Free Republic

"...In interviews with the Tampa Bay Times on Friday, May's friends described their frustrations over the past three months with the area's mental health care system, one that couldn't save May despite desperate pleas from loved ones who watched him dissolve into paranoia before their eyes...... Six months into his job as a prosecutor in the Dona Ana County District Attorney's Office in New Mexico, May couldn't concentrate. The 31-year-old had become so distractible, he told his friends, that he had decided to see a psychologist. He emerged from the appointment with prescriptions for an antidepressant and an attention deficit...

THINK back to your first childhood crush. Maybe it was a classmate or a friend next door. Most likely, through school and into adulthood, your affections continued to focus on others in your approximate age group. But imagine if they did not. By some estimates, 1 percent of the male population continues, long after puberty, to find themselves attracted to prepubescent children. These people are living with pedophilia, a sexual attraction to prepubescents that often constitutes a mental illness. Unfortunately, our laws are failing them and, consequently, ignoring opportunities to prevent child abuse. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental...

If someone came to a doctor and asked him to cut off a perfectly healthy arm because it just felt "wrong" for the arm to be there, should the doctor do it? This isn't an idle question because this does happen with a mental illness called Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID). People who have it feel as if they're not supposed to have a certain body part, like an arm or leg. As a general rule, doctors won't remove a healthy body part; so some of these poor deluded people crush, mangle, burn, or otherwise deliberately destroy their own arms...

Now a new study suggests that a simple blood test could soon allow doctors to diagnose clinical depression as easily as they check cholesterol. Researchers at Northwestern University have developed the first blood test that analyzes levels of nine blood biomarkers associated with adult clinical depression. The results of their study were published Tuesday in the journal Translational Psychiatry. The test looks at levels of nine RNA blood markers, which appear to be different among patients with diagnosed clinical depression versus those who do not have depression. RNA are the molecules that help to process DNA genetic code and carry...

It may be common for psychiatric patients who are Muslim to attribute their hallucinations or other symptoms to "jinn," the invisible, devilish creatures in Islamic mythology, researchers in the Netherlands have found. The findings demonstrate one way in which culture may influence how people perceive their psychotic symptoms, and could help Western psychiatrists better understand patients who have an Islamic background. Moreover, in today's connected world, patients may fuse the symbols from their own backgrounds with those of other cultures to explain their symptoms, study leader Dr. Jan Dirk Blom, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Groningen,...

The latest research exploring the topic found that mice without serotonin still reacted to antidepressants. The data could change the way we think about treating the leading cause of disability worldwide.A lack in serotonin might not be entirely to blame for depression, new evidence suggests. It's widely believed that people with depression don't make enough serotonin-a messenger in the brain. But mice lacking serotonin did not exhibit symptoms of depression, reports a study in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience. When Prozac — which works primarily by increasing the amount of serotonin in the brain — was introduced in the 1980s,...

Full title: Johns Hopkins Psychiatrist: Transgender is a ‘Mental Disorder’ – Sex Change is ‘Biologically Impossible’ Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital and its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry. (Photo: Johns Hopkins Medicine) (CNSNews.com) -- Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospitaland its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry, said that transgenderism is a “mental disorder” that merits treatment, that sex change is “biologically impossible,” and that people who promote sexual reassignment surgery are collaborating with and promoting a mental disorder. Dr. McHugh, the author of six books and at...

The recent death of Robin Williams has put a spotlight on the matters of depression, how it’s treated, and the role of prescribed and illicit drugs. According to the American Psychiatric Association, “Depression is a serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act. Depression has a variety of symptoms, but the most common are a deep feeling of sadness or a marked loss of interest or pleasure in activities.” Three primary types are identified: bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder (clinical depression), and persistent depressive disorder. The Association details typical symptoms… Changes...

(Reuters) - Genes that increase the risk of a person developing schizophrenia may also increase the chance they will use cannabis, researchers said on Tuesday after studying more than 1,000 users of the drug. The results chime with previous studies linking schizophrenia and cannabis, but suggest the association may be due to common genes and might not be a causal relationship where cannabis use leads to increased schizophrenia risk. Cannabis is the most widely used illicit drug in the world, and its use is higher among people with schizophrenia than in the general population. "We know that cannabis increases the...

The left consistently blames guns for school shootings, while mostly ignoring the big elephant in the room: mental illness. Up until the 1960s, the severely mentally ill were locked up in psychiatric hospitals, for their own good and for the protection of society. The ACLU and the left changed that, by successfully suing to get them released out onto the streets. So now, they make up much of our homeless population. From there, many have predictably ended up in our prison system. The rate of mental illness in U.S. prisons is five times greater than in the regular population, and...

