How to make a shrink shit his pants

Visiting David M. Allan, M.D.'s blog, your first impression might be a rather positive one. He seems to have got at least something. And yes, he has got something. But, alas!, when it comes to so-called "schizophrenia" the guy hasn't got a clue. No more than any other of the drug-pushers in the business. Watch this - the comments. Watch him get increasingly insecure, defensive, and eventually almost hostile *), although I'm really gentle with him, if I may say so myself.

Isn't it just mind-boggling? I mean, wouldn't you expect someone who has dedicated his professional life to helping people to be curious about different perspectives and opinions, instead of being this dismissive of them, and unwilling to give them a thought? Where's the problem, Dr Allen? Oh. I see, two main problems: 1. If I'm right, it means there would basically be no need for you as a shrink anymore. There would be no need for any shrink anymore. You would have to find yourself another job, maybe even give up on the "M.D." as other medical specialities have certain standards... And if you want to stay in the business, you'd have to start from scratch, as all you've been taught so far is how to help society - get rid of people in emotional distress, as discrete, fast and efficient as possible. You haven't been taught how to help people in emotional crises themselves. 2. If I'm right, and you want to stay in the business, you'd have to do something radical about your fear of yourself, your own "issues", or dysfunctionality... Ugh, yeah, that's tough! Especially the latter is a really nasty one. For any narcissist.
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*) Any resemblance with adjectives you might catch Dr Allen scribble down in his "patients'" charts is intentional. :D
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Oh and, note that in his last comment Dr Allen writes "True psychosis is never a normal variant of anything." This statement doesn't really make much sense, unless you take Dr Allan's at this point presumably rather "disturbed" state of mind ("disturbed" as in "psychosis", yup) into consideration. What he seems to try to say is that true "psychosis", that is being truly disturbed (by/about something)..., has got nothing to do with being human. So, when someone is "psychotic" (disturbed, by/about something, my or Dr Allan's statements for instance...) s/he is not really human. Aha. So much for seeing the person, and not the diagnosis. Thank you for clarifying this for us, Dr Allan!

Why Merete Nordentoft's recent research showing "schizophrenics" to do better without drugs won't change a thing about treatment

Well, in short, because the 19% of study participants reported to be "fully recovered" aren't really fully recovered, but rehabilitated.

A follow-up article in the Danish journal Dagens Medicin portrays Mai Pedersen, a 30-year-old with a high school exam (it's the smart ones who do best, remember?), and with some of the most loving and supportive parents imaginable (it's the ones with a truly idyllic family background who do best, remember?), who was labelled "schizophrenic" seven years ago, put into OPUS (Merete Nordentoft's early intervention program) and on drugs, of course, both neuroleptics and "anti-depressants", and who decided to go off the drugs some time ago. The latter actually, and this is the really disturbing part as the article's title, which translates into "Went off medication - and didn't ask for permission before afterwards", indicates, without asking permission from her shrink. Imagine! She didn't ask her shrink before tapering off the drugs!! How incredibly cheeky!*)

Although Mai Pedersen doesn't take any drugs today, she is "symptom-free". So, according to the article, Mai Pedersen is "fully recovered". But is she really? Mai Pedersen has an enemy. The enemy is stress. And it still has that much power over her as to have her weigh everything she does in regard to how the enemy "stress" probably will react to it. Mai Pedersen has, certainly thanks to CBT-rat training (and yes, it may well make training progress come more swiftly and be more lasting if the rat has some brains), and thanks to her wonderfully supportive parents (yes, relatives can play a decisive role when it comes to "insight" and "compliance", the better they manage to hide their own dysfunctionality behind a facade of pure family idyl, the more of a "support" - for biopsychiatric "treatment" - they will be) learned to live as a victim of "schizophrenia", a slave of a chronic brain disease. She has accepted that nothing ever will come as easy to her as it does to her "normal" friends and acquaintances, that she will have to make sacrifices to the "illness" for the rest of her life, that the "illness" dictates what she can and can't do, and that she maybe even will end up in hospital again, and again, and again... - And btw, take a look at the photograph at the top of the article, and note how beautifully it communicates the heavy burden of suffering from "schizophrenia".

Mai Pedersen succeeded in becoming a licensed psychomotrician, and is a member of the OPUS-panel, which "tries to spread information in the community about the many success stories that show also patients with schizophrenia to be able to live rewarding lives." A real success story. Or, as Mai Pedersen puts it herself, "a lousy Danielle Steele novel". Indeed!

Well well, here it is that I ask, how about a panel to try and spread some information in the community about the many real success stories that show labelled people to be able to overcome their crisis, and live a life without "schizophrenia", without constantly having to be on their guard against an enemy called "stress", without massive limitations and sacrifices, and without having the spectre of returning "psychosis" and re-hospitalization hanging over their heads?? How about a panel to try and spread some information in the community about real recovery, real freedom, to be possible??

But alas, such a panel would probably not consist of a bunch of happy and grateful OPUS-patients (and Mai Pedersen is still a patient today, she still sees her shrink on a regular basis, apropos of "fully recovered"...), a bunch of Elyn Sakses, who identify as being "mentally ill", as suffering from a chronic brain disease by the name of "schizophrenia". So, it is rather unlikely that we will see such a panel initiated by the establishment anytime in the foreseeable future. Just as a paradigm shift in the definition and treatment of crisis is unlikely to happen as long as the Mai Pedersens and Elyn Sakses of this world aren't only made slaves of an alleged illness, but also, and even more important, of a system, that (ab-)uses them big time to sell its hopeless messages and harmful "treatment" to the community.

To get back to Merete Nordentoft's research, the rate of 19% "fully recovered" participants is obviously an error, resulting from an erroneous concept of "full recovery". The true figure probably is closer to 0%, as the study apparently was not designed to include participants, who dropped out of "treatment", but seems to exclusively have concentrated on individuals, who stayed in contact with the mh system throughout the entire five years during which they were monitored. If this is the case, and I have a very strong hunch that it is, not least because the article in Dagens Medicin otherwise probably would have portrayed someone else instead of Mai Pedersen, real full recovery of course is excluded in advance from figuring in the results as a possible outcome. I suppose, this is what is called "biased" then.

A high school exam, the ability to think clearly, and a supportive network, family or other, are without doubt useful in the recovery process. But there is one more important thing , maybe the most important of them all, in terms of recovery that isn't mentioned anywhere in context with Merete Nordentoft's research, and that thing is what Al Siebert termed "resilience". The ability to "resile", or resist (without breaking your neck over it), for instance the massive indoctrination labelled people usually face in the mh system. The ability to preserve one's integrity in an environment designed to strip you entirely of it. Mai Pedersen had the high school exam, but unfortunately she didn't have the amount of resilience necessary to achieve real full recovery, and I also wonder if she would have had her family's support in case she had had the necessary amount of resilience, and had chosen to opt for freedom, instead of for slavery.
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*) The title of the article caused some indignation among consumers/survivors, and gave rise to an interesting discussion at a Danish mainstream forum. - Of course I simply had to set the cat among the pigeons... :D - I will write about my thoughts on the matter in a future post here.

Bye bye, Merete! - Some final thoughts about Merete Nordentoft's study on "schizophrenia" outcomes

Bottom line: if people weren't doped up over their eye balls with consciousness reducing, brain damaging drugs, if they weren't told depressing, demoralizing and pacifying lies about a chronic, biological brain disease, but encouraged to look for the existential, spiritual meaning of their personal crisis, there'd be a lot more than 19% who'd recover fully. It's still a long way from these 19% to the 85% of alternatives like Soteria.

