Wednesday April 25, 2012, 5:16 am
Here is an article on the placebo effect of antidepressants. I am also including quotes and statements by various psychiatrists and psychologists about the field of Psychiatry, psychiatric drugs, and the DSM (The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual) that comprises all the mental disorders of psychiatry used to label people with).

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 5:22 am
“There is not one shred of credible evidence that any respectable scientist would consider valid demonstrating that anything that psychiatrists call ‘mental illness’ are brain diseases or biochemical imbalances. It’s all fraud.” --Dr. Ron Leifer, Psychiatrist

“...there are no facts and data supporting the brain disease model and there are no facts and data supporting many treatments and many things that psychiatrists claim.” --Dr. Colin A. Ross, Psychiatrist

(Regarding psychiatry) "There is no reliability of diagnosis or science, it's just pseudo-science, it's pretend science" Dr. Margaret Hagen, Professor of Psychology

“We can manufacture enough diagnostic labels of normal variability of mood and thought that we can continually supply medication to you…But when it comes to manufacturing disease, nobody does it like psychiatry.”-----Dr. Stefan Kruszewski, Psychiatrist

(Asking patients a series of questions about their symptoms to see whether they match up with any of the disorders in the DSM) provides “the illusion that we understand our patients when all we are doing is assigning them labels.” Dr. Daniel Carlat, Psychiatrist

"I, like most psychologists, believed that children with difficulty concentrating were suffering from a brain problem of genetic or otherwise inborn origin...It turns out, however, that there is little to no evidence to support this theory." L. Alan Srouffe, Professor Emeritus of Psychology

"ADD...it was a notion of a disease, an illusory disease, with Child Psychiatry repeating the lie often enough that it was becoming a reality"
"...(psychiatry's) wholly fraudulent claims that their diagnoses, such as ADHD, bipolar OCD and depression are actual brain diseases when they are not." Dr. Fred Baughman, Pediatric Neurologist

"It seems that we have been misled. Depression is not a brain disease, and chemicals don't cure it...the chemical cure of depression is a myth" Irving Kirsch, Professor of Psychology

"Psychiatrists today are the true Grand Inquisitors"
"The controversy surrounding the myth of mental illness in psychiatry is not about science or medicine but about power" Dr. Jeffrey A. Shaler, Professor of Psychology

"Psychiatry does not commit human rights abuse. It is a human rights abuse."
"It's not science. It's politics and economics. That's what psychiatry is: politics and economics. Behaviour control, it is not science, it is not medicine."
"It's an epidemic of psychiatry that we are dealing with. We don't have an epidemic of mental illness, we have an epidemic of psychiatry." Dr. Thomas Szasz, professor emeritus of Psychiatry

“There is nothing worse that you can do to a human being in America today than give them a mental illness kind of label and tell them they need drugs and these children are 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 years-old being treated in this manner,” Dr. Peter Breggin, Psychiatrist

"Going to a psychiatrist has become one of the most dangerous things a person can do."--Peter Breggin, Psychiatrist

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 5:28 am
"We do not have a clear-cut lab test" to diagnose such an imbalance. He later stated, "In order to survive, we (psychiatrists) must go where the money is."--Steven Sharfstein, Ex-President, American Psychiatric Association

"Why must the American Psychiatric Association pretend to know more than it does? DSM-4 is the fabrication upon which psychiatry seeks acceptance by [the profession of] medicine in general. Insiders know it is more a political than a scientific document.." Dr.. Loren Mosher, Psychiatrist

"We can scan all the brains we want to; the fact that we can see changes in people's brains, changes in functioning, doesn't mean we have discovered anything that has its origin in the brain; it just means that we're seeing changes, but it doesn't mean that there's something wrong with the brain" Dr. Grace Jackson, Psychiatrist

“We are unaware that ADHD has been validated as a biological/organic syndrome or disease.” Gene R. Haislip, U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency:

