexor arent. Those are SSRIs and the effects are not the same as Lithium.

So that misleading thing right there makes him less trustworthy.

I appreciate your post OP. It’s super late my time (EST) so I’ll keep this short, but plan to add more to this conversation later. I’m working on my masters in mental health counseling and have worked within the mental health field with psychiatric patients for over 10 years. I certainly agree that the establishment is extremely broken and in need of reform. Often people struggle with personality disorders or tumultuous times in their lives and medications are not the answer
HOWEVER,
To state that there is no need for pharmaceutical or other types of treatments (including MOdern ECT) is erroneous at best and borders on medical negligence and/or malfeasance.
Please bear in mind that two things can be true at once; pharmaceutical companies are corrupt and push pills with impunity- the medical establishment (especially nonprofit organizations) spend more time covering their ass than caring for sick individuals. YET there are most definitely extremely sick individuals that are able to live functional healthy lives because of medications; especially antipsychotics and mood stabilizers. Would their lives be or have been better if they had all the parental love or immediate counseling services at an early age, yes, but that only goes so far.
We do a disservice to every one of these people that I personally adore and care for regularly when we make sweeping statements about psychiatric or mental health/brain development issues.
As it is, I’m currently fighting wit the state of Vermont because they are NOT putting my cousin on medication and believe ‘counseling ‘ alone will help him even after he’s increased violent tendencies and stated that voices are telling him to murder and stab others. I am livid that medical professionals could hear such things and walk away after and sleep at night with a healthy conscious. He could and likely will take someone or his own life any day now if he doesn’t receive medicine.
The pendulum appears to have swung quite quickly in the opposite direction in that state. Yet, we Americans cry out in wonder and awe when people go shoot up churches and schools!
Please remember that medicine is a necessity for many and taking contrary positions just further alienates an already disenfranchised group of individuals

originally posted by: KansasGirl
a reply to: EducationSeeker
One can't compare Lithium to Effexor. He calls them "psychoactive substances" that impair cognitive behavior. Lithium does that- it's an opiate or benzodiazapene type, but Prozac and Effexor arent. Those are SSRIs and the effects are not the same as Lithium.

Regardless of the type of psychoactive substance, the brain is impaired, not helped. That is the point, and a valid one.

a reply to: nowayreally

Psychiatric drugs have caused people to commit violent acts.

There is a website for people who are learning to deal with the phenomenon of hearing voices: Hearing Voices Network.

“The voices in my head | Eleanor Longden”:

TED
Published on Aug 8, 2013

To all appearances, Eleanor Longden was just like every other student, heading to college full of promise and without a care in the world. That was until the voices in her head started talking. Initially innocuous, these internal narrators became increasingly antagonistic and dictatorial, turning her life into a living nightmare. Diagnosed with schizophrenia, hospitalized, drugged, Longden was discarded by a system that didn't know how to help her. Longden tells the moving tale of her years-long journey back to mental health, and makes the case that it was through learning to listen to her voices that she was able to survive.

www.youtube.com...

a reply to: EducationSeeker

Oh yes EdSeek, they have most definitely caused such things...homicides, suicides, and shorten life spans. You’ll get no argument from me there. What I am stating is that when prescribed and used properly (as they should be) the benefits far outweigh the damages- to the individual and society at large.

a reply to: nowayreally

But I disagree with you there.

I get my information from studying the work of Dr. Peter Breggin and the information on investigative journalist Robert Whitaker's website Mad in America.

I do this because both individuals strike me as smarter and more trustworthy than anything I see in the official story we're all fed by the mainstream.

a reply to: Nothin

It should give a person pause when Breggin says right in the OP's video that even Schizophrenia has nothing to do with a "biochemical imbalance" when it's known that dopamine plays a role, along with abnormalities in the brain.

Having known two Schizophrenics well during my life, I understand how dangerous it is for a man like him to be out there feeding their fears and potentially causing them to reject the medications that allow them to function normally and have a fairly normal life. I've seen what happens to them when they get it in their heads that the pharmaceutical industry is out to get them and Breggin is guilty of malpractice if any one of them does not take their meds due to him.

I looked up what financial information I could find on his 501(c)(3) in IRS filings. He has so little support that it appears they raised less than $18,000 in something like five years. The idea the entire psychiatric community other than him are wrong is absurd on it's face.