Merete Nordentoft wants the period people are "treated" under the OPUS project to be extended from two to five years. Half of the participants in the study were "treated" under OPUS during the first couple of years. The article doesn't say anything about these participants doing better than the other half, on the contrary: "We don't know to what extent the prognosis depends on the treatment, even if some individuals certainly have improved thanks to the treatment." -Merete Nordentoft, in perfect self-contradiction, as well as in perfect contradiction to her own research results.

I'd say, what we'd really need isn't more OPUS, but to have the Danish Fuller Torreys (yes, Merete Nordentoft really believes there's something to Fuller Torrey's cat poop nonsense... ) replaced by Loren Moshers. The whole incompetent (they can't even interpret their own research results) bunch of them. Merete first.
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Related: "New Danish research shows that 'schizophrenics' do better off drugs"

"More about Merete Nordentoft's surprising (NOT!) research results on 'schizophrenia'"

More about Merete Nordentoft's surprising (NOT!) research results on "schizophrenia"

The main emphasis of the article, whose title translates into: "High school certificate a good weapon against schizophrenia", is on the role of education in terms of recovery from so-called "schizophrenia".

The researchers followed 547 people labelled with "schizophrenia" over a 5-year-period.

Results: 19% achieved full recovery, most of them, as mentioned in my previous post, were not "treatment compliant", respectively didn't use psych drugs at all. 15% achieved significant improvement. 53% didn't achieve lasting improvement, but are able to live independently, and without longer hospitalizations. 13% are dependent on assisted housing, or need long-term hospitalization.

Among those who achieved full recovery or significant improvement, a higher education is prevalent, most of them are women, and most of them come from a family background with both parents living together. On the other hand, "negative symptoms" like social withdrawal and passivity indicate a less favorable outcome.

Education: the so far only comment on the article at Dagens Medicin (the journal only allows professionals to comment... ) concludes that a higher education equals to a higher IQ which equals to more benefit from CBT - "something we've known for a long time".

In my opinion, a higher education equals to the ability to search for information on one's own, if necessary - and when it comes to "mental illness" it is necessary, since true information in Danish is thin, to put it mildly - also information in foreign languages like English. Information that may have the individual choose to, by and large, do without neuroleptics, that may have him/her question the (Danish) mh system's messages about a chronic, biological brain disease, and that may have him/her investigate into alternative views of the experience. A higher education often equals to a stronger belief in one's own intellectual capacities, "intellectual self-reliance", so to speak, and thus to less blind confidence in others' - the "experts' - authority.

A higher education often provides tools to think analytically, critically and independently. Invaluable tools when it comes to finding meaning with one's experience, and become an expert on one's own behalf: "I know what's good for me." It's called empowerment, and it's decisive in the recovery process.

Drugs: well, I'd say, it's self-evident that substances which interfere with and reduce cognition, memory, self-/consciousness, etc., which in fact often render researching, googling, reading and understanding unsurmountable challenges, are not helpful in the process of resolving crisis.

Women: in general, women are more socializing than men, and don't have the same reservations against opening up and talking about personal problems. And if people who experience crisis need anything, it is the possibility to communicate their experience to someone they can trust unconditionally.

Family: a somewhat well-functioning family can be a valuable resource of support. Especially if family members are minded to resolve problems rather than to just brush them under the carpet, or run from them.

It doesn't look like the researchers have done much else than gathered statistics about "symptoms" experienced, hospitalizations, education, family background, and whatever else can be observed from the outside. Also this study seems to be a shining example of the lack of empiricism in psychiatric "research" in general. Participants obviously were not asked what in detail was helpful for their individual recovery. As a result, the researchers stand with a bunch of data they, due to their preconceived idea of the nature of "schizophrenia" - it's still referred to as an "illness", of course -, and the resulting preconceived idea of what kind of treatment is indicated, don't really know what to make of.

Probably, their reasoning will not go beyond conclusions like the one mentioned above, that CBT is the decisive factor, while they just as probably will be unlikely to admit the quite logic causality between "treatment" with consciousness reducing, and in the long run brain damaging substances and long-term outcomes. Actually, the article explicitly states, that "antipsychotics" are effective treatment for "psychosis": "Don't draw the 'wrong' conclusions from the research results! Take your meds!" Also, an undertone can be traced in the article that clearly emphasizes that "full recovery" doesn't mean "cured". "Schizophrenia" still is a chronic brain disease: "You're still ill! Don't you dare to believe anything else! You're only as lucky as to be in remission!" So, it is unlikely that this study will change anything about how "schizophrenia" is perceived by the "experts", or how it is being treated. Concerning the fact that most of the fully recovered participants either went off neuroleptics, or never used them, this is probably not interpreted as a precondition for their recovery ("remission"), but rather as a result of it. Just as the article doesn't mention the connection between "negative symptoms" like social withdrawal and passivity on the one hand, and the these "negative symptoms" increasing effects of neuroleptic drugs on the other, with one word.

If at all this study makes it to one of the major journals in the field, I suspect it will suffer the same fate as other long-term outcome studies, and soon be buried in the archives, under a load of crap like Thomas Werge's eugenic "research", that allegedly found the genetic cause of "schizophrenia" to be chromosome mutations which are found in 60 - 90% of the general population... (Can't recall whether I wrote about it here, but well, now you know: 60 - 90% of the general population are genetically predisposed to develop "schizophrenia". In other words: to be a human being predisposes you for "schizophrenia". LMAO.)

BTW: the article calls OPUS a "psycho-social" project. Not by any stretch of imagination can I find much "psycho-social" about a project that explicitly promotes " - psycho education with weight on a biological model (guilt reducing)", and "antipsychotic medical treatment" as "indicated" for "most of the patients".

The end of suffering - genes and schizophrenia

This is a post I wrote for Gianna Kali's blog Beyond Meds. I publish it here too, as Gianna's blog has no comment function for now. So, feel free to tear me to pieces. Still, it would be nice if you considered this blog's comment politics...

The end of suffering- genes and schizophrenia

"Det är synd om människorna," is an often quoted line from August Strindberg's A Dream Play. Translated into English, the line becomes: "Human beings are to be pitied," which is a correct literal translation. Nevertheless, it fails to capture the very essence of the Swedish original, and often leads to the misunderstanding that Strindberg intended to say, human beings were to be pitied because of the suffering that is - being human. No, human beings are not to be pitied because their suffering in the world is without comparison, inevitable, and sometimes even endless. They're not to be pitied because of the suffering that is both humanity's greatest challenge and its greatest gift at the same time. There's nothing in nature, human or other, that doesn't serve a purpose. And there's only one purpose: life.

Human beings are to be pitied because they fail to recognize and acknowledge this. Because they have made suffering their worst enemy, whom they fight with all their power and strength. Because they have waged war on nature, not least on their own nature, on themselves, on life. 

That is what Strindberg's line and A Dream Play, which Strindberg himself said was "the child of my greatest pain", as a whole is all about.

The Danish newspaper B.T., a tabloid, ran an article on Tuesday, September 1st, 2009, under the headline "Skizofrene fostre kan sorteres fra" - "Schizophrenic embryos can be screened out".

According to another article at the website of University of Copenhagen, "Genetic Causes of Schizophrenia", a group of European researchers has found chromosomal changes in individuals labelled with "schizophrenia", that they interpret to be the main cause of the "illness". Their research is now granted a fund of additionally 30 million Danish crowns, in part paid by Lundbeck, a Danish pharmaceutical company, specializing in drugs for the "treatment" of "mental illnesses", Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. Cipralex/Lexapro is a Lundbeck-product, as is Serdolect, a lesser known "atypical antipsychotic", in part by the Danish National Advanced Technology Foundation, and the Danish Medical Research Council.

The additional funding is granted in order for the researchers to develop diagnostic tools, a new generation of drugs, targeting the mutated, "defect" chromosomes, and tools to screen embryos for the chromosome changes in question, so that parents to be can choose an abortion if the embryo shows these chromosome changes. 