“As yet no pathophysiology for the disorder (ADHD) has been delineated.” Paul Lever, M.D., U.S. Food and Drug Administration

...“no laboratory tests that have been established as diagnostic” (for ADHD). Stated in the DSM4 itself

"DSM5 will fail. It is not based in science. It has presumed the nature of mental disorder but has never proven it. Their presumptions are wrong. The best efforts by a group of highly qualified people failed earlier this year (2010), they just failed completely, just about laughable, in their attempt to define 'mental disorder'. Dr. Niall McLaren, Psychiatrist

‘It will pathologise a range of problems which should never be thought of as mental illnesses. Many who are shy, bereaved, eccentric, or have unconventional romantic lives will suddenly find themselves labelled as “mentally ill”.
This isn’t valid, isn’t true, isn’t humane.’ Peter Kinderman, head of the Institute of Psychology, University of Liverpool

"And there is a real danger that shyness will become social phobia, bookish kids labelled as Asperger’s and so on.’ Simon Wessely, Institute of Psychiatry, King's College, London

"Psychiatrists had to invent their own book of diseases because pathologists would have nothing to do with them"
"The DSM....a great work of fiction. Every disorder in the DSM is invented"
Jeffrey A. Shaler, Professor of Psychology

"DSM IV gave autism purchase by introducing a milder form that is close to the extremely populous boundary of normality. Then autism took flight on the wings of definitional diffusion, internet contagion, financial incentive, and naïve interpretation of epidemiological results.
The autism “epidemic” is set to spread further starting in May 2013, when the next revision of the diagnostic manual (DSM 5) will be published. The DSM 5 definition of an “autistic spectrum” will cast an even wider net, capturing many people now considered to be normal or to have another disorder" Dr. Allen Frances, chairman of the current DSM4, professor emeritus of psychiatry

""There is no definition of a mental disorder. It's bullshit. I mean, you just can't define it." Dr. Allen Frances, chairman of the current DSM4, professor emeritus of psychiatry

The DSM is a “masterpiece of political maneuvering” Al Parides, Psychiatrist

"Due to the lowering of diagnostic thesholds in existing diagnostic categories, as well as some new categories that have been proposed, we are gravely concerned that the DSM5 unless it is changed, could be dangerous to literally hundreds of thousands of young children, adolescents, and the elderly.
The primary concern is that children, adolescents, and the elderly who are exhibitung normal variations of human behaviour, in other words they are nomal, but they are exhibiting behaviours that are somewhat problematic, as a result they very well may be labeled with a 'mental disorder', which will follow them for the rest of their lives, and even worse they will be given powerful psychiatric drugs that can various side-effects, including various types of debilitation, and even in rare instances, death" Dr. David Elkins, Professor of Psychology

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 5:36 am
"The claim that depression is a disease is propaganda promoted by psychiatry and the state and marketed by drug companies"---Dr. Ron Leifer, Psychiatrist:


“To a remarkable degree, our choice of medications is subjective, even random. Perhaps your psychiatrist is in a Lexapro mood this morning, because he was just visited by an attractive Lexapro drug rep.” "Guided purely by symptoms, we try different drugs, with no real conception of what we are trying to fix," Dr. Daniel Carlat, Psychiatrist


"To date, no study has found any long-term benefit of attention-deficit medication on academic performance, peer relationships or behavior problems, the very things we would most want to improve" .L. Alan Srouffe, Professor Emeritus of Psychology

"Biological psychology/psychiatry is a total perversion of medicine and science, and a fraud." ""These entirely bogus junk science pseudoscientific labels (psychiatric disorders) are a barcode on the forehead of a child, and once the label gets in their record, it sticks."
"They have taken entirely normal children and made patients out of them by diagnosing them with fictional chemical imbalances of the brain. It's a total fraud." — Dr. Fred Baughman, Pediatric (Child) Neurologist

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 5:43 am
Homosexuality was once in the DSM as a psychiatric 'mental disorder' but was later withdrawn

'Drapetomania' was once a psychiatric 'mental disorder'---it was applied to slaves who had the urge to run away...


