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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- A woman charged in the Elizabeth Smart kidnapping who was court-ordered to undergo psychiatric treatment will have a competency review hearing next month. A Utah district court calendar shows Wanda Eileen Barzee will appear before Judge Judith Atherton on Oct. 23. It will be the first time Barzee has appeared in court since doctors at the Utah State Hospital began to forcibly medicate her in May 2008 in an effort to make her competent. If Barzee remains incompetent for trial, the state could seek to have her civilly committed.

WASHINGTON, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Use of antidepressant drugs in the United States doubled between 1996 and 2005, probably because of a mix of factors, researchers reported on Monday. About 6 percent of people were prescribed an antidepressant in 1996 -- 13 million people. This rose to more than 10 percent or 27 million people by 2005, the researchers found.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Use of antidepressant drugs in the United States doubled between 1996 and 2005, probably because of a mix of factors, researchers reported on Monday. About 6 percent of people were prescribed an antidepressant in 1996 -- 13 million people. This rose to more than 10 percent or 27 million people by 2005, the researchers found. "Significant increases in antidepressant use were evident across all sociodemographic groups examined, except African Americans," Dr. Mark Olfson of Columbia University in New York and Steven Marcus of the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia wrote in the Archives of General Psychiatry. "Not...

HAVING BIPOLAR vs. BEING BIPOLAR (excerpt from the book, "Blessed With Bipolar: 36 God-Given Gifts of Manic Depression) I have bipolar disorder. Bipolar disorder does not have me. Bipolar disorder is not, my identity. It is not who I am. Bipolar disorder impacts my personality, emotions, and behavior. It does not dictate what I think, believe, say, or do. There are blessings that come with “having bipolar disorder.” “Being bipolar,” on the other hand, would be nothing but a burden. If I think of myself as “being bipolar” (or of bipolar as being my being), then I am controlled by...

RICHMOND, Va. – Missing mental health records of Virginia Tech gunman Seung-Hui Cho have been discovered in the home of the university clinic's former director, according to a memo obtained by The Associated Press on Wednesday. Cho killed 32 people on April 16, 2007, then committed suicide as police closed in. His mental health treatment has been a major issue in the investigation of the shootings. A memo from Gov. Tim Kaine's chief legal counsel to victims' family members says Cho's records and those of several other Virginia Tech students were found July 18 in the home of Dr. Robert...

I cracked up – for the first time - on June 4, 1988, three weeks short of completing my Masters degree in Psychology. Some would say I had a nervous breakdown. The psych ward doctors said it was major depression. I say that I saw just how evil my sin is in the eyes of God and it scared the hell out of me. I cracked up, broke down, and de-pressed. I cobbled together some mad reality and blew a fuse. I despaired, decompensated, detached, and derailed. I lost my mind, never to be the same again. Thanks be to...

NEW HAVEN — SNIPPET: "Thompson was charged over the weekend with the June 6 carjacking at Church and Chapel streets and is under investigation for allegedly throwing a Molotov cocktail over the fence at the Yale power plant at 18 Tower Parkway June 7. He told Detective Wayne Bullock that Allah instructed him how to “melt down” the plant, according to documents filed in court Monday. It didn’t cause any damage." SNIPPET: "Police recovered the stolen Nissan Sentra. After Thompson’s confession, bomb technicians spent hours in a wooded grove near the Kimberly Avenue bridge after he claimed he had buried...

Arlington, VA (AHN) - Mental health experts are recommending the reclassification of prolonged bitterness as a mental disorder. They are proposing the inclusion of post traumatic embitterment disorder in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders for the fifth edition due for publication in 2012. The mental ailment is described is a pathological reaction to one negative life event like conflict at work, being laid off, divorce, ailment or separation in which the victim views the event as unjust and a violation of his basic belief and values. Dr. Michael Linden, the German psychiatrist who named the behavior, explained...

Sacramento, CA (AP) -- The Schwarzenegger administration and a federal court appointee have agreed to the framework of a legal settlement to overhaul the way medical care is delivered to prison inmates. The outline of the proposal was given Thursday to The Associated Press and would be the first step toward ending a long-running legal drama that appeared headed to the U.S. Supreme Court. The proposed agreement, if accepted by the federal courts and the Legislature, would call for a sharply scaled-down and far less expensive plan to improve poor inmate medical care than the one the federal receiver previously...

There is none more deserving of stress testing than the proposed MOTHERS Act. On the surface, the MOTHERS Act reflects its sponsors overwhelming compassion and empathy for women suffering from alleged mental health disorders resulting from childbirth – often referred to as Postpartum Depression. But when one conducts a brief stress test on important sections of the legislation, taxpayers may find that this costly and sweeping mental health legislation actually fails women of America, but goes a long way in inflating the balance sheets of one of the most lucrative industries in the nation – big Pharma. For instance, the...