The few critical voices that are heard here and there in the media don't go beyond questioning if it is "ethical" to screen out and dispose of embryos, that may or may not actually develop "schizophrenia" later in life, since the researchers admit, that it takes more than the identified mutated chromosomes for the "illness" to manifest. They also have found the specific chromosome changes in individuals who are not labelled, and do not display signs of the "illness", just as they found labelled individuals without the changes. So, basically, the results are not significantly different from what we have seen this kind of research conjure up so many times in the past.

Which obviously is significantly different, increased, once more, is our culture's belief in Social-Darwinism, and eugenic weapons in its war against our existential suffering, against our own nature. Because what the researchers really have found is not the cause of any biological brain disease, but the formal, biological effects of the challenges, humanity faces: social injustice, violence, abuse, exploitation, alienation...

At least since Paul Hammersley and John Read's meta study, we all know, that most people who are labelled with "schizophrenia", are survivors of abuse. And while Hammersley and Read concentrated on physical and sexual abuse, abuse has many faces. Most of what our culture values as "normal" in fact is unnatural, actually alienating us from (our) nature. It is a "toxic mimicry" of nature, to use Derrick Jensen's terminology. To expect our nature to submit to this toxic mimicry without resistance, and deny itself, is a kind of abuse. We're all traumatized by this abuse. It's what the Fall Of Man refers to. No one is innocent.

What we also know by now is that childhood trauma can change both neuronal pathways in the brain and genes. Like all form in this world, also genes react and adapt to the environment they're surrounded and influenced by. The form, our body and also our genes, is always a symbol, a sign, a "symptom", reflecting on a formal level whatever formal, existential, spiritual, psychological, social, etc. challenges we face by reacting to these challenges. A nonreactive entity, if it is a human being, a person, or a single gene, is not fit to survive in this world as it is defenceless exposed to it's destructive abusiveness.

Mutated chromosomes are not the cause of anything. Neither of "schizophrenia". They are a symptom - of the challenges, the social injustice, the abuse, the alienation, the violence and destructiveness we face in this world.

We can try to eliminate our suffering, our reaction to the challenges that surround us, and to gene-manipulate respectively abort humanity into a state of nonreactivity. It will be exactly this, the abortion of humanity. As nonreactive to our environment we will no longer be able to survive. Nonreactivity to the challenges we face will allow this world's destructiveness to unrestrained destroy not only the basis for our biological survival, but, and even worse, since our biological survival depends on it, the basis for our spiritual survival, for the survival of what makes us human: our souls, our suffering souls. We can try. While the researchers, and everybody else, are positive to have found the cause of "schizophrenia", as long as there's one single alive human being left on this earth, they will react to the world. To eliminate existential suffering, we will have to eliminate humanity. Although the Nazis were extremely efficient, murdering people who suffered in the way that is labelled "schizophrenia", although they sterilized everybody whom they did not murder, preventing them from having children, the percentage of people who met the criteria for "schizophrenia" did not decrease in Nazi-Germany. The percentage of Jews did. Remarkably. What does this tell us about the "genetic causes of schizophrenia"?

In the meantime, it nevertheless looks like humanity won't rest until it has not overcome but eliminated suffering by perfectionizing its cultural nightmare's alienation and deadness. It looks like we will eliminate nature, both our own and that around us - and end up perfectly inhumane. The latest research on the "genetic causes of schizophrenia", and the consequences it inevitably will have, is another huge battle won in our war against ourselves, on our way toward a perfectly inhumane world.

So I ask: Is it "ethical" to eliminate life's greatest gift to humanity - humanity itself?

I know, that this is a controversial viewpoint. 'You want people to suffer?!' I hear you, with disbelief. Yes. I want people to suffer. So that they can become aware and conscious. So that they can wake up in the dream, wake up from our cultural nightmare's emotional alienation and deadness. So that they can overcome suffering, realizing that what they thought was their worst enemy in truth is their best friend. So that they can become alive, in the true meaning of the word.

You may accuse me of romanticizing suffering, of being detached from reality, having my head in the clouds. You wouldn't be the first to do so. I'll answer you, that I've suffered myself. Indescribably. And I still do suffer. From being an alive human being. I wouldn't want to trade that for anything in the whole wide world. Suffering isn't a - romantic - accessory to life. It is the incentive necessary to bring about change, to have us keep walking on the road of constant change. And only as long as we keep walking that road are we truly alive. Suffering is not a superfluous accessory to life. There's nothing superfluous, dispensable, in nature. And suffering is natural. It is life.

Need a gift for your shrink?

Check out chapter three of Greg Craven's book What Is The Worst That Could Happen?, download a preview here. What I like about Greg Craven is that he manages to explain things in a way, that even shrinks have a chance to get it. "Research bias for dummies", something. Or: "Why most psychiatric science is junk". This could be the ultimate hate gift for your shrink. Well, right after Alice Miller's The Drama of the Gifted Child, that is, which, as someone recently told me, made her shrink exclaim: "Hell, this is the most awful book I've ever read!" and, subsequently, prescribe huge doses of Trilafon to her.

Psychiatry and politics

One more reply to Will:

No need to apologize! As mentioned, I'm not an angel, me neither. And I've actually enjoyed this conversation too. I like conversations with people, who are open-minded. BTW, Gianna is right. There is a whole lot of judgement and anger, even hatred, out there. On both sides. I recently read a comment on a Norwegian blog, that stated that about 90 per cent of this world's population were traumatized, in one way or the other. It's certainly just an estimation, but in my opinion a very realistic one. Unfortunately. And if trauma isn't made conscious and worked out it gets acted out. Which means war. Like in the war against terrorism, the war against drugs, the war in Iraq,... you name it.

On juge un société à la manière dont elle traite ses fous. -Lucien Bonnafé

Of course it is society that makes psychiatry possible. And I want to emphasize, that I distinguish between the mental health system and psychiatry. It goes without saying: psychiatry was established in order to pathologize certain, unwanted behaviors and ideas, that couldn't be criminalized. Pathologizing behaviors and ideas means to declare them null and void. This quote from Jani's father's blog is one of the most obvious illustrations of what medically diagnozing behavior and ideas aims at: "With schizophrenics, you always have to try to rationalize with them. You have to try and point out where their thinking is irrational. It doesn’t work right then and there but the hope is that it will sink in over time and that Jani will learn to question her own thoughts." (my italics)

BTW, there lies an interesting contradiction in psychiatry's practice of pathologizing and declaring certain thoughts to be "irrational", while no one ever seems to doubt the report of "symptoms" by the identified "patient" to be other than rational.

Well, the thing is, that "psychosis", "schizophrenia", is a reaction to having one's thoughts and feelings declared null and void (because they're unwanted). I dare say, that every single individual who has experienced "psychosis" as a result of psychological trauma (and usually physical abuse involves psychological trauma as well) - in contrast to those, whose "psychotic" symptoms are a reaction to purely biological stressors, food allergies, adverse reactions to drugs, etc. - has had their own thoughts and feelings invalidated in one or the other way. To an extent, that eventually makes them doubt the value of their own, genuine thoughts and feelings themselves. And the moment one's true self starts to protest this invalidation, psychiatry steps in, and accomplishes what others weren't able to accomplish. Because they couldn't scientifically prove one's thoughts and feelings to be without value. Psychiatry can. Or, it claims to be able to. The invalidation of one's personality is scientifically, and thus, taken the status of science in our society into account, indisputably and irrevocably justified. That's why psychiatry has to be a (medical) science. Religion doesn't have that power anymore in our society today. Although it once had: what psychiatry is to our modern society, the Inquisition was to Pre-Enlightenment society. Notice that psychiatry emerges about at the same time as society enters the age of Enlightenment, and the Inquisition comes to an end.

