Thomas Szasz, MD, author of the classic, "The Myth of Mental Illness, " died over the weekend at his home near Syracuse, NY. I was lucky to have heard him speak twice--once last year at the IESPP conference, and once while I was in graduate school at Syracuse University. Although criticized by the mainstream psychiatric system for his "radical" views, many have continued to champion his cause.
Thomas Szasz, MD, author of the classic, "The Myth of Mental Illness, " died over the weekend at his home near Syracuse, NY. I was lucky to have heard him speak twice--once last year at the IESPP conference, and once while I was in graduate school at Syracuse University. Although criticized by the mainstream psychiatric system for his "radical" views, many have continued to champion his cause.
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I will be presenting on Empathic Parenting at the Living Compassion Workshop at NAU Oct 27-28!
http://www.nau.edu/SBS/Events/Living-Compassion/ Check out the new blog by Randy Cima, psychologist. He's worked with thousands of kids in the mental health system during his career. He became a vocal opponent of the use of psychotropic drugs in children. Learn from his wisdom and years of experience.
http://doctorcima.wordpress.com/ On March 29, the Federal Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) launched an initiative to try to stop nursing home residents from receiving unnecessary antipsychotic drugs. These drugs, which dampen the executive functioning of the brain (Peter Breggin, MD calls it a "chemical lobotomy"), are often used for control and management of those whom others find disturbing.
http://surveyortraining.cms.hhs.gov/pubs/VideoInformation.aspx?cid=1098 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-16964783
Research done in the 1990's is getting some recent attention in the press. A psychiatrist named Thomas Weir had his experimental subjects be in total darkness for 14 hours each night. The sleep pattern that emerged was a 4 hour sleep, 1-2 hours of wakefulness, then another 4 hour sleep. Check out the article! Here's a very insightful article from psychiatrist David Healy
http://davidhealy.org/professional-suicide http://www.numbdocumentary.com/numb/Home.html
Antidepressants (and other psychiatric drugs) CAUSE, not fix, a chemical imbalance in your brain. Did you know that there is no biological marker for any so called "mental illness" or psychiatric diagnosis? If emotional problems are caused by a chemical imbalance, why isn't there a test that can determine if you have a chemical imbalance before you are treated? However, it is known what chemical imbalances psychiatric drugs produce. From there, deductive reasoning was used to come up with theories that claimed the brain had a neurotransmitter problem in the first place. Hmm, faulty reasoning? http://www.psychsearch.net/psych_news/?p=2089
A conference in our backyard (almost)! http://psychintegrity.org/2011-conf-los-angeles/
I've traveled to Syracuse, NY to present at this conference the past two years! I'm glad it is close by this year. Check out the line up of speakers, including Thomas Szasz (author of THE MYTH OF MENTAL ILLNESS). Take a look at this article that just came out in The New York Times, "Talk Doesn't Pay, So Psychiatry Turns to Drug Therapy." One of the psychiatrists interviewed even admitted, "...it's the relationship that gets people better."
The last decade or so, the American Psychological Association has been pushing for psychologists to get prescription privileges. Why? Follow the money. The American Psychiatric Association is against prescription privileges for psychologists. Why? Because their incomes would go down, with so many more qualified mental health professionals able to prescribe. The only possible good that I see that could come out of psychologists being able to prescribe is that then I'd be recognized by the mental health system as a medical professional who is qualified to help people get off of psychotropic medications if they so desired. Unfortunately, overall, I'm sure the number of people on psychiatric medications would rise dramatically as, one by one, psychologists stopped doing therapy, and turned to only prescribing meds to raise their incomes. |
AuthorSarah Edmonds, PhD is a licensed psychologist, a mom, an activist, and a lover of dance. Archives
January 2022
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