Some current actual psychiatric 'mental disorders'::

caffeine-induced disorder

oppositional defiance disorder (rebellious to authority)

grief longer than 2 weeks---depressive disorder

nightmare disorder (dreams of being chased by others yelling you're a failure)

NOT OTHERWISE SPECIFIED---any set of symptoms that doesn't fit into a current existing disorder.

culture-bound syndrome----two examples of 'mental disorders'---'Running amok' pertinent to Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Brunei, Singapore; 'Ghost sickness', which some Native American tribes believe to be caused by association with the dead or dying; considered to be of Navaho origin

treatment resistant disorder; if the person with a 'disorder' isn't responding to treatment they can be given this label (this relieves psychiatry of any responsibility that their treatment or drugs maybe don't actually WORK)

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 6:16 am
noted.

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 6:19 am
Thanks Kenneth. I especially like the "drapetomania" one....says a lot doesn't it? And when they're not giving you drugs they are giving you shock treatments.

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 6:19 am
if the acceptance and classification of mental illnesses would not be a fact, many patients would face a trial because of their acts, which would put them away in a jailed setting they would not survive...I know from experience that certain types of medication helps the patient to survive, which goes for their surroundings too....I'm NOT talking about criminal offences....

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 6:24 am
Read the supplied article on placebo effect Anneke. There are many other similar articles also found in a google search.about psychiatric drugs and placebo effect.

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 6:40 am
I agree Olivia S.

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 6:52 am
Noted

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 7:00 am
I know from my experience with anti-depressants that it is a very real disease..and the pills do help because I've been on a lot of different ones, and the withdraw sypstoms from some of them are terrible, they aren't just sugar pills like you have stated.

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 7:25 am
Thank you Kenneth ! And thank you for all the quotes. Fortunately or unfortuntately (depending on your perspective) it always takes authorities in the field to debunk something for many people to pay attention. I sort of knew clinical trials were pretty iffy, and the info in the article is righteously dammning. I suspect this would also apply to all drugs that are marketed too. Big red alert !
"So why did the FDA approve these drugs? All they require is that there are two trials showing a statistical difference between drug and placebo. The drug company might have conducted 10 trials, and most have them might have failed to show positive results. Still, if there are two trials that have been successful, the antidepressant can be approved. And even in these two successful trials, it doesn't matter how large the drug effect is. It can be small enough to make no real difference in people's lives. It doesn't have to be clinically significant; It just has to be statistically significant."

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 8:26 am
Big Pharma has made lots of money on this bs!!--not to mention a multitude of psychiatrists and psychologists, and their cohorts!

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 8:32 am
TU Kenneth. I keep hearing ads on tv that go ..."if your antidepressant isn't working, then you should ADD...drug X". If it isn't working, why are they taking it? Maybe because doctors are getting lavish gifts from Big Pharma...as well as the FDA that approves this crap in the first place.

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 8:41 am
Vicky P., I have not stated anything. There are many articles about studies concerning psychiatric drugs and placebos and placebo effects. It is a real effect (though to what degree varies). The HUGE difference between a psychiatric drug and a placebo is there is zero side-effects from a placebo and there can be many harmful side-effects from psychotropic drugs, while on them or withdrawing from them. The truth is I find many people do not understand what 'placebo effect' actually means.

GlaxoSmithKline, the Big Pharma behind Welbutrin, a psychotropic drug, itself stated Welbutrin had up to only 10% better results than a placebo. And still the FDA approved it.

You will have to argue with many psychiatrists and psychologists, medical doctors, neurologists, and neuroscientists, about antidepressants and depression, not me. I simply supplied some of their statements.

Also, personal anecdotal 'evidence' does not prove scientific fact. One does not equal the other.

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 8:53 am
Vicky P. writes:

> I know from my experience with anti-depressants that it is a very real disease..and the pills do help because I've been on a lot of different ones, and the withdraw symptoms from some of them are terrible, they aren't just sugar pills like you have stated.

