Tag Archives: depression

Want to beat depression? Do what I did – just get a grip!

Depression is a pandemic, so it must have an underlying cause. I suggest it’s this: we have come to see negative emotions as an inconvenience or an illness. And our modern therapy culture is far too ready to give people labels for their distress — labels that make them feel mentally abnormal and unable to help themselves out of their troubles. Many people believe they suffer from ‘depression’ or ‘clinical depression’ simply because they are grieving over one of life’s maulings, don’t know what to do to feel better and think it might help if they had a label for their bad feelings. The label acts like a baby’s dummy or the security blanket of Charlie Brown’s best friend Linus in the Peanuts cartoon — he sucks his thumb and holds it to his ear n times of trouble, though it doesn’t actually serve any useful purpose. This label is not a cure. It might actually demoralise you and prolong the whole bitter episode.

Federal disability program induces child drugging in low-income families

(NaturalNews) A $10 billion federal disability program gives low-income parents a strong financial incentive to have their children diagnosed with behavioral disorders and prescribed powerful psychotropic drugs. This is the core finding of a recent Boston Globe in-depth investigation.

Congress created Supplemental Security Income (SSI) in 1974 to aid the aged, blind and severely physically disabled, such as children with cerebral palsy and Down syndrome. Yet per the Globe, half of today’s SSI recipients are children diagnosed with mental disorders such as ADHD and bipolar. But to qualify, those children really need to be on prescription drugs. Per the SSI associate commissioner’s own words, “medication helps confirm a diagnosis.”

In 1990 only 8 percent of children received SSI funds for behavioral issues; by 2009, that percentage had soared to 53 percent. Shockingly, children under 5 form the fastest-growing segment of this steep trend.

DSM: The Book of Woe—Inside the Battle to Define Mental Illness

Every so often Al Frances says something that seems to surprise even him. Just now, for instance, in the predawn darkness of his comfortable, rambling home in Carmel, California, he has broken off his exercise routine to declare that “there is no definition of a mental disorder. It’s bullshit. I mean, you just can’t define it.”

The insurgency against the DSM-5 (the APA has decided to shed the Roman numerals) has now spread far beyond just Allen Frances. Psychiatrists at the top of their specialties, clinicians at prominent hospitals, and even some contributors to the new edition have expressed deep reservations about it. Dissidents complain that the revision process is in disarray and that the preliminary results, made public for the first time in February 2010, are filled with potential clinical and public relations nightmares. Although most of the dissenters are squeamish about making their concerns public—especially because of a surprisingly restrictive nondisclosure agreement that all insiders were required to sign—they are becoming increasingly restive, and some are beginning to agree with Frances that public pressure may be the only way to derail a train that he fears will “take psychiatry off a cliff.”

Will we ever wake up to the deadly risks of happy pills?

Just as David Cameron launches his campaign to boost national happiness, along comes grim news for the 12 million Britons taking happy pills. London-based researchers have just announced that antidepressants raise the risk of fatal heart attacks. This research is only the latest wake-up call for a nation hooked on happy pills. Might we finally heed the warnings and shake ourselves out of our pharmaceutical stupor?

It is high time we did: a small mountain of studies shows that antidepressant drugs are largely ineffective. But more than that, they can ruin lives by creating chronic dependency and a grinding hopelessness that sometimes leads to self-neglect and death.

Doctor: Paxil “Especially Notorious” for Causing Withdrawal

Dr. Charles Raison, an associate professor at Emory University, wrote in response to a reader’s question on CNN that about 20 percent of patients experience withdrawal symptoms when they stop taking antidepressants. Paxil is “especially notorious for causing withdrawal problems” because of its short half-life in the body. Paxil is also associated with a number of side effects for those currently taking the medication, including birth defects and depression.