Any parent would be appaled to learn their child was taken out of the classroom for a mandatory mental health evaluation without their knowledge or consent. But such is the case in Florida where more than 3 out or every 1000 children, on average will be involuntarily committed for psychiatric examination. 3,365 separate involuntary commitments were performed, in 2007 directly from school grounds. Over 3000 separate incidences of children being escorted, mandatory, from school to a psychiatric receiving facility and held in a secured ward, separate from their parents, and without their parents consent in one year.

BAQOUBA, Iraq | The U.S. commander of the Multi-National Force -- Iraq on Tuesday ordered a top-to-bottom review of mental health services for U.S. troops in the country after the worst act of U.S. soldier-on-soldier violence in the Iraq war. Army Lt. Col. Brian Tribus, media relations chief for Multi-National Force - Iraq, told The Washington Times that Lt. Gen. Charles Jacoby ordered procedures "to look into [mental health] services available and delivery of those services." Gen. Jacoby also requested that the Army inspector general review all mental health services available to troops in Iraq, Col. Tribus said. Five U.S....

On several forums and blogs such a freerepublic, there have been debates about civil commitment and expanding laws and state hospitals and hospital psyche wards. What is disturbing is that many, even Conservatives and libertarians are more than willing to sacrifice civil liberties and safeguards against government tyranny to clear the streets of the homeless mentally ill and other similar individuals. But the truth is that there is on the books in nearly every state, provisions that allow the involuntary commitment of those who are unable to care for themselves due to so called mental illnesses that they suffer from...

Alien Hand Syndrome. Fans of "Dr. Strangelove" will recall the title character's inability to control his right hand, which kept trying to give a Nazi salute. Real-life sufferers of AHS (only a few dozen to date) lose conscious control of a limb, probably due to a lost connection between brain hemispheres. The "alien" hand may thwart what the other hand is doing, such as unbuttoning a shirt the other hand is buttoning, or tamping out a cigarette the other hand has just lit. Symptoms can be managed by keeping the rogue hand preoccupied by giving it an object to hold...

Former Vice President Al Gore brought a stark message to the Senate on Wednesday: A new climate change treaty is critical to continuing human life on Earth. The Nobel Peace Prize winner urged the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to push for a U.S.-brokered treaty in December in Copenhagen, Denmark, where the United Nations will host a climate change conference. Only the United States can lead such an effort, he said. “This is the one challenge that could completely end human civilization, and it is rushing at us with such speed and force,” said Gore, who won an Oscar for the...

Gore: Earth in 'grave danger' Tom LoBianco (Contact) UPDATED: Former Vice President Al Gore told lawmakers Wednesday morning that the earth is in "grave danger" and that the nation must break its dependence on oil. Mr. Gore said Congress must pass a cap and trade bill and increase tax breaks for renewable energy sources before going before the U.N. climate change conference this December to negotiate new carbon-reduction benchmarks. "Climate change will be increasingly central to our foreign policy and national security, and it will be a focal point of this committee's efforts as well," said Sen. John Kerry, the...

In 2005, an Army captain in Iraq asked for a mental health evaluation for one of his soldiers, a private first class from North Carolina who was known to put the muzzle of his weapon in his mouth. The case was assigned to a psychologist who was unlicensed — a common practice in the early years of the war, when the Army rushed mental health counselors to the combat zone even if some weren't certified or fully qualified. The psychologist reported that a screening indicated the 20-year-old private, Jason Scheuerman, was "capable of claiming mental illness" to manipulate his superiors...

Pity the poor global warming alarmists such as Al Gore, James Hansen of NASA, and the Weather Channel's Heidi Cullen. They went way out on the limb in promoting the absolute certainity of global warming and now Mother Nature is sawing it off behind them with the coldest weather in decades. To spare themselves complete embarrassment, you might have noticed that many media outlets and global warming promoters are backing off from that term and are now using "climate change" more frequently. Last Friday, one of the big global warming promoters on the Huffington Post, Kevin Grandia, publicly struggled over...

Jim Hansen is the 'grandfather of climate change' and one of the world's leading climatologists. In this rare interview in New York, he explains why President Obama's administration is the last chance to avoid flooded cities, species extinction and climate catastropheRobin McKie, science editor The Observer, Sunday 18 January 2009 Article historyAlong one wall of Jim Hansen's wood-panelled office in upper Manhattan, the distinguished climatologist has pinned 10 A4-sized photographs of his three grandchildren: Sophie, Connor and Jake. They are the only personal items on display in an office otherwise dominated by stacks of manila folders, bundles of papers and...

Caution: The following contains a report on activities many will find objectionable. Peter LaBarbera at Americans for Truth about Homosexuality announced today that a Washington, D.C., inaugural week event that originally was described in an e-mail as a "pig sex" orgy has been cancelled after concerned citizens complained to the Doubletree Hotel hosting the event. "A big 'Thanks' to each of you who called the Doubletree and its parent company, Hilton Hotels," said LaBarbera in a statement, "urging them to not allow this unbelievably depraved and unhealthy homosexual event to occur in public conference rooms." LaBarbera continued, "We learned that...