When more and more people turned away from religion as the truth, and instead enthusiastically embraced science, the Inquisition was no longer an acceptable tool to control and oppress unwanted behavior and ideas. It needed to be replaced by a tool, that at least on the surface gave the impression of being scientific in order to be acceptable to an enlightened society.

Psychiatry is one of society's tools to enforce our culture's ideology on people. Probably the most effective one. Where educational institutions for example have great but nevertheless limited influence on individual perception, psychiatry's influence is virtually unlimited. Any kind of being in this world can be defined a mental illness (cf. homosexuality, or being a runaway slave), and while it wouldn't occur to anyone to remove real illnesses like the flu or cancer from the ICD, or to add any diagnoses that lack scientific proof of being an illness to it, psychiatric diagnoses are added to and removed from the DSM faster than you can say "DSM"... always perfectly in line with current cultural norms and values.

Now you'll maybe object, and say that people do suffer and need help. I agree. But the help people really need, is to have their suffering validated, not invalidated. To blame individual biology for suffering, that is caused by cultural norms and values, is to invalidate the suffering.

The vast majority of people I know, I myself included, know that they suffer and are in need of help. It isn't true that they lack insight by definition. The only idea they lack insight in regard to, is the idea that they would suffer from a brain disease and would need medical treatment. Non-psychiatric alternatives like Soteria don't need to force anybody, or lock as much as one single door. Because, in contrast to psychiatry, they validate people's suffering, so people stay voluntarily. Just as I didn't cancel, was late for, or missed out on one single therapy session. Because I felt that both my suffering and my being in general was validated. Not entirely - for example, I experienced being referred to as a "patient" as an invalidation - but enough to have me stay.

As for psychotherapy in general, and your experience in particular, that I've heard countless parallels to over time, it is dominated by psychiatry's (society's) ideology. That is, it doesn't validate the individual in crisis and his/her (human) experience. It pathologizes both. And once you and your (human) experience are declared pathological, it can't be you, but has to be the therapist, who knows all the answers. It doesn't work out for the individual in crisis, but it does for society. Society prefers to put up with a growing number of people on disability, people who aren't chronically ill, but chronically denied their true answers, their true selves, to being confronted with these true answers.

"Schizophrenia", or: blame the victim!

What really is utterly disturbing to me, is people who are disturbed by a six-year-old who is drugged into a stupor with huge doses of psych poisons, while they fail to acknowledge the assault it is on this six-year-old to be labelled with "schizophrenia" - a label that, like all psych labels, lacks any scientific proof of its validity - and thus fail to acknowledge, that it is the blame-the-victim-label, that justifies the silence-the-victim-drugging.

DSM - First edition, 1669

(Can't help it. I'm just in that mood today.)

Cry for Help - Being a teen is a mental illness

PBS has a documentary on it's site, Cry for Help. Teenage Mental Illness and Suicide, that represents one huge piece of propaganda for NAMI and screening programs like TeenScreen (check out "Recources: Hotlines and Web Sites for Parents") and STEPS (Screening, Treatment, and Education to Promote Strength).

Here are some quotes from the featured story of Stacy Hollingsworth, who today works for NAMI, NJ:

Question: Why did you hide it [her "depression" and suicidal thoughts] from your parents?

Stacy Hollingsworth: I didn't want to hurt them. I knew they would be the type of parents, who would feel they were somehow to blame for my illness. (...)

Q: Were you afraid at all they wouldn't understand?

S.H.: (...) If they did have a negative reaction to it somehow, it was something that I couldn't escape. They would be in my life the whole time.

(From "Stacy", 1. part)

Sharon Hollingworth, Stacy's mother: And then I thought, it was all over, this was the end of all those dreams a parent has for her child. She certainly wasn't going to have the life, that I had hoped and expected her...

(...)

She never really had a chance with us, because we never opened the dialogue. And I guess, she didn't want to disappoint us, or worry us. She was the perfect child.

(From "Stacy", 2. part)

Well well... But no, of course it weren't inhumane expectations to this "perfect child", or the "overachiever", or "All-Star-daughter", as the documentary also describes Stacy, that were causing her trouble at an age, where about everybody, as a quite natural part of their personal development, starts to question among other things society's norms and values of perfection and perfect achievement. Nope. It was a chemical imbalance in the brain, that, as it will seem to me, most if not all teenagers do suffer from. Just as a remarkable number of teenagers suffers from a biological brain disease, that's called "I'm coming from a broken home", "I get bullied", or something else along those lines.

Yes, indeed, the documentary mentions these things. Nevertheless, I got the impression, that being bullied, growing up with violence and abuse (if it is in the shape of parental expectations of perfection, or other) is caused by the victim's defective brain. NAMI's essential message: Depressed? Suicidal? Never ever blame your parents, or society! Blame your brain!

I wonder, why screen at all? Why not straightforward call being a teen a "mental illness", and NAMI-style drug up everybody above age, hm, let's see, 12? 10? or no, wait, it's "early intervention" isn't it? so, 8 maybe? who isn't yet on one or the other or several kinds of mindaltering drugs?

There are numerous options to comment on (and rate) this piece of propaganda at the site. Make use of them, if you feel up to facing tons of NAMI-parents' cheers. Right now, I myself don't.

The true terrorists - An open letter to cartoonist Kevin Siers

Yesterday, when I learned about this outrageous atrocity, I wasn't sure if to react to it at all, or not. Things like this can leave one speechless. Nevertheless, today, inspired by Kim, and his own reply to someone's e-mail, I sent the following e-mail to Kevin Siers:

Dear Mr Siers,

let me tell you right away, which I suppose I am not the first to tell You, that Your cartoon in the Charlotte Observer, http://www.charlotteobserver.com/kevinsiers/story/638466.html, is something of the most tasteless and discriminating I've ever seen.

Now I learned from others, who have contacted You, that You are "unsure what else to call that rage and alienation" than "mental illness", and that You wonder, if those "terms would have sufficed".

Let me assure You, they would have sufficed. In fact, they would have been far more to the point, than the alienating concept of "mental illness" ever can be.

In context with this, there's something I can't but have to wonder about: What makes You so certain, as You seem to be, that so-called "mental illness" is a brain illness? If You have any evidence for this allegation to hold true, I'd love to see it, since no one yet has been able to provide this evidence.

This is rather important in regard to Your cartoon, because what Your cartoon does is that it scapegoats a whole section of the population on the basis of a mere theory, in complete lack of any scientific proof, as brain defective individuals, who do not react, but act. Without any ratio involved. While the natural response to terms like "rage" and "alienation" is to question what kind of environmental, societal factors would be likely to cause this rather rational rage and alienation in the individual.

When You choose to make use of the term "mental illness", what You actually are doing is that You contribute to society's enraging and alienating forces, to which some people, very naturally, react enraged and alienated. I am sorry to have to say this, but that is one more assault on people, who've already been assaulted to an extent, that makes it inevitably necessary for them to defend themselves, while the alienating concept of "mental illness" as being a brain disease efficiently keeps these people from seeing through the inhumanity of society, evidently represented by Your cartoon.

You, and everyone else who holds up the idea, that "mental illnesses" would be brain diseases, do society an enormous disservice. So-called "mentally ill" people go on shooting sprees, because they are kept from realizing that the true source for their very natural feelings of rage and alienation are the long-standing assaults, they have been exposed to. They go on shooting sprees, because they are denied a language of their own, that would allow them to hold their abusers, society, accountable. They go on shooting sprees, because they are silenced with the concept of "mental illness". The true gunman, the true terrorist here is a society that prefers to oppress and silence its critics to lending them a voice and listening to them, and it is You.