I agree, Vicky: The drugs have a real effect. Just about everything we imbibe -- from coffee to LSD to sugar pills -- affects us in some way.

However, I also believe that psychiatry is abusing medicine and serving as a drug pusher for Big Pharma. It treats patients like guinea pigs. Some of the pills prescribed may be helpful, but other non-medicinal approaches -- such as proprioceptive contemplation and James Hillman's archetypal psychology -- can be helpful too. These non-medicinal approaches have brought me the joy, freedom and peace of mind. I'm glad I have not fallen prey to psychiatry's pill treadmill.

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 9:39 am
Thanks.

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 9:39 am
wow-so who do the ptsd soldiers go to now, to fix them? I know that these people are itchin to get into the brains of little kids and teenagers at large for inplant od some type cause they are depressed--(acc0rding to them). So what now? Does this declaration save them?

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 10:05 am
Lyn L., that question presupposes that PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome) is an actual scientific provable condition as proclaimed by the field of Psychiatry in the DSM. Just because ONE field says something, does that make it true, does that make it the only field of treatment for mental stress or distress, including severe mental distress? Most people know there are many many practices in the field of health. Of course they're not funded by state or federal governments, or covered by insurance etc. And of course a number of these soldiers may have died from psychiatric drugs or suffered terrible side-effects from them or personally state they have NOT been helped by psychiatric drugs.

Perhaps this article would be informative to you regarding soldiers and PTSD
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cilla-mccain/dying-in-their-sleep-the_b_618429.html

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 10:24 am
Wow. Thanks Kenneth.

I understand the appeal of taking a pill to feel better when one feels soooo awful, but honestly, a good diet - tailored to one's metabolism - with special attention to any deficiencies (esp. Chronic ones) would go a long way toward reducing people's misery. (jamie's food revolution: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=j6nDtr0mgco)

For those with embedded traumas and those who have experienced shock, and are angry, depressed, violent, numb or depressed, etc. as a result, energy medicine techniques (which incidentally also work on animals who wouldn't know a placebo if it bit them on the bum) are remarkably effective.

For example, EFT (www.emofree.com, http://www.eftforvets.com/, http://www.stressproject.org/about.html, have a look on YouTube as well) is bringing tremendous relief to sufferer and their families and helping them enjoy their lives again.

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 10:44 am
The number of people taking anti-depressants has doubled in the last year or two - it has become the easy solution for far too many, imo. The better thing would be to try diet, exercise, counseling,alternative treatments - pills should be the last resort, not the first.

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 10:58 am
I used to think I was depressed Ken but found that it was the winter months I was feeling low. I am a sun worshipper so need the light!

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 10:59 am
Noted, Thanks!

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 11:09 am
Must agree with Arielle and I am troubled by the VA announcement that it is hiring several thousand mental health clinicians in response to PTSD and Brain Trauma cases. I am very much afraid that the quality of the VA clinician will return to the bad old days where the veteran got the doctor, nurse, shrink, etc. that couldn't get a job anywhere else. There pat answer of course is pills and thus the tie in here.

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 11:12 am
Thanks Kenneth. I suspect this isn't the only field of medicine that overprescribes drugs. Very often these the drugs used to treat the symptoms of one disease create problems in other areas of the body.
Whenever the doctor prescribes a drug for me I always do my own research. In fact I don't even bother going for a check up anymore. Lots of exercise and a vegetarian diet seems to be working just fine.

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 11:39 am
people have diverse opinion on this matter. I hate the labeling which I think is where it begins with any problem. You get labled and tend to believe it sometimes to the point of just giving up.Join together people to fight labeling
The meds are helpful but are never monitored or dosed correctly it seems. Diet and environment play a Large role as with mold, other pollutants, and cleaning chemicals effecting your brain Research the drug your doctor prescribes and if you don't like what you find don't take it. like pain medication and potental/real dangers there

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 2:54 pm
Read '"Repent Harlequin" said the Ticktockman' by Harlan Ellison, 'Brave New World' by Aldous Huxley, and '1984' by George Orwell. None of this is new. Only 'hostile' variations should receive treatment, not every variation from the cookie press.