WINNIPEG -- A man who beheaded and then ate parts of a fellow passenger on a Greyhound bus almost six years ago might soon be granted unescorted day trips outside his mental hospital. Vince Li's psychiatrist says the one-time undiagnosed schizophrenic has not been violent, no longer suffers delusions and has made tremendous progress. "From a clinical perspective, he has progressed excellently," Dr. Steven Kremer told a Criminal Code Review Board hearing Monday.

Former president of the Indian Psychiatric Society Dr Indira Sharma has courted controversy by claiming that homosexuality is unnatural, a statement made three days ago at an annual meet of psychiatrists. The LGBT community has brought "talk of sex to the roads", she told Times of India. "Heterosexuals don't talk about sex. It's a private matter," she told Times of India. The report quoted a psychiatrist who attended the summit as saying Sharma's speech took a condescending approach towards homosexuals. Sharma denied to TOI that she called for "homo clubs" to be shut down. She said her speech was about...

"In the John Waters-esque sector of northwest Baltimore -- equal parts kitschy, sketchy, artsy and weird -- Gerry Mak and Sarah Magida sauntered through a small ethnic market stocked with Japanese eggplant, mint chutney and fresh turmeric. After gathering ingredients for that evening's dinner, they walked to the cash register and awaited their moments of truth." Those are two "hipsters", and the punchline is that they pay for their foodie porn with foodie stamps, which sounds like it should be a terrible thing, except it's in Salon.com, which means they're going to try and tell you how it's a good...

The recently concluded investigation into Newtown killer Adam Lanza revealed that a psychiatrist who treated him as a teen has since surrendered his license. Dr. Paul Fox once held licenses to practice in Connecticut and New York but in 2012 he gave them both up in the face of charges he may have crossed a line in his relationship with a patient. Investigators reached Fox in New Zealand, where he now lives, in a telephone interview told detectives all he remembered about the cold-blooded killer.According to the Danbury News Times, Fox was cited for 'negligence on more than one occasion'...

Tracy James knew the drug she'd just swallowed was working when her old injuries from high school started twitching with new life. Pressure throbbed from a forgotten busted knee. Her ankle tingled. The fingers she'd sprained roller-skating decades back began to ache. Whatever the 37-year-old had just taken, it shot feeling back into the long-gone ailments. "When I did vomit, it was one of the most amazing moments of my life." For the past 45 minutes, the hut had been dark and silent, the air dripping with jungle moisture. James and nearly 20 others were sitting cross-legged on ornate rugs....

. . . The DSM is ultimately an instrument for weakening human resilience, self-reliance, fortitude, and resolve. It turns human beings into mechanisms, deprives their conduct of meaning, and makes them prey to entrepreneurs of human misery. . .

Former Virginia governor candidate Creigh Deeds is fighting for his life after he was brutally stabbed by his own 24-year-old son, who then committed suicide - just one day after he was committed to a psychiatric ward. Deeds, a state senator, is in critical condition at University of Virginia hospital after he was found in his home in rural Bath County. Deeds was stabbed multiple times in the head and torso and lost large amounts of blood. The veteran Democratic state legislator's son Gus was found shot dead, as well. Gus had been evaluated by psychiatrists at a mental hospital...

Washington (CNN) -- Authorities investigating why a Connecticut woman rammed barricades and led police on a chase near the U.S. Capitol found medications in her apartment to treat schizophrenia and other mental disorders, a law enforcement source briefed on the investigation said Friday

[drugawareness] TRAZADONE: 13 Dead in Washington DC Naval Yard Shooting FROM Dr. Ann Blake Tracy TO 1 recipient Show Details From Dr. Ann Blake Tracy To drugawareness@yahoogroups.com Aaron Alexis.jpg TRAZADONE: 13 Dead in Washington DC Naval Yard Shooting The New York Times released the fact that over the past month Aaron Alexis has been on the antidepressant, Trazadone, to treat insomnia. ( quotes below.) Of course I am not finished asking questions. I want to know what he was on before this that may have induced his serious problems with insomnia. Was that yet another antidepressant? Was he in withdrawal...

As more details emerge about Alexis, Lieberman said he was concerned that the shooting renews worries for people with mental illness and once again raises questions about how society treats disorders. “I think it immediately arouses fears and enhances stigma about people with mental illness, that they’re psychotic killers and wackos running amok,” Lieberman said. “It’s unfortunate.”