I am a person, who has experienced what You call "mental illness", i.e. extreme states of mind, caused by trauma. I am a highly functioning, fully recovered person today, because I did not get the "treatment", I suppose You have in mind when You write: "...people also in desperate need of treatment who are not getting it." Instead I was as lucky as to be helped to realize and work through my trauma, and establish a language of my own, which renders going on a shooting spree as an act of self-defence superfluous.
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If you want to contact Kevin Siers, Rick Thames, the editor of the Charlotte Observer, and/or the Charlotte Observer itself, here are the e-mail addresses:
Rick Thames, editor:
 rthames@charlotteobserver.com
Letters to the editor:
 opinion@charlotteobserver.com
Cartoonist Kevin Siers:
 ksiers@charlotteobserver.com

Hat tip to Gianna for drawing attention to this in the first place.

Reply from Kevin Siers
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Update, 04-12-09: Via Kim I got the notice this morning, that the Charlotte Observer obviously has removed the cartoon from its website.

"Look, even the mentally ill themselves do believe in it!"

This is something, I think I'll never quite get:

Once more, I got into a, luckily very short, but nevertheless, discussion with a person, who identifies as, well, yeah, a consumer, suffering from "manic depression", and, of course, the pills were no less than godsend.

The discussion: Danish psychiatry has made a film, Åbenhed gør stærk - om skizofreni i familien (Strength through openness - about schizophrenia in the family) technically, formally, obviously very much like Daniel Mackler's Take These Broken Wings - cross cutting between sequences of interviews with respectively two young people, Helle and Emil, labelled with "schizophrenia", their relatives, some friends, and, of course, professionals, especially one consultant psychiatrist from the OPUS-project. In regard to the "message" on the other hand, the Danish film, not surprisingly, tells the opposite of what Daniel Mackler's film tells. "Schizophrenia" is a chronic biological brain disease, due to defective genes, that cause abnormalities in brain structure, and the best treatment option is lifelong medication with "antipsychotics".

And the family? Well, it's important to assure the relatives, that it is not their fault. It's all just defective genes. But, of course, it is also very important to involve the relatives, and psycho-educate them - about biological brain diseases, what else?! - so that they can support "treatment" compliance. And when all this is in place, voilà, what a success story! Never mind, that one of the two young people in the film is in need of assisted housing, as she can't take care of herself due to the drugs' side effects. And never mind, that both face a future on disability, and dependent on the system for the rest of their, approximately 25 years shorter than average, life.

Now, during the past couple of weeks I've noticed numerous hits on my Danish blog, search terms "film about schizophrenia", and since I imagine, that it is the above described botched job people are looking for, and not necessarily Daniel Mackler's or Leo Regan's film, I combed the net for reviews, and wrote my own "not-quite-a-review", always just looking to meet the public's needs and desires... Not-quite-a-review, because I haven't seen the film myself, and I don't intend to, since I won't pay as much as one cent for crap like that. I actually won't give as much as one cent for whatever it might be that supports biopsychiatry. Not if I can help it.

And, yeah, right, I do a hatchet job on the film, slamming its message totally as being oppressive, discriminating, and disempowering, calling the "expert's factual information" for a bunch of lies with no scientific evidence to support it, and the filmmakers for fraudulent when they choose to interview a couple of colonized consumers and their just as colonized relatives, only and solely to, as I see it, give the impression that psychiatry's hopeless message is the one and only truth: "Look, even the mentally ill themselves do believe in it!"

The thing is, that even though the film tries to make the viewer believe, that Helle's and Emil's words are their very own words, they are not. They are the system's words. - Actually, this borders to abuse of these two young people. Colonialism controls, displaces or exterminates the original. In order to exploit. Psychiatric colonialism controls, displaces or exterminates its victims' thoughts, emotions and language in order to exploit its victims' capability to talk, making them repeat its own ideology like a parrot. That. is. abuse.

Well, the pain in the neck I am, I let both the filmmakers, the "expert", and the three people, whose hurrays I've based my own review on, know about it. One of them reacts, so far. The "manic depressive" consumer, I mentioned above. She doesn't react commenting on my blog, but by e-mail. Somewhat resentful at the fact, that not all people agree with her on psychiatry and its pills being a godsend, and that some people dare to question that having insight and being "treatment" compliant would be the road to recovery, as she wants to have it in her review of the film.

Now I wonder: what's in for someone like her, that she defends an industry, that ruins people's lives in droves, just to make a profit? I mean, she doesn't make a profit by doing so, as far as I can see. Apart from the purely idealistic profit of a false ego-identification, that is: "I'm manic depressive! I suffer from a real disease!" Does that rotten ego-identification really mean so much more than the lives of millions of people?? I just can't but keep on wondering...

Are psychologists really that stupid?

...Or do they just pretend to be??

Monday evening I came across an article, Aida Husejinovic, "Kognitiv remediation ved skizofreni" (Cognitive remediation for schizophrenia), Psykolog Nyt (the magazine of the Danish Psychological Association), no. 3, p. 20 - 27, where psychologist Aida Husejinovic writes:

"Even if Emil Kraepelin already a hundred years ago became aware of the fact, that cognitive dysfunctionalities are remarkable in patients with schizophrenia, this aspect was assumed to be a side effect of the medication for a long time. Yet, newer evidence points to that cognitive dysfunctionality is a core aspect of the illness, and characteristic for most of the patients." (Op.cit., p. 20)

And further down: "Dysfunctionalities in concentration and memory are regarded biological markers of schizophrenia, since they are detectable long before the onset of the illness, and can be observed in family members of patients with schizophrenia." (Op.cit., p. 20/21)

'There we have it,' I think, looking at this "argumentation" in favor of the biological model. 'The cart put before the horse.' Just as Mary Boyle for instance describes it in her article "The problem with diagnosis", The Psychologist, vol. 20, part 5, May 2007, p. 290 - 292. - An excellent article, by the way, that can only be recommended.

It is totally and completely beyond me how a psychologist can miss the point, that stress, stress, yeah, like in trauma, indeed has the capacity to reduce the stressed individual's cognitive abilities. Dysfunctional communication and abuse create stress. And thus cognitive dysfunctionalities in addition. Which is true for all involved individuals, also family members, who aren't labelled, but who nevertheless do practice dysfunctional behaviors. And it is especially true for individuals who are labelled with "schizophrenia", and who usually have been exposed to huge amounts of stress-creating dysfunctionality. Often throughout their entire childhood and adolescence.

I'd like to see to which extent Aida Husejinovic herself would be able to mobilize her cognitive abilities in a test-situation, where, during the very same testing, someone pointed a gun at her, threatening to shoot her at the first wrong answer she gave. For, this is approximarely the stress level you live with in a dysfunctional, abusive relationship.

In conflict with what Aida Husejinovic seems to regard an almost indisputable basis for her reflections about the cognitive abilities of "patients with schizophrenia", there is increasing evidence from newer research that points to so-called "schizophrenia" being a kind of post traumatic stress reaction. Not a biological brain disease. Cf. Paul Hammersley and John Read's meta study, for example. - But one looks in vain for this kind of references in the article. While, on the other hand, a whole lot of neuro- and biobiobiopsychiatric literature is listed. Of course.

Again I want to emphasize that, while Hammersley and Read - and similar studies - conclude that trauma "only" in about 70 per cent of the cases is demonstrable, they do not take other than physical/sexual abuse into account, thus leaving out verbal and purely psychological abuse, that can "hurt as much as sexual abuse". Furthermore, as they mention themselves, they were not in all investigated cases successful in establishing proof of abuse, because a number of psychiatrized individuals were never asked about their life story by staff. - According to the motto: "Don't ask a question, you know beforehand, you'll not like the answer to!"