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 3:50 pm
very interesting, thank you Kenneth, my mother had shock treatments for fighting back when her brother tried to rape her many years ago. It changed her personality for the rest of her life

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 4:18 pm
Noted, thanks Kenneth

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 6:01 pm
Thanks Kenneth! Great article!

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 6:12 pm
thanks for sharing this great article, Kenneth, hope it will lead to some changes

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 6:47 pm
Great reading.!!!!!

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 7:13 pm
Thanks Kenneth for the very interesting article, "Going to a psychiatrist has become one of the most dangerous things a person can do."--Peter Breggin, Psychiatrist, I agree I think most of them are crazy and have no clue what they are doing.

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 7:26 pm
Very Interesting article. Thanks Kenneth.

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 9:23 pm
I think placebos are a cruel joke. But I guess if your mind thinks they are making you better, that's the important think. I will read the full article this weekend. Thanks Kenneth, as always. Interesting stuff.

Wednesday April 25, 2012, 10:55 pm
Noted, Very interesting and thought provoking article...Thanks, Kenneth...

Thursday April 26, 2012, 1:02 am
Excellent info. Thanks, Kenneth.

Thursday April 26, 2012, 2:29 am
Noted & Shared. An article that everyone needs to read before taking these overly prescribed drugs. Antidepressants, particularly the SSRI's such as prozac are some of the most commonly prescribed drugs by doctors particularly psychiatrists. What this article tells us is in all the research studies done that they are, in most clinical trials done, no more effective than placebos but have many more negative side effects! But that doesn’t keep the doctors from over prescribing them- even most general practioners prescribe these drugs far to often. A GP that I went to wanted to give me prozac even for mild depression and I refused. She actually told me that it would be good for me and I told her that I didn't want to go down that route! So glad that I didn’t. I found that excercising, doing yoga, and listening to music really helped me get over my depression without the need for a drug.

There are many doctors that give prescriptions for these drugs which as this article shows are no more effective than placebos but unfortunately have a lot more harmful side effects, which the drug companies really down play and also these drugs can induce long term dependency. I heard from some who take antidepressants that even though they would like to stop taking these drugs they have become chemically dependent on them and yet their ineffective for depression so then they have to get on another drug to hopefully do what the other drug was supposed to do but failed to do- but they can’t quit the other drug because they’ve now become chemically addicted to the one that wasn’t treating their problem. I hear that there’s hardly any research out there by the drug companies on long term studies on antidepressants and dependency so even doctors can’t give you any clear answers on this one! Of course, they don’t look that far ahead and wonder why you do. An important caveat: bottom line, it’s not them taking these drugs, it’s you.

Thursday April 26, 2012, 4:40 am

Good grief!!! Thanks so much for this utterly astounding article Kenneth - it deprived me of speech for a while, and as my friends here know, that doesn't happen often! Green stars to those I could - Olivia S, for example - and Carol H - your poor poor mother - those b"£$%^&*s would have done the same to a slave that tried to escape - drapetomania wasn't it? GRRRRR!

People ought to be more aware that bad diet and decades of illness and or stress can mimic the symptoms ascribed to 'mental illness' and a good reference book (mine was lost when the roof came in) can guide you to those symptoms and possible cures - such as (to choose an obvious one) a Zinc deficiency can cause women to be more nervous and men to be more aggressive - if there is no other cause of course! We have got to stop asking for an instant solution like instant coffee to a problem - life often produces problems that take years to come to the fore - and they will necessarily take time to deal with very often. Giving someone a pharmacological cosh is not the answer!

And for pity's sake allow people to grieve for more than two weeks! That is indecent!

