He is risen

From Refusing Psychiatry Without Pissing Off the Neighbors

Saturday, March 30, 2013

Psychiatry and the Easter faith

Why do you look for the living among the dead?

Mourners visiting a tomb were asked this question one morning, long ago.

I ask it today of anyone who might study the mind or presume to heal mentally caused ills within a framework alienated from religion or in non-religious fields.

Lately we favor the proposition that bad behavior and unpleasant feelings are sicknesses or diseases of the brain. We believe doctors who specialize in behavior (but tellingly, not doctors who actually specialize in the brain) can solve social problems by medical means. We even tend to believe that scientific medicine is the best and most vital route to happiness in general.

We are apparently so far gone as to accept on faith that an individual read the rest here

Sign petition to release Adam Lanza’s medical and toxicology records

March 25, 2013

Dear Ablechild Member,

We have a nationwide problem that is growing by the minute…..Massive amounts of pending mental health bills in response to the recent school shooting in Newtown, CT. These bills do not address the root cause of this violent act and the many others that are taking place throughout our country. On top of this, these mental health bills, if voted in as law will strip our parental rights away and leave our children at risk for mental health abuse. The Newtown, Sandy Hook mass murder suicide has placed Ablechild’s work into the national spotlight. We need to be ready to further our efforts, spread our critical information far and wide and need your help in this endeavor.

Ablechild has written to the Connecticut Chief Medical Examiner requesting the toxicology report of the school shooter and we have launched a national campaign to educate lawmakers to ask the one question that has yet to be answered: “Was this incident yet another linking psychiatric drug use to our nations school shootings?” Our national campaign needs your voice by signing ourpetition to compel a release of Adam Lanza’s medical and toxicology records and we are asking you to send this petition to everyone you know and ask these people to spread it even further. We need to have a huge impact!!!!

WE ARE PLEASED TO ANNOUNCE THAT A NEW ABLECHILD WEBSITE is on the way which will make it much easier for parents to navigate, access information and discuss various issues. We are building a new, simpler to use, virtual home, to ensure our message is not lost in the misinformation that is permeating todays media. Our goal is not only to be in today’s fleeting spotlight; but for us to remain a critical force on the national level. WE CANNOT ACCOMPLISH THIS WITHOUT YOUR SUPPORT!

Our message, work, and overall efforts go to ensuring informed consent and the right to refuse mental health screening and drug “treatment” for all our children. With your financial support, Ablechild can continue this important work which has directly impacted individual rights and helps us move mountains.Please support us so that we continue to grow, further parental rights and ultimately protect our children. Hey, don’t forget to check us out on our facebook page. Join the conversation, like, and share us.

Sincerely,

Sheila Matthews and Patricia Weathers, Cofounders

Copyright 2001- 2007 Ablechild (Parents for Label and Drug Free Education). All rights reserved. Ablechild is a nonprofit, tax-exempt, Section 501(c) (3) charitable organization, and donations are deductible under the provisions of the IRS Tax Code. Ablechild and the Ablechild logo is a Trademark of Ablechild, Inc.

NPR host needs stigma rehab and training

I like social worker Jack Carney’s exhortation to the mental health community: “Don’t mourn, organize!” We can all do our part to raise our objections and concerns when we feel that our rights and human dignity and those of others have been infringed upon. A very simple thing to do is to write letters and submit comments through the social media. The aim isn’t necessarily to change the mind of the author, the idea is to get the opinion and information out there for others, perhaps for the first time, to read and contemplate.

Here’s my contribution to changing the world, for today. National Public Radio has a show called “Fresh Air,” in which Terry Gross interviews all kinds of major and minor celebrities. In the show I listened to, Ms Gross interviews Mike White, creator and co-star of the Home Box Office series Enlightened, in which Laura Dern stars as corporate executive Amy Jellicoe, recently returned from rehab and wanting to change the world.

Rossa Forbes comment #24
Good interview, as I expect of Terry Gross, but I would like to point out how Ms Gross is perpetuating stigma of the mentally ill. I was horrified to hear her say to Mike White, that he couldn’t possibly be the same as those people he ended up with in the mental hospital, since his was a case of anxiety. “It’s not like you were schizophrenic or mentally ill,” she added. STIGMA alert! Since a discussion of the gay rights movement and discrimination informed a large part of this interview, it’s ironic that Ms Gross tripped up over perpetuating the same stigma that Mr. White’s father rose up against. Remember when non-gays were judged on how “gay positive” they were, and appropriately pilloried if they weren’t? Well, I would like to know how “schizopositive” Ms Gross is and what her beliefs are about “mental illness.” She appears to believe that anxiety, especially among talented writers, is not associated with mental illness. In his response, Mr. White talks about reading Buddhist texts for the first time and learning how to strive towards enlightenment. Mr. White would have been in good company in the mental hospital, where no doubt many of the “inmates routinely read these texts and others as a necessary part of their spiritual journey. So, how about a Fresh Air interview with Paris Williams, author of Rethinking Madness, PsychCentral’s most recent book of the month. From the review: “Another major point Williams makes is that the core issues in madness are not a struggle with an “illness” experienced only by some, but rather a struggle with the existential issues that we all face, such as being caught between a fear of being separate and a fear of being overwhelmed or engulfed by connection.”