Well, and if one wants it even more clearly, just compare the diagnostic criteria for "schizophrenia" with those for PTSD - and get surprised at the resemblance. The difference mainly being that individuals, who get labelled with "schizophrenia" often don't remember the experiences that were traumatizing to them, that they don't remember these experiences as traumatizing, and/or that the environment quite easily can deny the experiences. How convenient! For the abusers.

As Mary Boyle has it so to the point in her above mentioned article: "All scientists aim to identify patterns, or meaningful relationships, in whatever they study. But no aspiring science has ever been successful by asserting at the outset what kinds of patterns it will observe and retaining this belief in the face of decades of unsuccessful research. Yet this is exactly what has happened in psychiatric diagnosis."

Bias has never been the basis for anything but indifference. While indifference is the perfect protection for the abuser.

And apart from the fact that obviously also psychologists, and not just psychiatrists, are big time indifferent toward abuse - in order to protect the abuser-society we live in - they also - for the same reason - are indifferent toward neuroscience. It is no longer an assuption, but a well-proven fact, that neuroleptics cause brain shrinkage in the frontal lobes, the region of the brain where cognition is located. The region of the brain that makes us human beings. The chemical lobotomy. Exactly.

Maybe it is about time for psychology to consider its position in our civilization's war against (human) nature, and state clearly if it is on his clientele's or the abusers' side? Maybe it is about time for psychology to face and recognize the own inner abuser, who speaks so loud and clearly from Aida Husejinovic's article? As is well known, acceptance is the basis for transformation.

"Us and them", yes. But as Derrick Jensen suggests, it isn't us, the critics, who want a "us and them"-situation. It is psychiatry - and obviously psychology with it - that makes individuals in crisis their enemies.
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And yes, my own cognitive abilities almost equalled to zero during the approximately six weeks the acute crisis lasted. Because I was far too occupied with what was going on deep inside myself to have the least energy to care for - compared - trivialities such as spelling, arithmetic, or any other everyday insignificance. On the other hand, my cognitive abilities have never been more functioning than today. Because I was given the chance to become aware and conscious, and come to terms with the abuse, I've experienced. Because this meant, that I eventually could relax. And because I wasn't chemically lobotomized.
_______________

I sent Aida Husejinovic a link to the Danish version of this post. She's read it. Several times. She has not replied to me. I contemplate to send the link to the magazine's editors, too.

Maybe it's in my genes??

I'm sure, I have a typewriter-computer-keyboard-pen-and-paper-gene...

Psychdiagnonsense I - Oh boy!

Once again I had to face the idea that psychiatric diagnoses would be scientifically valid and for the diagnozed a good thing to happen. As a result, I spent the past weekend discussing the matter on my Danish blog. Here's the first part of the discussion.

The idea was uttered by someone whose blog I quite frequently visit, and whose overall - critically - political/social views I widely share. Of interest in the context might be, that the concerned blogger has a diagnozed teenage (?) son, who obviously is on Ritalin, while both blogger and son experience diagnosis and "treatment" as helpful - so far.

Which essentially made me react, was the concerned blogger's call for more children to get diagnozed, the diagnozing procedure to be speeded up, and thus to provide access to psychiatric "treatment" for far more children, than those who already are psychiatrized in today's Denmark - which actually already is a disturbingly large number - tendency: skyrocketing - and, in my opinion, far too disturbingly large a number, as I regard one single psychiatrized child to be one single psychiatrized child too many. Especially when the treatment includes drugs, which it almost always does. As drugs, apart from electroshock, are the only "help" psychiatry as such can provide, while the industry becomes increasingly reluctant to let go its hold of and refer even children to really helpful but with psychiatry competing treatment options like therapy without, first of all, seeking to keep them dependent on its own "services", i.e. drugs.

Another reason for me to react was the unlimited trust in psychiatry as a true science, that had produced scientific evidence of existential crises to be genetically caused biological illnesses, I had observed. Not least because it also made me, as mentioned a frequent reader - and commenter - at the concerned person's blog, a genetically defective, sick-in-the-head individual. Oh boy! Well, this, of course, was my ego feeling hurt in its pride. Why I abstained for a day to write the announced post about the matter, working to get a grip on myself, or my ego, again. No matter how indirect a statement about me being defective and sick in my head, it still can be a major trigger to my ego - trigger like in trauma, yes - and it takes its time to retrieve the Buddhist calm that is so wonderfully indifferent to whatever others might think about me and my brain.

Nevertheless, I posted a short entry, providing some basics in regard to the question, if there really is scientific evidence for psychiatry's claims about the genetic/biological nature of existential cirses:

Robert Whitaker, Mad In America. Review here. Interview with Robert Whitaker here. Both very informative, while one, of course, doesn't get round reading the book in order to get the whole argumentation.

Mary Boyle, Schizophrenia. A Scientific Delusion? Review here. The ultimate disclosure of psychiatric "science" to be junk-science.

Finally, there is Bruce Lipton's lecture "The Biology of Perception", that can be viewed as a playlist at YouTube.

The maybe fastest way to get an idea of how "scientifically proven" psychiatry's claims are, is to just have a look at Big Pharma's websites:

"The symptoms of schizophrenia are thought to be caused by an imbalance of chemicals in the brain." (my italics) - From abilify.com

"Doctors and researchers believe that it ["bipolar disorder"] may be caused by chemicals imbalances in the brain." (my italics) - From seroquel.com

"It is believed that ADHD is caused by either a lower level, or an imbalance, of chemicals, called neurotransmitters." (my italics) - From concerta.net

"There are many theories about the cause of depression. One of the most commonly accepted theories suggests that two naturally occurring substances, serotonin and norepinephrine, are believed to affect core mood and pain symptoms of depression." (my italics) - From cymbalta.com

"Two natural chemicals in the brain, serotonin and norepinephrine, are thought to be linked to this condition, as well as to other anxiety disorders and depression. Prescription medications that affect these chemicals may help eliminate the symptoms of GAD." (my italics) - From effexorxr.com

The list is long. There is virtually not one among all these sites, that doesn't make use of a wording like the one, I italicized in the quotations.The question is, would anyone, especially a company that wants nothing more than sell its product, hedge their bets like this, always the risk included, that people stumble over it (although most people unfortunately don't), if there was any scientific proof of the statements to be true?

BTW: I like that the responsible people at AstraZeneca obviously aren't even capable of correct spelling - I used the copy-paste-method for the quotations. Makes me wonder how capable the people are, who are responsible for the company's research...

T4

Now they really shout it from the roof tops: "Schizophrenia's riddle solved - with Danish help". As a matter of fact. It's all about the same research I wrote about here (and here).

"Just like in the case of Downs syndrome it [the research results] opens up for considerations about embryo checks in regard to abortion", the spokeswoman for SIND, a Danish user organization, says according to the article.

Fasten seat belts, folks! We're heading straight towards a refined version of what went on in the Third Reich. And even user organizations applaud enthusiastically...

Make sure to have a look at this before you go down with major depression, thinking you'd really be genetically defective.

Here's to my therapist II - Why "mental illness" is neither genetically caused nor genetically predisposed

I've got some really, really bad news for psychiatrists, parents, and "patients" who believe they can blame (their) genes for (their) "mental illness", in one way or the other. Actually, it's really bad news for everybody, who believes, they can blame anything on (their) genes.

I found the video below yesterday on Gianna's blog, when I had a look at the archives. It's the first of seven parts of a talk by cell-biologist Bruce Lipton.



What Bruce Lipton is explaining in the video-series actually is a scientific, biological proof for the trauma-model to be true, and the bio-medical, genetic model to be, well yeah, rubbish.