A lot of this behaviour is to make doctors feel that they have Done Something to Solve the Problem - and as it doesn't help many patients, why don't they cut out the middleman and take the drugs direct!

Thursday April 26, 2012, 5:25 am
Yes, that is unbelievable about your mother and brother Carol H.
As Patricia A. said "People ought to be more aware that bad diet and decades of illness and or stress can mimic the symptoms ascribed to 'mental illness'" A malfunctioning thyroid can cause mental confusion, drowsiness, fatigue, and so can a ton of other physical malfunctions. A psychiatrist on the other hand doesn't practice medicine or have you checked out physically before he simply labels you 'chronic fatigue syndrome' or something similar and then his 'treatment'----a powerful psychotropic drug. But which one? I saw a video where a hidden camera was taken into about 5 different psychiatrist offices and in each one the actor simply complained of being 'unorganized' and it was affecting his job---and all 5 psychiatrists told him 5 different diagnoses and a whole different array of different drugs to immediately put him on.
90% of psychiatrists 90% of the time simply give psychotropic drugs as their 'treatment' (after a 10 min. interview).

Thursday April 26, 2012, 5:32 am
I had a similar event as Julia R. After my parents passed away years ago I made the mistake of casually mentioning to my GP that I was a bit down and depressed. Immediately out comes the referral pad to who else, a psychiatrist (his brother actually). The term 'depressed' is a trigger word now, people instantly react without thinking. Doctors, laymen doesn't matter. Psychiatry has created it as a trigger word to equal 'a mental illness'. Before that it used to mean simply 'down' or 'sad'. There's control of your mind by an entire system and industry, that of Psychiatry and Big Pharma.
See the above quotes I provided about what various professionals, including psychiatrists themselves, say about 'depression' as a 'mental illness' or 'mental disorder'.

Thursday April 26, 2012, 6:15 am
Power of the mind ?!!

Thursday April 26, 2012, 6:28 am
It has been my observation that many people want to hold on to depression. They're treated differently by people and they can cop-out more easily if they maintain a level of depression. It's a way to hide from the world.

Often depression starts with an event, and can last awhile, but then people make a choice to be 'over it' or not.
Sorry if that offends someone who is chronically depressed...but think about it and be honest with yourself.

I've been there, and just thought I'd share my own observation of my bout with it when I was told to get my affairs in order because I was dying.......and my aunt's 45 yr long ongoing state of depression even after 2 rounds of shock treatments and all the pills available.
I truly believe that you CAN take your power back and overcome it by re-training yourself and using cognitive therapy on yourself.

YOU are stronger than your depression....and joy has better pay-offs.

Thursday April 26, 2012, 8:57 am
noted...thanks for the informative article Ken and Carol for the fwd

Thursday April 26, 2012, 8:59 am
oopps mistake..thanks for the fwd Pat A......:)

Thursday April 26, 2012, 9:42 am
Very informative article Ken- thanks

Thursday April 26, 2012, 11:00 am
great story.....more proof that all is never as it seems

Thursday April 26, 2012, 2:51 pm
ps: Who the hell would want to feel depressed, who enjoys the feeling of wanting to "off" yourself everyday -.-
and no Kenneth, not all studies and articles are true. I don't need a sugar pill to help me feel better, I need something to help me through the day, and a sugar pill isn't gonna do it.

Thursday April 26, 2012, 4:06 pm
Well Vicky, the pills certainly don't help your temper or your language now do they?

Thursday April 26, 2012, 5:40 pm
Nope, you still don't understand 'placebo effect' Vicky, nor do you want to, you're ignorant, and MarilynBusy wasn't aiming her comments at you. So you're wrong and ignorant. Anybody and everybody who sees Vicky Pitchford's post, third one above this, flag it please.

Thursday April 26, 2012, 6:15 pm
Interesting.
What is placebo?
Placebo is a tablet that contains no medication but has medical effects due to purely psychological reasons.
Most of the time disease is purely psychological. I know cases of illness or psychological ailments were cured only with solarized water.