Anyone who tells a Schizophrenic not to take their drugs is intentionally causing them harm to push their own agenda.

originally posted by: Blaine91555
a reply to: Nothin

It should give a person pause when Breggin says right in the OP's video that even Schizophrenia has nothing to do with a "biochemical imbalance" when it's known that dopamine plays a role, along with abnormalities in the brain.

Untrue.

You have no proof of that.

Psychiatric drugs are definitely about profits, the field is full of cheatings in results and deliberately hiding the data about the extreme side effects of these drugs (at least their likelihoods). Many psychiatrists are only learning about the drugs with the help of data that is given to them by the firms themselves, as far as I know. So yes the field very much stinks. But that does not mean they are not helping at least some people who have severe mental illness, especially schizophrenia and severe depression.

Besides I gotta say, I think their core philosophy is partly correct. Our behaviors are really affected by chemical states of the brain. I am not saying that chemical reactions are the ONLY parameters that affects our moods and psyche, but they definitely affect us. Our body is material after all.

originally posted by: thenomad
Our behaviors are really affected by chemical states of the brain.

Yes, chemicals we ingest affect behaviors.

originally posted by: EducationSeeker
a reply to: Blue Shift

Asking a question like that indicates disagreement regarding Big Pharma, which I will not engage in a debate about.

Just because "Big Pharma" as you call them might be operating with questionable ethics does not necessarily mean Dr. Breggin is right. That's not debatable, that's just a statement of fact.

a reply to: Blue Shift

True.

I had interpreted your statement to mean that Big Pharma is not a problem to go up against so maybe Dr. Breggin was making much ado about nothing.

This article explains the misconception people have about psychiatric diagnoses:

The difference between a medical diagnosis and a psychiatric diagnosis

‘Mental illness’ is terribly misleading because the ‘mental disorders’ we diagnose are no more than descriptions of what clinicians observe people do or say, not at all well established diseases — Statement of Allen Frances, Psychiatrist and former DSM-IV Task Force Chairman, 2015

The general public has been lead to believe that a diagnosis of mental disorder is the same as a legitimate medical diagnosis of disease, which is false. This is common knowledge among psychiatrists, but not something they often admit to the public at large, simply because it is the foundation upon which psychiatry is built. The fact is, all mental disorders are contained within psychiatry’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), and are arrived upon by psychiatrists literally voting on what is, or is not, considered a mental disorder. . .

. . . While there has been “no shortage of alleged biochemical explanations for psychiatric conditions…not one has been proven. Quite the contrary. In every instance where such an imbalance was thought to have been found, it was later proven false.” — Dr. Joseph Glenmullen, Harvard Medical School psychiatrist . . .

www.cchrint.org...

originally posted by: Blaine91555
a reply to: Nothin

It should give a person pause when Breggin says right in the OP's video that even Schizophrenia has nothing to do with a "biochemical imbalance" when it's known that dopamine plays a role, along with abnormalities in the brain.

Schizophrenia is a problematic diagnosis in and of itself.

European psychiatry diagnoses schizophrenia about 20% of the time that American psychiatrists do so. That right there indicates that labeling people as schizophrenics (or not, in Europe's case) is a largely cultural phenomenon.

Notice, I'm not saying that there's nothing there. People are definitely sick. I'm just saying that it's a label for a who constellation of aberrant behaviors (behaviorism, again) and they all tend to get treated with the same drugs, whether you're a paranoid schizophrenic or a schizoid paranoiac [two different diagnoses entirely according to the DSM).

a reply to: Blaine91555

Dopamine plays a role in all of our lives, at every moment.

PsychologyToday.com

Dopamine is one of the brain’s neurotransmitters—a chemical that ferries information between neurons. Dopamine helps regulate movement, attention, learning, and emotional responses. It also enables us not only to see rewards, but to take action to move toward them. Since dopamine contributes to feelings of pleasures and satisfaction as part of the reward system, the neurotransmitter also plays a part in addiction. Dopamine is heavily involved in the motor system. When the brain fails to produce enough dopamine, it can result in Parkinson’s disease. A primary treatment for Parkinson’s disease, therefore, is a drug called L-dopa, which spurs the production of dopamine. Dopamine has also been implicated in schizophrenia and ADHD, but its role is not fully understood. People with low dopamine activity may also be more prone to addiction. The presence of a certain kind of dopamine receptor is associated with sensation-seeking, more commonly known as risk taking.

We could agree that medication is a solid option, when someone is in a psychotic crisis.

That's really the basis of Western medicine, though, isn't it?
Emergency intervention?