While today's genetics take a starting point in a model, that says genes produce proteins, that then activate behaviour, Bruce Lipton had wondered how it, under these circumstances, could be possible for living organisms to continuously show behaviour, even after their genes were removed.

He found out, that modern genetics had thrown away the decisive part of the whole, behaviour-creating process: genes do not produce proteins, but transmitters, signals do activate genes as a blueprint for new proteins. While these signals are sent by an effector, that in its turn is activated by a receptor, who, in the first place, had been activated by another, initial signal. And where did this initial signal come from? Well - and now it's definitely time for everyone, who doesn't want to know about the trauma-model to stop reading, and pretend nothing ever happened! The three monkeys, you know - it comes from the living organism's environment.

All behaviour, all life, that finds expression in behaviour, is always, and no matter if we talk a single cell, or a highly complicated organism such as man, a reaction to this life's environment.

What then about findings, that show for instance "schizophrenics" to, sometimes, deviate genetically from "normal" people? The thing is, when a secondary signal doesn't find a protein inside the organism, that matches the situation, i.e. that would create behaviour appropriate in the given situation (or: behaviour, that would be an appropriate and functioning response to the initial, primary signal), and if now the situation is so complicated (as for example a double bind is), that the signal doesn't find an appropriate blueprint in the genes, either, that could provide the basis for the production of an appropriate protein, the blueprint, the genes, can be varied. Mutations are possible. But in contrast to today's common belief, mutations aren't random, they are adaptive. And they're not inborn, other than when they're a response to signals from the environment, the living organism found itself in before birth.

Thus the environment shapes the genes of the in it living organism. It is not the genes, that, because of some random mutation, produce, seen in relation to the environment, irrational, inappropriate, dysfunctional behaviour. And, of course, the varied blueprint, the mutated gene, can be varied "back to normal" whenever the environment changes and renders the variation superfluous.

Sorry, Mom and Dad, but we're back at "the schizophrenogenic mother" & Co., yes. Actually, we're at a point, where no kind of "inappropriate", "sick", dysfunctional behaviour can be blamed on anyone's genes, that is on anyone's individually inborn charcteristics, anymore. On a biological level, life is proteins, not genes. Genes are nothing but a plan. The house is built by signals and of proteins, and which house is built depends on the ground, the environment. Not on predetermined plans. Every organism carries the plans for all imaginable houses inside itself, the possibility to change plans included. Thus, everything is possible. Which in the end becomes manifested is a question of what signals the environment sends - and of how the individual perceives its environment. Which is dependent on the environment that to start with has formed the individual's perception of its environment.

Brought to the level of human behaviour, it is perception (of our environment) that controls behaviour, not biology. While the way, we perceive our environment ("belief" in Bruce Lipton's words), in itself is acquired, is a reaction to environmental signals. Here treatment options like therapy, meditation, etc. enter the picture. A belief can be changed. Everything becomes possible. Provided that the individual becomes aware of its beliefs.

Bruce Lipton's findings correspond perfectly with what many of us, who haven't bought into the biological model - and both those who've had the experience of extreme states of mind themselves, and professionals as Laing and Mosher - have experienced: change the environment (for example by changing diet and exercise habits, or by moving faaar away from home*...), and you'll change the behaviour. And they correspond just as perfectly with the findings of neuroscience in the field of neuroplasticity.

Nevertheless, this also has a political dimension (discrimination, eugenics), and I fear, no matter how hard the scientific evidence, everything will be done to suppress findings like Bruce Lipton's. Bruce Lipton has written a book about his findings, The Biology of Belief, which I suppose to be a somewhat more rewarding and interesting read than, just as an example, Jill Bolte Taylor's My Stroke of Insight, or Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind (find the hurrays yourself, it's not an impossible task). The Biology of Belief was published in 2005, the videos at YouTube were posted in November 2007, and this is the first time, I've ever heard of it (which certainly isn't due to me not following what's going on).

Thank you, Gianna, for posting this!!!

BTW: NAMI recently reacted to the new findings about mutated chromosomes in relation to so-called "schizophrenia", I wrote about here and here. NAMI's report is, astonishingly though rightly, not half as enthusiastic as Thomas Werge's statements in the Danish media.

To all the Jill Bolte Taylors out there: you're definitely looking in the wrong place, folks. To all you therapists out there, advocating the biological, genetical version of the Stress-Vulnerability-Model: stop disempowering and patronizing people with fairy stories about genes, that are nothing but junk-science! And to everyone, who's out there, leaning comfortably back on disability, and in front of your TV, all day long, blaming your genes for your allegedly unchangeable and uncontrollable suffering (I know, now I'm controversial again): Belief controls behaviour, not biology. Take responsibility! If not for yourself, so at least for others. By stopping to diffuse junk-science's untruths about genes and biology, and by stopping to try to silence biopsychiatry's (junk-science's) critics.
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* Now, no one should think, it's enough just to pull up stakes and move to Timbuktu. That's something I've tried numerous times, without any lasting success. The problem remains the same. Only to pull up outside-stakes is never enough. It's also always the inner ones, the "belief", that has to be pulled up. - Although, it helps to move to Timbuktu. Unless that's where your "loved ones" actually do live...

The other side of mental health science

And here it is, now also on this blog: the article "The other side of mental health science" by Steven Morgan, that I mentioned in a previous post, and that puts a number of common misunderstandings about "mental illness" right. For everyone who, for whatever reason, hasn't been to Gianna's blog yet to read it there.


The other side of mental health science

BY STEVEN MORGAN stevenmorganjr(at)gmail(dot)com

Scientific studies about mental health are widely considered to be the ultimate source for objective information about psychiatric disorders. However, most people do not or cannot access these studies themselves. They instead rely on information from doctors, organizations, peers, the media, and so on. Unfortunately, this second-hand information is often oversimplified (i.e. “Mental illness is a chemical imbalance in the brain”), spoken with too much certainty (i.e. “Schizophrenia is a chronic brain disease that is lifelong and incurable”), or skewed and manipulated to justify an opinion (i.e. “People with Bipolar Disorder must take medication to live well”). As a result, popular myths now overshadow much of the data available from science.

The following list is a collection of facts from peer-reviewed scientific journals and several research-based books. Each source is hyperlinked in References, meaning the reader can literally click on the name of the study to access it from the Internet. Given the heated atmosphere of opinions about psychiatric disorders, the hyperlinks were included to make this document user-friendly so that readers can research the facts themselves.

FACTS ABOUT PSYCHIATRIC DISORDERS

I. A chemical imbalance for mental illness has never been found in anyone’s brain.1 There is no way to measure the level of neurotransmitters in synapses between brain cells, so there is no measurement of a healthy chemical balance that would allow for comparisons of “too many chemicals” or “too few chemicals” to be made.2,3 That is why our brains are not scanned for chemical imbalances when we are diagnosed. Even if chemical imbalances are one day found, it does not mean that they cause psychiatric disorders. Indeed, since the brain changes in response to both internal stimuli (thoughts, imagination, feelings, etc.) and external stimuli (sunlight, trauma, playing the piano, etc.),4,5 a chemical imbalance could just as likely be a biological reflection of environmental, emotional, psychological, and spiritual stress as a primary cause of it. Finally, the idea that specific genes cause mental illness is inaccurate, leading one prominent genetic researcher to state in the American Journal of Psychiatry: “The impact of individual genes on risk for psychiatric illness is small, often nonspecific, and embedded in complex causal pathways… Although we may wish it to be true, we do not have and are not likely to ever discover `genes for’ psychiatric illness.”6

II. Long-term studies from around the world demonstrate that the majority of people diagnosed with major mental illness – including schizophrenia – significantly improve or completely recover over time.7,8,9,10,11,12