Friday April 27, 2012, 12:19 am
Depression is an insidious thing, no doubt. However, it's best treated with holistic methods rather than drugs which carry some serious side effects.

Thanks for this informative article Kenneth, those which understand will take their health matters in hand & those who wish to continue to believe in a majic pill will keep swallowing the poison.

Friday April 27, 2012, 5:21 am
My doctor advised me to join the Buddhists (and chant), instead of giving me medication. I'm very grateful for that, and my depression went away after a few weeks chanting with the sangha / Lama's. When I walk my dog I recite a mantra...it feels so good ! I've learned a lot; for example to view my depression from a different perspective (it's a condition of mind), it's like what you want to believe you believe...where is "I", the ego - you can't locate it - it's a thought, a condition... so is the depression. The art is : be good for yourself, destroy the depression from within (you can do it), and it vanishes. It's a matter of training. If you'll be able to be compassionate with yourself, you can have compassion towards others. The most common thing is : nobody wants to get hurt.

Friday April 27, 2012, 5:43 am
Thanks Edgar for the short definition of placebo. Somebody once said 70% of man's illnesses are psychosomatic (mind-caused, not brain-caused like psychiatry says and is 'fixable' by brain-altering drugs).
When 1 out of 10 Americans for example are on psychiatric drugs you're looking at chaos. That's 10 out of 100 etc. And I read yesterday 1 in 4 American women are on psychiatric drugs? That's hard to believe and ridiculous if true.

Very neat Monka. The East has a much different view than the West in this matter. The West operates on the idea of 'strike a hard blow'.

Friday April 27, 2012, 6:01 am
I agree with comments made here re the pharmaceutical companies -- corrupt to the core. And I agree, with some reservations, with some comments made about the nature of depression and its treatment with scripts. But I would ask that the observations about depression in the article and in comments not lead to people to extrapolate from these to mental illness as a whole. I strongly suspect that Kenneth L. et al. would start to modify their wholesale antagonism to psychiatry if faced with a sufferer of paranoid schizophrenia not taking his/her medication. Many do not, which leads to another problem in need to address: the % of such people in the prisons.

Friday April 27, 2012, 6:31 am
Monka blanke...Good for you!!!
That reminds me that the use of meditation is also very effective...thus again proving that our minds have more control over our bodies than we may think. Let's just not forget that WE have the control OVER our minds!

I had surgery with only a 5mg valium administered to calm me one hour before the procedure, so that I could use Transcendental Meditation (it was called self hypnosis by the medical team) and I felt no pain. I was aware that I was having surgery and I could feel that I was being moved and that something was going on, but I had no pain. The recovery time and healing time was much shorter after that surgery too.
I've also used it to control pain after very major reconstructive surgery that require over 265 stitches......after I'd been mutilated by a bad doctor doing a 'minor office procedure' and he slipped.

To this day, I use TM to control chronic pain and constant back pain, and since I can't take migraine drugs or pain meds, I use it to control cluster headaches/migraines that I have 3 or 4 days a week. It works IF you want it to work. Our own minds can be very convincing, and it's important to know that we have control unless we give it away.

Friday April 27, 2012, 6:37 am
Philip...I agree that there are definitely conditions like schizophrenia and in some cases OCD.... that do require medication to keep them under control....but that's a different situation.

There are food additives that are KNOWN to cause ADHD and ADD among other medical problems. FD&C yellow dye #5 can trigger an asthma attack in asthmatics, and many of those types of chemicals can produce anxiety and hyper-activity. Why they're allowed to be in our food is ludicrous. Greed and ignorance, pure and simple.

Friday April 27, 2012, 6:43 am
'Paranoid schizophrenia' is a term created by the field of Psychiatry. You need to ask the various psychiatrists and psychologists whom I quoted above at the beginning of this thread your questions. This separates lay people such as C2 commentators from the many professors of psychiatry and psychology and their own personal statements about Psychiatry and the DSM that I quoted.

