A Behavioral Approach to Mental Disorders

On December 25, 2016, the Baltimore Sun published an excellent article titled Drug companies prey on children, by Patrick D. Hahn, PhD. Dr. Hahn is an affiliate professor of biology at Loyola University, Maryland. Here are some quotes: "I recently attended Youth Mental Health First Aid Training at a local public school. It was an eye-opening experience." "Youth Mental Health First Aid Training, sponsored by the National Council for Behavioral Health, is intended to enable teachers, parents and others in contact with young people to identify potential 'mental illnesses' in order to facilitate early detection and treatment by our mental health care system. My fellow attendees were surprisingly open about their own experiences with that system. One mentioned that her son became manic after being diagnosed for ADHD. Another said that both she and her roommate became bipolar after being diagnosed for depression. Neither our facilitators nor anyone else present pointed out that mania and bipolar disorder are toxic effects of medications commonly prescribed for ADHD and depression." ...

I have recently read The Power of the Double Circle by Philip Springer, MD, and Shelby Havens, DNP. It’s a small book (91 pages), but it sets out an idea that might have some value in support/self-help and other kinds of groups. Dr. Springer is a retired psychiatrist, and Dr. Havens is a psychiatric nurse practitioner, but their position as set out in the book is something close to anti-psychiatry. ...

On October 31, 2016, the very eminent psychiatrist Allen Frances, MD, architect of DSM-IV, published an article on his Psychology Today blog, Saving Normal. The article is titled DSM-5 Diagnoses In Kids Should Always Be Written In Pencil. (The piece also appeared on the Huffington Post Blog on the same date.) The subheading is “Mislabelling children and adolescents is frequent and can haunt them for life” As in many of Dr. Frances’s recent articles, the bulk of the text is written by someone else, and Dr. Frances provides an introduction and a summary/conclusion. In this case, the core of the article is written. by Juan Vasen and Gisela Untoiglich of Forum Infancias, an Argentine organization of mental health workers dedicated to the “proper diagnosis and treatment of children and adolescents”. ...

CLARIFICATION This post is a critique of psychiatry's spurious personality disorder diagnoses. It is neither a defense, nor a condemnation, of Mr. Trump. In my view, it is right and proper that we the people should comment freely on, and criticize, our political leaders, as we deem appropriate. But assigning spurious psychiatric labels is problematic for two reasons. Firstly, it adds nothing useful to the discussion. Secondly, it affords unwarranted validity and reliability to what are nothing more than loose collections of inherently vague thoughts, feelings, and behaviors, with no explanatory significance. ...

On January 2, 2017, I published a short post titled Carrie Fisher Dead at Age 60 on Behaviorism and Mental Health. The article was published simultaneously on Mad in America. On January 4, a response from Carolina Partners was entered into the comments string on both sites. Carolina Partners in Mental Healthcare, PLLC, is a large psychiatric group practice based in North Carolina. According to their website, they comprise 14 psychiatrists, 7 psychologists, 34 Advanced Practice Nurse Practitioners/Physicians Assistants, and 43 Therapists and Counselors. They have 27 North Carolina locations. ...

Actress Carrie Fisher died on December 27, 2016, at the early age of 60. In a 2001 article on Healthy Place, she was described as “Perhaps one of manic-depression’s best-known champions…” Here’s another quote from the same article: "I'm fine, but I'm bipolar. I'm on seven medications, and I take medication three times a day. This constantly puts me in touch with the illness I have. I'm never quite allowed to be free of that for a day. It's like being a diabetic." ...

On October 13, an interesting article was published on the Huffington Post Blog. The author is Jessica Gold, MD, a psychiatry resident at Stanford University; the post is titled Inpatient Psychiatry: Not all Needles, Drugs And Locks. The article is a personal experience/opinion piece, the gist of which is that people who criticize or condemn psychiatry simply don’t understand the complexities and needs of psychiatry’s “patients”, particularly the need for locked wards. ...

This morning I received an email from Oldhead, who has been active in opposing the Murphy Bill. Here are two quotes from the email: "As succinctly as possible -- the main language from MURPHY (including AOT funding) has been consolidated with another bill, the 21ST CENTURY CURES bill, which is being introduced as a House Amendment to the Senate Amendment to H.R. 34, Tsunami Warning, Education and Research Act of 2015.' In other words, Murphy is being slipped through on another bill’s coattails, if Murphy, Jaffee & Co. have their say." ...

Thirty-three years ago, in August 1983, an article titled Suicide Associated with Akathisia and Depot Fluphenazine Treatment appeared in the Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology. The authors were Katherine Shear, MD, Allen Frances, MD, and Peter Weiden, MD. Here are some quotes, interspersed with my comments/observations: "Akathisia is a common and distressing side effect of neuroleptic medication that can be difficult to recognize and treat. Several previous reports mention maladaptive behavioral consequences, such as poor compliance with prescribed medication and aggressive or self-destructive outbursts. We are reporting suicides in two young Hispanic men who had developed severe akathisia after treatment with depot fluphenazine. Depression with suicidal behavior has been observed following fluphenazine injection, but suicide associated with akathisia has not been previously noted." ...

On September 28, US Senator John McCain (R-AZ) introduced a bill in the Senate titled Veteran Overmedication Prevention Act (S. 3410). This is a companion bill to HR 4640, Veteran Suicide Prevention Act introduced in the House by Congressman David Jolly (R-FL) earlier this year. The objective of both bills is to combat suicide deaths by ensuring that accurate information is available on the relationship between suicides and prescription “medication”. At the present time, 20 US veterans a day are dying by suicide. ...