It’s cheaper to kick somebody’s ass

From the erudite lips of SRK, author of Refusing Psychiatry Without Pissing Off the Neighbors.

“I think the distinction between sociopath and a psychopath boils down to this: If you’re a sociopath, the rest of us will sooner or later gang up to kick your ass; if you’re a psychopath, the rest of us will sooner or later gang up to “treat” you.”

Read the rest here

SRK’s blogger profile: “I became an attorney late in life primarily to advocate for the universal human right to refuse psychiatry.”

Follow him (He’s surely a him based on his taste in movies) on Twitter: @mentalhealthlaw

Time to stop the bleeding

Children worry a lot, even if they don’t express it. They worry that their parents will die, they worry about problems that occur half a world away, not realizing that some of the problems are not a direct local threat. (“No, sweetie, we don’t get tsumanis here in central London.”) Is it good to be globally and politically aware? Yes. Is a certain level of insensitivity to life’s tragedies good for one’s health? Also yes. The constant barrage of inescapable doom and gloom frightens young children and continues to keep the more sensitive adults among us in a constant low level state of depression and fear.

It seems that everywhere we turn today, we are expected to care and weep for the world’s many victims of opression, injustice and the environment. Including animals.

The BBC announcer’s funereal tone of voice drifted over the radio waves early one morning last week. BBC announcers take the cake when it comes to “gravitas.”

“A Royal penguin found stranded on a New Zealand beach 2,000km (1,200 miles) from its Antarctic home has died.

Lisa Argilla, a vet at Wellington Zoo, said they suspected it had suffered multiple organ failure.

The bird, which was dehydrated and starving . . . . .“

Enough! This is one bird thousands of miles away, not your dear grandmother, the gruesome details of whose death would not be shared with the grandchildren. Why is this one misbegotten bird considered international news? I call it news pollution. Its toxic effects are insinuated into the cellular energy of anyone within earshot, even half a world away.

Patience can be rewarding

I first got interested in the trauma theory of schizophrenia when I learned about neurologist Dr. Dietrich Klinghard’s pyramid of healing. Briefly stated, “schizophrenia” is located Level 4 of the pyramid, the level of intuition, dreams, trance, meditative states, out-of-body experiences, and the collective unconscious. Dr. Klinghart believes that healing that takes place at this level has a trickle down effect on the lower levels, where impaired physical health expresses itself.

If Dr. Klinghardt is on to something, then there is no pressing need right now for Chris to consult an immunologist about his immune system, as I wondered about in my last post. Since Chris has undergone several trauma clearing therapies and is boosting his immune system now with plant power (2nd level), a good strategy might be to continue to wait and hope for the trickle down health benefits. These surely don’t happen overnight. I have seen some small evidence that points to his immune system beginning to send the right signals to his body. This strategy also had the added allure of not bringing in medical doctors to to further complicate our lives.

So tired ………….zzz

Chris and I met with the plant power guy bright and early this morning for a check-up on our general level of health and energy. I’m well enough, as these things go, just a bit of cardiac trouble looming if I’m not mindful of his products, LOL. Chris, according to the PPG, has a barely registering immune response. Supposedly, it has improved only slightly since the last visit. I’m getting to the point of wanting a specialist, an immunologist, to run specific blood tests, now that we have more information pointing to a possible underlying condition that may have precipitated Chris’s psychosis.  But, I do wonder if it’s worth the bother. More doctors, for what? I haven’t heard of addressing symptoms of “schizophrenia” through treating the immune system. We’re not there yet. It’s still in the realm of promising areas of future scientific research. The other option is to just let the PPG do his thing (recommend special immunity boosting plant power) over the next few months and see what happens. It’s up to Chris to determine how he would prefer to handle it.

The scientifc method

I had lunch today with the scalar energy shaman. We discussed the frustrations that both of us are having with the plant power guy, namely, that he has no documented results of his testing, even though he uses credible scientific instruments and well-established muscle testing techniques. The plant power guy claims Chris has a deficient immune system, but he does not produce progressive reports based on evidence that shows whether the plant power that he prescribes to fix the problem is doing the job.

While lack of documented evidence is a common problem with alternative healers,  I feel that conventional psychiatry doesn’t do much better. We are asked to take a leap of faith based on one person’s best guess as to the diagnosis (symptoms), then we are asked to believe that the medication prescribed address the fictitious problem. “Fictitious,” because most antipsychotic medications are dopamine receptor antagonists, and there is growing scientific skepticism about the dopamine theory serving as all-encompassing explanation of certain kinds of mental illness.

Even though we know that it is often our belief system, rather than hard data, driving our choices, there is still a need for more documented evidence and greater disclosure in any path we choose to take.  Alternative healers, too, not just mainstream medicine, should be mindful of the scientific method.