WASHINGTON (AP/WJLA) - The deadly attack at the Washington Navy Yard was carried out by one of the military's own: a defense contract employee and former Navy reservist who used a valid pass to get onto the installation and started firing inside a building, killing 12 people before he was slain in a gun battle with police. Sources also told the Associated Press that Alexis had received treatment for serious mental illness, including "hearing voices." The motive for the mass shooting - the deadliest on a military installation in the U.S. since the tragedy at Fort Hood, Texas, in 2009...

... Patricia and Eduardo have three sons. Patricia: "Very healthy, happy, normal situation." But they started to notice something was different with their youngest, Manuel, before he was a year old.... With nowhere else to turn, they sought out a psychologist. They were told they had a transgender child... Rachel Sottile, YES Institute: "That's really at the source of everything, is fear. 'Does that mean my child is going to be gay? Does that mean my child's a freak?'" Rachel Sottile is with the YES Institute, a non-profit organization aimed at educating people on gender and orientation. She says kids...

Established in 1247, the notorious Bethlem (“Bedlam”) Royal Hospital was the first dedicated psychiatric institution in Europe and possibly the most famous specialist facility for care and control of the insane, so much so that the word ‘bedlam’ has long been synonymous with madness and chaos. Now, in a spectacular discovery, archaeologists have uncovered the asylum’s ancient graveyard right in the heart of London, revealing as many as 20,000 skeletons. The 500-year-old graveyard was found during excavations to create a 13-mile high speed tunnel under Central London. Modern-day residents and visitors going about their busy daily lives have been oblivious...

Yes, Tyler is still a boy. That’s what people who heard about him have wondered. After a Maryland couple decided to listen to their 5-year-old daughter’s urgent and persistent insistence that she was a boy, after a psychiatrist told them it would be healthy to let the child live as a boy, after they let him pick a boy name and found a school that would enroll the child in kindergarten as a boy last year, Tyler’s parents have had no second thoughts. “It’s not a phase,” said his mother, Jean. “Anyone who meets him says, ‘Yeah, that’s a boy.’...

Studies of Children With Attention-Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder Find Little Change It's no longer shocking to hear of children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder—and others simply facing a big test—taking ADHD medicine to boost their performance in school. But new studies point to a problem: There's little evidence that the drugs actually improve academic outcomes. Stimulants used to treat ADHD like Ritalin and Adderall are sometimes called "cognitive enhancers" because they have been shown in a number of studies to improve attention, concentration and even certain types of memory in the short-term. Similar drugs were given to World War II soldiers to...

In a cutting new article for the Wall Street Journal, two professors criticize the American Psychiatric Association for loosening the standards by which Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) is diagnosed. This, they argue, will make such diagnoses more likely and increase the amphetamine usage of the general public. “Symptoms of ADHD remain the same in the new edition” of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, but with some changes: “The difference is that in the previous version of the manual, the first symptoms of ADHD needed to be evident by age 7 for a diagnosis to be made....

Last spring, Frank Turkaly tried to kill himself. A retiree in a Pittsburgh suburb living on disability checks, he was estranged from friends and family, mired in credit card debt and taking medication for depression, cholesterol, diabetes and high blood pressure.

“ADHD is a prime example of a fictitious disease.” These were the words of Leon Eisenberg, the “scientific father of ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder),” in his last interview before his death. Leon Eisenberg made a luxurious living off of his “fictitious disease,” thanks to pharmaceutical sales. Coincidentally, he received the “Ruane Prize for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Research. He has been a leader in child psychiatry for more than 40 years through his work in pharmacological trials, research, teaching, and social policy and for his theories of autism and social medicine,” according to Psychiatric News.

It’s not a stretch to suggest that Americans are over medicated. In 2011 doctors across the nation wrote an astounding four billion medical prescriptions, amounting to an average of 13 prescriptions for every man, woman and child in the United States. In the next few weeks the American Psychiatric Associations is releasing their updated fifth version their Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5); the so-called ‘bible’ of psychiatric diagnoses. The new manual promises to take mental illness and the use of prescription drugs to a whole new level. You may not be considered “crazy” or “mentally ill” today,...

The "bible" of psychiatric diagnosis shapes—and deforms—both treatment and policy... --snip-- The DSM-III (1980) was an effort to jettison outdated theories and terms such as "neurosis" and replace them with an objective list of disorders with agreed-upon symptoms. The DSM-IIIR (1987) was 567 pages and included nearly 300 disorders. The DSM-IV (1994, slightly revised in 2000) was 900 pages and contained nearly 400 disorders. The new DSM-5, with its modernized Arabic number, is 947 pages. It contains, along with serious mental illnesses, "binge-eating disorder" (whose symptoms include "eating when not feeling physically hungry"), "caffeine intoxication," "parent-child relational problem" and my...