III. Adverse childhood events can lead to mental health problems in adulthood – including psychosis, bipolar affective symptoms, depression, borderline traits, and so on – and the vast majority of people diagnosed with major psychiatric disorders have histories of trauma, neglect, or abuse.13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21,22,23 Thus, in many cases, the cause of psychiatric symptoms is childhood trauma. In this context, saying “mental illness is just like diabetes” or “mental illness is a physical brain disease that is no one’s fault” is inaccurate. Consider this parallel: if I am stabbed by a knife, is my bleeding caused by weak skin, or is it caused by the knife, the stabber, and the surrounding circumstances? Linking the cause of psychiatric symptoms to the appropriate source – i.e. a traumatizing environment instead of one’s brain or genes – is crucial in determining an effective treatment path to recovery and in actually changing larger social, cultural, and familial problems that contribute to mental breakdown.24

IV. A large subset of people diagnosed with schizophrenia fare better with little or no medication usage.25,26,27 Several alternative treatment models that use little or no medications for people experiencing psychosis have outcomes equal to or better than treatment-as-usual.28,29 Also, antipsychotics are far less curative than generally acknowledged: in the most recent and largest ever study of antipsychotic efficacy for people diagnosed with schizophrenia, 74% of participants (1061 of 1432 people) quit taking their initially-assigned antipsychotic within 18 months, mainly due to ineffectiveness or intolerable side effects.30 Of these unsatisfied participants, about half (509 people) dropped out of the study altogether, while the other half entered a second phase in which they tried a different antipsychotic. During the second phase, 44% of participants assigned to clozapine (20 of 45 people) and 75% of participants assigned to another antipsychotic (282 of 378 people) again discontinued it within 18 months.31,32

V. The brain can heal, and the biological abnormalities linked to psychiatric symptoms are often reversible or can be compensated for by other areas of the brain.33,34,35,36,37,38,39,40 In other words, psychiatric recovery can happen on a biological level, both with and without medication usage.

VI. According to repeated studies by the World Health Organization, people diagnosed with schizophrenia living in developing countries have significantly better outcomes than those living in developed countries.41 The WHO suggests the better outcome “…was unrelated to drug treatment since many in the developing world did not receive continuous treatment. Psychosocial factors, such as better family support, community tolerance, extended networks and more favorable job opportunities, have been postulated as the reasons for this observation.”42

VII. Antidepressant medications are no more effective than a sugar pill for people with mild to moderate depression, and only slightly more effective than a sugar pill for people with severe depression.43

VIII. Efforts to increase a person’s awareness of their diagnosed mental illness – known as “illness insight” – may lead to self-stigmatization that decreases self-esteem and hope.44,45,46,47 Research shows that the “mental illness is like any other physical disorder” message behind many anti-stigma campaigns actually increases the public’s fear, prejudice, and desire for distance from people who are diagnosed.48

IX. Psychiatric diagnoses are not based on medical testing, but instead on self-report and professional interpretation according to culturally-defined notions of disease. They are therefore arbitrary and often unreliable, especially over time, being prone to racism, sexism, classism, and Eurocentric bias. Many people receive different diagnoses from different doctors, which muddles treatment options and can lead to unnecessary or mismatched medication usage.49

REFERENCES

For links that direct you to these sources see Steven’s hyperlinked version of this paper for further study:
1 Lacasse JR, Leo J. The Media and the Chemical Imbalance Theory of Depression. Society 45(1):35-45, Feb 2008.

2 Lacasse JR, Leo J. Serotonin and Depression: A Disconnect between the Advertisements and the Scientific Literature. PLoS Medicine 2(12), e392 doi:10.1371/journal.pmed.0020392, Nov 2005.

3 Breggin PR, Cohen D. Your Drug May Be Your Problem: How and Why to Stop Taking Psychiatric Drugs. Philadelphia, PA: Da Capo Lifelong Books, 2007.

4 Doidge, N. The Brain that Changes Itself: Stories of Personal Triumph from the Frontiers of Brain Science. New York, NY: Viking Adult, 2007.

5 Begley, S. Train Your Mind, Change Your Brain: How a New Science Reveals Our Extraordinary Potential to Transform Ourselves. Ballantine Books, 2007.

6 Kendler KS. “A gene for…”: The nature of gene action in psychiatric disorders. Am J Psychiatry 162:1243-1252, 2005.

7 Davidson L, Harding C, Spaniol L, (Eds.). Recovery from severe mental illness: Research evidence and implications for practice. Boston, MA: Center for Psychiatric Rehabilitation͵ Boston University, 2005.

8 Harding CM, Brooks GW, Ashikaga T, et al. The Vermont longitudinal study of persons with severe mental illness I: methodology study, sample and overall status 32 years later. Am J Psychiatry 144:718-726, 1987b.

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A sacred process II

Some more thoughts in the wake of Sean Blackwell's video and his latest blog entry.

Make sure to read the "Introduction to my new book..." at Sean's blog, where he takes on Kay Redfield Jamison's An Unquiet Mind. Those of you who've been to read Chauncey's analysis of Jill Bolte Taylor's TED Talk, also will have found him praise Kay Redfield Jamison whom he contrasts to Jill Bolte Taylor - in regard to style.

When it comes to contents, both are pretty much the same: both talk about crises being biological illnesses, brain diseases, that are incurable, chronic illnesses, and that need lifelong "medication" in order to be kept under control.

If you've been around this blog only for a moment, you'll know that I strongly disagree with this point of view as there's no evidence so far for crises to be biological illnesses, and as I see that this mainstream-viewpoint actually has stripped and still does strip "countless people of hope for a truly better life, medication free", as Sean writes. Indeed, I find it morally irresponsible by the mental health system to, continuously, make a claim like that, into the bargain often in a way that suggests it were a proven fact rather than a mere hypothesis, a mere theory, and I wish there were more professionals like Ron Unger who'd dare to speak up and challenge the system concerning this matter.

Sadly, I haven't encountered as much as one single professional, psychiatrist, psychologist, or any other, here in Denmark yet, who has shown to be as courageous as Ron (and a number of other professionals abroad). Not even the "brilliant (though not perfect...) guidance". Let me know if you have. I'll be happy to do a piece on him/her!

Now, I can't blame Chauncey for his praise of Kay Redfield Jamison as he, as far as I know, has no personal experience of "madness", his opinion on the matter (whatever it is) thus of course being a result of the information that is immediately available to the public. Which is the mainstream information, stating that extreme states of mind are due to brain diseases. Thus Kay Redfield Jamison's book An Unquiet Mind is published by Macmillan, Jill Bolte Taylor's My Stroke of Insight by the Viking Penguin Group, and both can easily be found at both Amazon and Barnes & Noble, while Sean Blackwell's book A Quiet Mind is published by and can only be purchased through Chipmunkapublishing, a small though significant, British underground publisher, specialized in books about mental health and well being.

Well, and although I do not at all agree in neither Jill Bolte Taylor's nor Kay Redfield Jamison's conception of crises to be biological diseases, I nevertheless widely agree to Chauncey's criticism of Jill Bolte Taylor's TED Talk. At least as far as style is concerned.

In regard to contents, I will certainly read Sean's book. I'm actually looking very much forward to it. While I think, I will spare me the doubtful pleasure of reading Kay Redfield Jamison's book. I've read several books of that kind, and the reading always left me with extremely unpleasant feelings of despair and powerlessness.

As for Sean's call for people to share about their experiences with extreme states of mind, I find it just as important as he does, in order to reduce the public's ignorance and fear of these states, that unfortunately only has been increased by the mainstream conception of these states to be caused by biological illness, thus being nothing but meaningless and unpredictable (and thus dangerous) "madness" (that would have to be fought and suppressed at any price). Although I also find it quite challenging to share such a deeply personal experience publicly, I have considered doing so for a while, and will share at least some of it in time to come.