There is no question that human beings can suffer mental distress, even severe, but that does not equal what one field, Psychiatry, says about it. Or how one field, Psychiatry, 'fixes' it.
There are other views and treatments in other fields of what is called 'paranoid schizophrenia' than psychiatric.

Glad you brought up prisons. Psychiatry is government funded, supported, implemented in state and national gov'ts. across the world. It has enmeshed itself in the legal system, the court system, prison system, educational system, welfare system, 'mental health' system, foster care system, elderly care system.
Call me stupid but if labeling and drugging of prisoners by psychiatry worked, why are the prisons overflowing? Why are prisoners let out to re-offend and commit crimes like rape and murder again? It's on the say of psychiatrists. Psychiatry has been in the prison system for half a century at least. But you will find in the end that psychiatrists are never responsible if someone commits crimes under their treatments. They suddenly aren't responsible. They have excuses galore.
You call it antagonism to psychiatry, I call it understanding.

Friday April 27, 2012, 6:45 am
(my above post addressed to Philip Amos)

Friday April 27, 2012, 7:51 am
I was doing chores and thinking about this article and I remembered a wonderful book that I'd read back in the 80s when I was in the midst of a mystery illness.
The book actually gave me a clue as to what was killing me even though doctors could find nothing, and simply gave up and sent me home to get my affairs in order.
It turned out to be a very low level natural gas leak that I was living with for several years, and the accumulative effect of it was slowly shutting down my system.
Now I live in an all-electric house and when I visit friends or enter a building with gas or propane heating, or take car trips over half an hour long, I get neck and back pain and headaches and a fuzzy perception until I leave that environment. We had to move out of Los Angeles and to a small town in the desert because I was so sick from the smog. It left me with permanent damage to my immune system.

I digress.....
The book is called Psycho-Nutrition and was written by Carleton Fredericks back in the 70s. It's out of print now, but can still be found in used book stores, and it's worth the effort to find it. He was a nutritionist for 30 yrs and he was way ahead of his time.
He theorized that schizophrenia was the result of a vitamin B deficiency and he cited the case of a patient who was cured by his use of mega doses of B vitamins.
He also touched on the connection between environment and mental illness, and cited a case of a young man who became abusive and violent to his mother when they were in the kitchen together. To make a long story short, the man had a sensitivity to petroleum products and the emissions from the gas stove brought on the neurological and psychological symptoms of rage and violence.

I think that currently, psychiatry begins (sometimes wrongly) where medical science runs into a wall and has no answers. That doesn't mean psychiatry is the only option left though. Medical science needs to recognize the power of the toxins in our food and environment, and their connection to the mental and physical ailments that seem incurable or unexplainable.

Friday April 27, 2012, 11:59 am
I dont believe that children should ever be given drugs for depression,Prehaps a short course of treatment,but not as a long term solution.
Adults will just have to find what works best for them.
Thank you for A very informative article Kenneth.

Sunday April 29, 2012, 7:37 am
Thank you.

Friday May 11, 2012, 3:40 am
noted

Friday May 18, 2012, 4:26 pm
Here is a shining example of the reasons for education at its best. I'm thinking of the children who are thrown into drug regimes before they, their parents and their teachers even know what their strengths and abilities are. I'm lucky that I had full support of my family and most teachers to dance whenever I could. I couldn't be still when not in church or school. Adults need to listen and watch.

Thursday January 24, 2013, 12:42 pm
I was very interested in psychology and human behavior in college, particularly criminal behavior. Of course, psychology leans less on drugs than psychiatry. But I guess what I am saying is there is no cookie cutter for human behavior. Nor is there a drug that works for every one, in the same way. The sad thing is you become a guniea pig no matter what. Take this psycho tropic drug, oh your not quite reacting to that med, so here let's increase the dose and/or add this med to it. Recipe for disaster. Sorry I am late noting this Kenneth, but I wanted to have time to look this over. Good info, as always coming from you.