“In the days of the Malleus, if the physician could find no evidence of natural illness, he was expected to find evidence of witchcraft: today, if he cannot diagnose organic illness, he is expected to diagnose mental illness.” (1) The Malleus Maleficarum was a 15th century text which instructed Inquisitors on the proper method of identifying, trying and burning witches. Though it was many years ago that renowned psychiatrist Thomas Szasz (1920-2012) used the example of the Malleus to comment on the diagnostic practices of his fellow physicians, it seems he might have been on to something as today psychiatrists...

“It is customary to define psychiatry as a medical specialty concerned with the study, diagnosis and treatment of mental illnesses.” But according to prominent psychiatrist and academic Thomas Szasz MD (1920-2012) “…this is a worthless and misleading definition.” “Mental illness is a myth. Psychiatrists are not concerned with mental illnesses and their treatments. In actual practice they deal with personal, social, and ethical problems in living.” (1) Szasz write that “…the notion of a person ‘having a mental illness’ is scientifically crippling. It provides professional assent to a popular rationalization—namely that problems in living experienced and expressed in terms of...

Suicide. It remains a topic few health professionals want to discuss openly with their patients. It remains a topic avoided even by many mental health professionals. Policy makers see it as a black hole without an obvious solution. And now grim new statistics confirm a disturbing trend — more people are taking their own lives than ever before in the U.S. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released statistics yesterday showing that 33,687 people died in motor vehicle accidents, while nearly 5,000 more — 38,364 — died by suicide. Middle-aged Americans are making up the biggest leap in...

Patients who believe in God may experience better short-term treatment outcomes for psychiatric illness, according to a new study. Individuals who described themselves as having strong faith reported having a better overall response to treatment, said David Rosmarin, a clinician and instructor in the department of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School in Boston. "We found that patients who had higher levels of belief in God had better treatment outcomes — better well-being, less depression and less anxiety," Rosmarin told LiveScience.

Although fewer than 6 percent of American adults will have a severe mental illness in a given year, according to a 2005 study, many more—more than a quarter each year—will have some diagnosable mental disorder. That’s a lot of people. Almost 50 percent of Americans (46.4 percent to be exact) will have a diagnosable mental illness in their lifetimes, based on the previous edition, the DSM-IV. And the new manual will likely make it even "easier" to get a diagnosis. If we think of having a diagnosable mental illness as being under a tent, the tent seems pretty big. Huge,...

UPDATE (AP) — A hearing on whether a reporter should be ordered to testify about how she obtained confidential information in the Colorado theater shooting case is being continued until next week. New York-based Fox News reporter Jana Winter cited anonymous law enforcement officials in reporting that suspect James Holmes had sent a psychiatrist a notebook of drawings that foreshadowed the July 20 attack. Prosecutors and Holmes’ lawyers argued about the issue in court Monday, but the defense wants to again question a detective about whether he might have told someone else about the notebook, who may have then talked...

With the Christopher Dorner case, the role of prescription psychotropic drugs in mass killings has again come to the forefront. Numerous articles have approached the role of so-called "psych meds" in causing depraved and indifferent violent behavior, but one in particular deserves attention because it highlights the fact that among psychiatric professionals there is no coherent understanding of what needs to be done after we take people off of drugs that are prescribed for their psychiatric illnesses. The article -- Jon Rappoport's "Is Christopher Dorner Another Psychiatric Killer?" -- makes a number of important points about the former Los Angeles...

THE grieving process is in danger of being branded a medical condition if a mourner feels sad for more than two weeks and consults a GP, according to an international authority on death and dying. At present, mourners can feel sad for two months before being told they have a mental disorder, says Professor Dale Larson. Decades ago, a diagnosis could be made after a year.In a keynote address at an Australian Psychological Society conference in Melbourne on Saturday, Prof Larson will express his anger about the American Psychiatric Association's new diagnostic manual, DSM 5, which is used in many...

Recent and accelerating changes in AmericaÂ’s social and political landscape have me pondering my chosen profession these days. IÂ’m not talking about the rumored craziness of the upcoming new DSM-V, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, Fifth Edition. Shrinks must struggle to come to grips with each one of these committee-generated monstrosities as they appear, even though their actual usefulness in practice grows increasingly suspect. Neither am I talking about the new, Byzantine complexities of the CPT billing codes that have come down on us like a plague of locusts as ObamaCare begins to work its transformational magic. I am also...

