From WildMind and Talk Radio News Service this sort of thing is where real healing is at: In places like Sudan, in the heart of Africa, the local doctor does not have the option of prescribing psychiatric drugs to patients, as the cost would be prohibitive. Most people there have some type of post-traumatic stress... Continue Reading →
Psychiatry
A facebook status update by Kimmy Sanger: Psychiatry? They listened when we describe how we felt, how we feel. They observe for days, weeks, years. They write articles, give lectures on what we tell them, about how it effected our lives then and even now. They wrote books, built hospitals, founded organizations. Everything we say... Continue Reading →
The Revival of the Market for Benzodiazepines — By Robert Whitaker,
This is a piece by Robert Whitaker that was written for the benzo community and published by a friend of mine in this newsletter on a benzo withdrawal support website. I received permission to reprint it here. One of the topics Whitaker's new book Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise... Continue Reading →
Alternative Ways to Manage Mental Illness — Audio interview with Will Hall
On Voice America Health and Wellness: Alternative Ways to Manage Mental Illness <<< listen there Will Hall was diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent a year in San Francisco's public mental health system. Will learned to live with his voices, visions, and difficult mental states without medications, and went on to become a leading mental health... Continue Reading →
Sleeping Pills (benzos and Z-drugs) shorten life-span and a list of other adverse reactions
This is about benzos (Valium, Klonopin, Ativan, Xanax, etc) and the Z-drugs (Ambien, Lunesta) that are related to benzos. Yeah, they’re all fraught with problems.
Media madness for Tuesday
Reading material from the last few days: The Carlat Psychiatry Blog: The Psychiatrists Whupped the Psychologists -- Daniel Carlat gives some tantalizing ideas about his new book -- In doing so, I felt a bit like Salman Rushdie, whose 1988 book, Satanic Verses, so unnerved the Islamic orthodoxy that the Ayatollah Khomeini issued Rushdie a... Continue Reading →
Anatomy of an Epidemic: video-taped interview with author Robert Whitaker
Here Robert Whitaker talks in detail about what he covers in the book. A wonderful taste of this very important book. This video starts a little slow. Hang in there because it's a great interview. Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America -- a synopsis written... Continue Reading →
Life requires struggle
An interview with Cole Bitting from Fable - a blog on psychology and recovering from distress Life requires struggle. The struggling is also the source of growth and profoundly satisfying personal development. We have nothing to learn from if bad things don't happen. Yet bad things are bad, and the problem with the struggle is the struggling. Failure to manage the tough moments can damage long-term well-being and contentment. To neglect the struggle in pursuit of the happy is to neglect personal peace for the sake of ethereal aspiration. Our core - the very sense of who we are - is born from the struggle, just as our spirit is born of suffering.
New Scientist gives Robert Whitaker’s new book a great review
From the New Scientist: Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic bullets, psychiatric drugs, and the astonishing rise of mental illness in America by Robert Whitaker PSYCHIATRY is widely considered to be a success, able to treat mental illness using drugs to correct chemical imbalances in the brain. Yet, since the advent of psychiatric drugs, rates of... Continue Reading →
A recovery from benzos–into severe benzo illness and out
This is taken from a post on a benzo board I go to for information and these days for hope that I will make it through this phase of acute post-withdrawal. I got permission to repost this here. Hello everyone, Over 14 months ago I took my last bit of Klonopin, after what essentially amounted... Continue Reading →
Dan Gilbert: Why are we happy? Why aren’t we happy?
Dan Gilbert, author of Stumbling on Happiness, challenges the idea that we'll be miserable if we dont get what we want. Our "psychological immune system" lets us feel truly happy even when things dont go as planned.