by Ron Unger When people are seeing the world really different than we do, it’s often reassuring to think that there must be something wrong with them – because if they are completely wrong, or ill, then we don’t have to rethink our own sense of reality, we can instead be confident about that own understandings encompass all that we need to know. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
We’ve learned to co-exist with different beliefs as one of our most cherished values of tolerance in a multicultural society. That lesson can be key for encountering the different realities in situations where someone is being called psychotic, delusional, schizophrenic or mentally ill. Respect and support may stretch our thinking, but can be vital to recovery. Cross-culturally, we accept that even the most strange or unfamiliar belief has value, meaning, and purpose in the person’s life. We give it the benefit of the doubt. The same is true of bizarre beliefs that get called psychosis. And using diagnostic language instead can amount to the same kind of put-down that goes with cultural supremacy and racist insult.… [click on title for the rest of the post]
And so I embarked on the darkest journey of my life, one for which neither I nor my husband were prepared. I soon found out that there was no one who could help us. The psychiatrists, even the more sympathetic ones, were not making sense to me. I was coming from the business world and I was not used to accepting superficial answers. They could not tell me what was wrong with Helia and why this had happened to her. They could not answer my challenging questions about the scientific research in the field. The best doctors, the honest ones, would tell me: “We really don’t know what this is, but we are sure that something is wrong with her brain.” But why? “Why are you so sure that it is her brain?” I asked. Their response was, “because it can’t be anything else.” And that is exactly where the problem lay. They could not get out of the box that they were forced into by their guild. Biological psychiatry, in my opinion, suffers from a flawed and reductionist conception of how the human mind works and what might be needed to help it to function optimally when it is not doing so. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
The notion of very poor prognosis among those with psychosis is a myth, this psychiatrist tells us. He still comes from an overly scientific (reductionistic) perspective at moments but overall he's a pretty darn good guy who seems to get it. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
Influential “thought leader” psychiatrists and major psychiatry institutions, by their own recent admissions, have been repeatedly wrong about illness/disorder validity, biochemical causes, and drug treatments; and also, in several cases, have been discovered to be on the take from drug companies—yet continue to be taken seriously by the mainstream media. While Big Pharma financial backing is one reason that psychiatry is able to retain its clout, this is not the only reason. More insidiously, psychiatry retains influence because of the needs of the larger power structure that rules us. And perhaps most troubling, psychiatry retains influence because of us—and our increasing fears that have resulted in our expanding needs for coercion. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
Empathy and compassion is part of our human inheritance. We are facing some very disturbing socio-economic realties. People with privilege are losing these emotional skills. The counter-balance of course is that we can regain our lost selves and find compassion, empathy and love for ourselves and others.
Someone on Twitter challenged Kelly Brogan MD and I about her article about SSRIs yesterday. She said that she and I were "ranting"
All my work is now motivated by the fact that I’ve worked with and corresponded with thousands of people who have been gravely harmed by psychiatry. The denial of the great potential for harm in psychiatry must end. The harming of so many innocent and vulnerable people must end. I’m happy to keep helping people find other ways until no one is being harmed any longer....what follows too are some of my tweets in response to this woman … [click on title to read and view more]
I generally find numbered lists annoying but this is one I do every year. I do find the end of year stats interesting and it seems fair enough to share some of them with the readers of this blog without whom there would be no stats.
I continue to be pleased to know this blog is being used as the resource I've been making it into. Most of the highest trafficked posts are collections from the archives which allow people to peruse by subject matter. They're listed beneath this years top posts. They're also always readily available from the drop down menus at the very top of the blog along with a lot of other collections from the archives. … [click on title to read and view more]
REPOST: last chance to enroll in this online course.
The conference will closing down to new registrations December 31st at Midnight. CEU's are included and folks can use them for this year or next year. Thanks to the work of those who have recovered from extreme states of all sorts and also to those who have assisted them on their journeys, there now exists an ever growing resource of humane and humanizing strategies that can allow us to help folks who often have psych labels in ways that bring all of their uniqueness and personhood into the world – without stigma and without pathologizing. … [click on title to read and view more]
Within each of us is one who walks in beauty and balance—the one with access to unlimited knowledge, power, and tranquility,” says Dr. José Luis Stevens. “I call this true self the Inner Shaman.” … [click on title for the rest of the post]
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