”It was never a medical decision — and that’s why I think the action came so fast… It was a political move.” “That’s how far we’ve come in ten years. Now we even have the American Psychiatric Association running scared.” — Barbara Gittings, Pro-homosexual Activist Introduction Homosexuality advocates like to appeal to position statements published by American mental health organizations to fortify their bogus claims concerning homosexuality issues. One would expect such professional groups to be a reliable source of unbiased information on such matters and that their official positions would be based on the most up-to-date and scientifically sound...

Does anybody have any positive stories about the use of antidepressants? My doctor wants to put me on them because of chronic pain, but after everything I've read on FR I'm scared to death of them. Sorry for the vanity, but I can't think of a better bunch of folks to get feed-back from.

Since I first began working as a medical expert in product liability cases way back in the early 1990s, I’ve spent innumerable hours culling the sealed data contained within the files of companies like GlaxoSmithKline and Eli Lilly. Among other things, I long ago found evidence that Paxil and Prozac cause suicidality in adults. These discoveries then led to settlements in product liability suits brought against the two companies brought by surviving family members. I’ve also communicated my conclusions in books like Talking Back to Prozac and the Antidepressant Fact Book and in scientific articles but the primary data until...

[snip] (Standard Gravure shooting) First known shooting with ties to Prozac. Joseph Wesbecker kills 12, injures 9. Eric Harris age 17 (first on Zoloft then Luvox) and Dylan Klebold aged 18 (Columbine school shooting in Littleton, Colorado), killed 12 students and 1 teacher, and wounded 23 others, before killing themselves. Klebold’s medical records have never been made available to the public. Jeff Weise, age 16, had been prescribed 60 mg/day of Prozac (three times the average starting dose for adults!) when he shot his grandfather, his grandfather’s girlfriend and many fellow students at Red Lake, Minnesota. He then shot himself....

CBS) Advocates of medical marijuana say pot has all sorts of health benefits. Maybe so, but a new study from Australia suggests that smoking pot can drive some people crazy - or at least make them go crazy sooner than they would have if they had never picked up the pipe. The study, published online in "Archives of General Psychiatry," shows that potheads develop severe mental illnesses like schizophrenia about 2.7 years earlier than people who don't use marijuana.

The recent post "I am Adam Lanza's Mother" by a woman who posts at anarchistsoccermom and animatedly advertises herself wearing an "I love Che" t-shirt is as slick a piece of exploitative propaganda as anything we've seen in the last four years. Soon after the essay went viral mom blogger Liza Long appeared on CNN and the Today show calling for a national conversation on mental illness. After the Newtown massacre the self-described author, musician, Classicist and single mother of four felt compelled to share her own story. Long's written account of life with an out of control child focuses...

Psychiatrist James Knoll told CNN’s Headline News today that Adam Lanza, the perpetrator of the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre, was acting in a “ritualistic” way during the horrific events. Knoll, who does research at the State University of New York Upstate Medical University, said in a recent report that killers like Lanza see themselves as “pseudocommandos … driven by strong feelings of anger and resentment, in addition to having a paranoid character. He plans out the offense ritualistically, and comes prepared with a powerful arsenal of weapons.” The report continues: “[The pseudocommando] most often kills in public during the...

The emerging profile of Adam Lanza, the suspected shooter in the school massacre in Newtown, Conn., is depressingly familiar. He has been described as being socially awkward and a loner. He reportedly had Asperger's syndrome — a high-performing form of autism — and may have been afflicted by other psychiatric problems. And he was male. His sex almost goes without saying. According to Mother Jones, 62 mass shootings — defined as a single spree that killed at least four people — have been carried out in the U.S. since 1982. Only one was perpetrated by a female. In 2006, Jennifer...

President Obama said the federal government has to do something meaningful to prevent future shootings, like the recent massacre of 26 children and adults at a school in Newtown, Connecticut.  Here is what the federal government can do to prevent violence related to mental illness:1. Start demonstration projects of Assisted Outpatient Treatment (e.g. Kendra’s Law in New York, Laura’s Law in California) throughout the country. AOT allows courts to order individuals with mental illness to stay in treatment as a condition of living in the community. It is only applicable to the most seriously ill who have a history of violence, incarceration, or...

<p>“I live with a son who is mentally ill. I love my son. But he terrifies me.’’</p>

Ms Conte called the ordeal 'sad' for Lanza and his family, and suggested that the violence is a portion of a much larger situation. 'Guns are easy to point to, but it's really a mental health issue.'