The last few days in links:
- Childish Creativity : The Frontal Cortex — Pablo Picasso once declared that “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.”
- Holistic Recovery from Schizophrenia: A.A. and SZ — The treatment approach that came closest to A.A. for schizophrenia was Soteria, which relied on non-medical people to work closely with the patients. In fact, many people who have recovered from schizophrenia credit their recovery to someone who cared, who was able to empathize with them, perhaps someone who had been there himself. A.A. incidentally, deliberately preferred to staff the organization with recovered alcoholics, including medical doctors. — Today’s schizophrenia programs, by and large, are not success stories. They rely on paid medical staff (who, presumably, are not former schizophrenics), not counseling by peers. The doctor knows best, the patients’ personal life stories are considered irrelevant in the face of the “proven efficacy” of the biochemical model.
- Holistic Recovery from Schizophrenia: The fall-out from Dr. Nancy C. Andreasen’s bombshell — I linked to this article when it came out and it’s worth revisiting. “I haven’t published this yet. But I have spoken about it in public lectures. The big finding is that people with schizophrenia are losing brain tissue at a more rapid rate than healthy people of comparable age. Some are losing as much as 1 percent per year. That’s an awful lot over an 18-year period. And then we’re trying to figure out why. Another thing we’ve discovered is that the more drugs you’ve been given, the more brain tissue you lose.”
- How The Beatles’ meditation technique could cure depression – Health News, Health & Families – The Independent — I think it’s safe to assume many meditation techniques can have similar results.
- Glaxo, Paxil and the Catholic Sex Abuse Cover-Up: Drug Implicated in Priest’s Suicide | BNET Pharma Blog | BNET — Father Rick Tucker, who took Paxil because he was upset about the way his parish ignored a child abuse scandal, may have committed suicide because of side effects from the drug and not the stress from the cover-up, a federal judge ruled. Judge David H. Hamilton of Indiana’s federal court found that Tucker’s sister Debra could sue GSK over the death of her brother, who shot himself to death in September 2002.