Search Results for: steven morgan

A heck of a year for me…thoughts and Top 10 posts of 2018

December 25th was  the anniversary of the day I was in ICU almost dead last year. I was fearing winter most of the year but it’s turned out far better than I expected.  I am alive today…following the love of life-force within me that continues to heal this body which remains challenged (but only in the eyes of those who do not understand sacred illness) … I AM. And I am continuing to heal and celebrate life in ways I didn’t know were possible. …

Stranger *** (story from inside the psych ward)

By Steven Morgan – Tonight will be a Haldol night. The newly minted nurse will say, This is going to make you feel better, and I will duly reply, Ok, anything. She will tell me to lean forward over the table and pull up my gown. I will feel cold air crawl like fingers around my torso. She will tell me it’s going to feel like a prick, but only for a moment. I will feel the skin on my ass cinch around the needle. The tranquilizer will swim out the chute in a billowing yellow cloud. She will announce, Good job, jerking back. ….

The Brain’s Way of Healing: Discoveries from Frontiers of Neuroplasticity

Neuroplasticity: enormous implications for anyone who has been labeled with a psychiatric illness — That’s us, the readers of this blog…going against paradigm and healing ourselves with openness and conscientiousness. These are qualities that can be contagious. Right now we operate in a society telling us we don’t know what we’re doing…or that what we are doing is “woo.” Just think what happens when people start understanding what is possible. Others will start to open up and see the possibilities too. This is why education and sharing our journeys are both critically important. None of what we do is unscientific by the way, it’s just that science doesn’t know how to measure what we’re doing…

The Heart-Brain Connection: The Neuroscience of Social, Emotional Learning

Medicine (by using psych drugs) cannot do the things we actively choose to do to change our brain function, structure and therefore our behavior and cognitive capacities. We can change our brains and heal our body/minds and spirits. … [click on title to read the rest]

Rethinking bipolar disorder

A collection of links to other posts from the Beyond Meds archives that look at that which gets labeled “bipolar disorder” from different perspectives so that we might be challenged to think outside the psychiatric box.

Guest authors

This blog owes much of its success and influence to the great authors who chose to share their work here. Below are just a few of the more prolific contributors. There are links to their blogs or websites in the body of the posts where you can get more information about each author. There were… Continue Reading →

Bipolar (being grossly over-treated) everywhere

The “bipolar” diagnosis did me nothing but harm and it tragically results in similar iatrogenic injury for far too many others. There are other ways to view whatever phenomena is getting labeled bipolar and likewise much safer ways of healing. Indeed within the psychiatric model people are told to expect to manage being ill until they die. Many of us have discovered this is simply not necessarily true. It’s possible to get well and it seems the psych drugs can seriously impede that process if used for long-term maintenance. Also, it’s clear that the collection of phenomena that is labeled bipolar varies from individual to individual and they have many different etiologies. Labeling them as if they are all the same monolithic thing only serves to muddy the waters and often serves to trap the individual in a toxic prison of confusion. … [click on title for the rest of the post]

Focusing our attention can change the physical structure of our brains. Neuroplasticity: heal your mind/body/spirit

We can change how our brain functions. We can change the very structure of the brain. There are enormous implications here for anyone who has ever been labeled with a DSM psychiatric diagnosis. We can change and heal our minds and brains and we need not do it in detrimental fashion with neurotoxic medications.

Self-compassion and awareness are the qualities we need to start to heal our mind and body. Bringing mindfulness to a problem is the beginning of change. Paying attention to a process is changing the process! Even before any behavior changes. … [click on title to read the rest]

Rethinking bipolar disorder

The somatic imperative and meditation

it’s clear that the collection of phenomena that is labeled bipolar varies from individual to individual and they have many different etiologies. Labeling them as if they are all the same monolithic thing only serves to muddy the waters and often serves to trap the individual in a toxic prison of confusion and psychopharmaceuticals that are difficult to get off of.

Reviving the Myth of Mental Illness — by Steven Morgan

It may seem like trivial semantics, but the mistake that mental illness is something concrete has led to an epidemic of mythology. Every day, someone is told they have a thing inside them called mental illness that must be contended with long-term in order to achieve health. What follows is people learn to see themselves as having ill experiences and well experiences, unlike the normal population who somehow manage to live without sick feelings and thoughts. This attitude can have devastating effects psychologically, as it assures a person that something is wrong with them at their root – their mind, and that they cannot live confidently in their understanding of the world. Physically this attitude can lead to injury, as it assumes and often persuades anyone diagnosed with major mental illness to take risky medications indefinitely as opposed to selectively, which can lead to long-term addiction and a wide range of disabilities, bodily dysfunctions, and disturbing behavior. And socially this attitude can create alienation, ironically reinforced by the attitudes – “You are chronically mentally ill” – of the very people who are supposed to be helpful.

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