Inocente is a 15-year-old girl who has spent the last 9 years homeless in San Diego. Despite her circumstances and her dark park, she paints bright and whimsical paintings.
Response to Dr. Oz show on Electroshock (and a compelling video by someone who had ECT)
PRESS RELEASE: (and then follows a video of someone post ECT) The National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery (NCMHR) calls upon the producers of "The Dr. Oz Show" to provide balanced and truthful coverage of the risks of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), in which grand mal seizures are electrically induced, usually to treat severe depression. "We are surprised that Dr. Oz would air such a one-sided show," says NCMHR director Lauren Spiro, "as ECT remains one of the most controversial psychiatric practices." "Shock survivors" and many other mental health advocates assert that ECT's disabling effects - including permanent memory loss and cognitive deficits - outweigh possible benefits, and call for potential ECT recipients to be told the risks so they can make an informed choice.
“Therapy supports the decline of the actual world”
"We've had a hundred years of analysis, and people are getting more and more sensitive, and the world is getting worse and worse. Maybe it's time to look at that. We still locate the psyche inside the skin. You go inside to locate the psyche, you examine your feelings and your dreams, they belong to you. Or it's interrrelations, interpsyche, between your psyche and mine. That's been extended a little bit into family systems and office groups – but the psyche, the soul, is still only within and between people. We're working on our relationships constantly, and our feelings and reflections, but look what's left out of that. "What's left out is a deteriorating world.
Relax – (mindfulness, just one minute at a time)
Rick Hanson, whose work really delights me, now has a youtube channel with Just One Minute practices. They are simple and straight forward tips, making mindfulness practice a part of every minute of our lives. That is how it's supposed to be, but it's so often taught in ways that make people think it's not... Continue Reading →
Grief to become just another form of depression? another disorder for the DSM5 (and alternative ways of thinking about that pain)
As we watch the hullabaloo around the creation of the next DSM, one of the moves towards increasing pathology in normal people is to label grief a depression, hence opening the floodgates that more people will be treated with antidepressants. The fact is this has already been happening for a long time. Many people are introduced to antidepressants after the loss of a loved one or after a divorce etc. Still, to further legitimize the mass drugging of normal pain and heartbreak that all human beings will face at one time of another as we live our lives is a bad direction to move in. The DSM5 wants to do that.
Chemical Imbalance Theory: the myth that never dies
2025) Chemical Imbalance Theory: it’s the myth that never dies, clearly, as I have to keep on updating this post! Every couple of years there is a big news cycle which expresses with surprise and dismay that the chemical imbalance theory is wrong! Oh my! It's wrong. Every couple of years. For some reason this is news that never sticks. It's been going on for the 20 plus years I've been keeping an eye on it and it will likely continue like this. The pharmaceutical companies appear to have more sway.
Stop hiding from yourself
Although it is embarrassing and painful, it is very healing to stop hiding from yourself. It is healing to know all the ways that you shut down, deny, close off, criticize people, all your weird little ways. You can know all that with some sense of humor and kindness. By knowing yourself, you’re coming to... Continue Reading →
Excellent UK Article on Anti-Psychotic Drug Harm Reduction in Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing
Matthew Aldridge, a psychiatric nurse at London's Lambeth Hospital, just published a new article in the Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, "Addressing non-adherence to antipsychotic medication: a harm-reduction approach."
This is an extraordinarily well researched clinical discussion of professional medication practice that draws a lot from the Harm Reduction Guide To Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs that I wrote with The Icarus Project and Freedom Center.
Chemical Crucifixion: Grainne Humphry
Could a young man's overwhelming visions of Christ and apocalypse be a creative response to life trauma, rather than signs of paranoid schizophrenia? Does madness unfold differently depending on whether it is supported - or feared? Irish activist and punk musician Grainne Humphrys, herself a survivor of an extreme state, discusses the campaign for the release of former partner John Hunt. John has been incarcerated and drugged against his will since 2005, sparking international outcry.
“Uneasy in good times and overwhelmed in bad. This is the legacy of childhood trauma.”
Too many of us grew up in families wracked with pain. Emotional wounds accumulate in settings of neglect, abuse, bereavement, molestation, violence, and misery. As adults, these ancient injuries undermine our happiness. We often choose poorly in relationships, careers, and pastimes. Even if we don’t make gross mistakes, we lack the confidence to endorse our own choices. We feel uneasy in good times and overwhelmed in bad. This is the legacy of childhood trauma.
At times we shut down emotionally, closing ourselves off from the affection we crave. Other times we act out and hurt the ones we love or destroy our own reputations.
Still, healing can happen after even the worst of upbringings. It takes time, and backslides are unavoidable, but eventually we stabilize in greater maturity and emotional openness than we ever imagined.
What we won’t dance with – is exactly the dance-partner we need
Fixating on or trying to go toward “the Light” — as in the throes of unchecked spiritual ambition — only further endarkens us, estranging us from that in us which is subterranean, wounded, misshapen, wretched, or otherwise unwanted. What we won’t dance with, what we refuse intimacy with, what we’re so ambitious to shed, is... Continue Reading →