There’s an article titled Restraint – 10 ways it harms psychiatric patients on Sectioned’s blog today. It describes Sectioned’s own experience in this area. Sectioned lists ten ways he/she was harmed by this practice, and the article is well worth reading.
Courtesy of Nanu Grewal in Australia, I’ve come across this interesting paper: Systematic meta-analysis of individual selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor medications and congenital malformations, by Nicholas Myles et al. The authors note that there is some suggestion of a link between SSRI’s, as a group, and birth defects, but that the teratogenicity of individual members of this drug class have not been systematically compared by meta-analysis. Meta-analysis is essentially a systematic review of previous studies and combining of the results of those that meet certain pre-determined criteria for research quality. ...
Melissa, a commenter on a recent post, asked if I would do a post on akathisia. Akathisia literally means inability to sit. People with this problem typically pace for long periods, and if they do sit down, they continue to keep moving and shifting their position in the chair. In severity it can range from a generalized sense of uneasiness or agitation, to severe discomfort and even pain. The discomfort tends to be located in the legs, but can also occur in the hip and pelvic area. In severe cases, the victims pace to the point of exhaustion, but even then sitting does not relieve the discomfort. ...
Courtesy of yobluemama2 on Twitter, I’ve come across an interesting article. It’s called Psychiatric Drugs and Suicide, by Janne Larsson, a reporter. It’s posted on PsychRights.org, a law project for psychiatric rights. The article focuses on suicides committed in Sweden in 2006-2007, and the proportions of victims who had taken psychiatric drugs in the period prior to the suicide. The study also covers data from autopsy reports. Information for the study was gathered under Sweden’s freedom of information act. Here’s a summary of the main findings. ...
BACKGROUND A couple of days ago (June 12) I posted Autism Prevalence Increasing. The article drew attention to a post by Kelly Brogan, MD, called See No Evil, Hear No Evil which had appeared on Mad in America on June 9. Dr. Brogan’s article had cited an alarming increase in the incidence of autism over the past few decades, and mentioned some possible causative factors. I checked the figures against the DSM and CDC prevalence estimates and found they were broadly in line. I mentioned the possibility that diagnostic expansion, particularly as embracing milder presentations, might be a confounding factor, but that given the reported increase (1 in 5000 to 100 in 5000) over 38 years, I expressed the view that this was a bit of a stretch. ...
Last month (May 31), National Public Radio (NPR) ran an interview on Science Friday with Thomas Insel, MD, Director of NIMH, Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, President of the APA, and Gary Greenberg, PhD, practicing psychotherapist. I didn’t hear the interview, but I have read the transcript. Doctors Insel and Lieberman were spinning the barrage of criticism directed at psychiatry in recent months, while at the same time clinging desperately to the notion that the problems that psychiatrists “treat” are real illnesses. It’s become a familiar theme, and there was nothing new. ...
On two occasions in the past week or so, I have been involved in discussions on the increasing prevalence of autism. In the more recent of these, the individual with whom I was talking expressed the concern that the recent DSM enlargement of autism disorder to autism spectrum disorder might be an APA-pharma designed artifact to draw attention away from the steady increase in the incidence of autism in recent decades. ...
It is well known that nutrition is important, and that a great many people today – of all ages – are not receiving adequate nutrition. It’s a huge subject, and is covered on lots of websites. A few days ago (June 7), there was an article on Mad in America called Can Psychosis be Treated with Nutrition? It was written by Bonnie Kaplan, PhD and Julia Rucklidge, PhD. The article is about a boy, whom the authors call Andrew (not his real name). He had some early developmental problems, and by age 10 was displaying hallucinatory and delusional behavior. He spent six months in a mental hospital, and was prescribed a wide range of psychoactive drugs, including neuroleptics. His overall level of functioning on discharge was about the same as it was on admission. ...
David Healy, MD, is a controversial figure. On the one hand, he is a fierce and determined opponent of the escalating use of antidepressant drugs. On the other hand, he is one of the world’s leading proponents of electric shock “treatment.” For the latter reason, I’m somewhat hesitant to quote his work, but he writes good anti-antidepressant articles, and his points are usually well-researched and compelling. I’ve recently come across an article called Prozac and SSRIs: Twenty-fifth Anniversary, which Dr. Healy wrote in February of this year. Here are some quotes: ...
BACKGROUND I recently received the following question from Disparity, on Twitter. "I'm interested in all your posts, but they're always telling us what mental illness 'isn't.' Do you have many on what it 'is'? I referred him/her to the post There are No Mental Illnesses and received the following reply: "I have read it a few times. I largely agree with it. But 'something' happens to people. Whatever the label." Questions of this sort arise fairly frequently, and I thought it might be helpful to write a post. WHAT HAPPENS TO PEOPLE? ...