INTRODUCTION On May 5, 2017, Donald Goff, MD and seven other psychiatrists, including the very eminent Jeffrey Lieberman, MD, published an article in the American Journal of Psychiatry. The title is: The Long-Term Effects of Antipsychotic Medication on Clinical Course in Schizophrenia. Here’s the abstract: “Concerns have been raised that treatment with antipsychotic medication might… Continue Reading
More on the Biological Evidence for “Mental Illness”
On January 10, 2017, I put up a post titled The Biological Evidence for “Mental Illness”. It was published simultaneously on Mad in America. The post was a response to an earlier comment from Carolina Partners in Mental Healthcare PLLC, which included the assertion “mental illnesses have a long history of biological evidence.” In my… Continue Reading
The Biological Evidence for “Mental Illness”
On January 2, 2017, I published a short post titled Carrie Fisher Dead at Age 60 on Behaviorism and Mental Health. The article was published simultaneously on Mad in America. On January 4, a response from Carolina Partners was entered into the comments string on both sites. Carolina Partners in Mental Healthcare, PLLC, is a… Continue Reading
Allen Frances on the Benefits of “Antipsychotics”
On February 1, Allen Frances, MD, published an interesting article on the Huffington Post blog. The article is called Do Antipsychotics Help or Harm Psychotic Symptoms?, and is a response to Robert Whitaker’s post of January 27: “Me, Allen Frances, and Climbing Out of a Pigeonhole. This post, in turn, was a response to Dr…. Continue Reading
Are ‘Psychiatric Disorders’ Brain Diseases?
Steven Reidbord MD is a board-certified psychiatrist who practices in San Francisco. He writes a blog called Reidbord’s Reflections. On December 12, 2015, he posted an article titled Are psychiatric disorders brain diseases? It’s an interesting and thought-provoking piece, with many twists and turns. Here are some quotes, interspersed with my comments and reflections. “Of… Continue Reading
Delusions
BACKGROUND DSM-5 defines delusions as “…fixed beliefs that are not amenable to change in the light of conflicting evidence.” (p 87). The manual lists six kinds of delusions: persecutory; referential; grandiose; erotomanic; nihilistic; and somatic. The APA provides another definition of delusions on p 819. It’s substantially the same as the one above, but offers… Continue Reading
Allen Frances ‘Replies’
BACKGROUND On June 19, 2015, I published a post titled Allen Frances’ Ties to Johnson & Johnson. In that post, I set out some very serious allegations against Dr. Frances. I drew these allegations from a document titled Special Witness Report dated October 15, 2010. The report was written by David Rothman, PhD, Professor of… Continue Reading
Allen Frances’ Ties to Johnson & Johnson
INTRODUCTION I recently came across an article titled Diagnosisgate: Conflict of Interest at the Top of the Psychiatric Apparatus, by Paula Caplan, PhD. The article was published in Aporia, the University of Ottawa nursing journal, in January 2015. Aporia is “a peer-reviewed, bilingual, and open access journal dedicated to scholarly debates in nursing and the… Continue Reading
Neuroleptic Drugs And Mortality
In November of last year, the Schizophrenia Bulletin published online a research study: Antipsychotic Treatment and Mortality in Schizophrenia, by Minna Torniainen et al. The research was conducted in Sweden. The authors offer the following background for the study: “It is generally believed that long-term use of antipsychotics increases mortality and, especially, the risk of… Continue Reading
Psychiatric Diagnoses: Labels, Not Explanations
On March 16, Ronald Pies, MD, published an article in the Psychiatric Times. The article is titled The War on Psychiatric Diagnosis, and the sub-title synopsis on the pdf version reads: “A recent report that argues against descriptive diagnosis in medicine is historically ill-informed and medically naive, in the opinion of this psychiatrist.” Dr. Pies… Continue Reading
The Dopamine Hypothesis of Schizophrenia – Version III
On November 27, 2014, the Division of Clinical Psychology of the British Psychological Society published a paper titled Understanding Psychosis and Schizophrenia. The paper was edited by Anne Cooke of Canterbury Christ Church University. The central theme of the paper is that the condition known as psychosis is better understood as a response to adverse… Continue Reading
A Macabre Celebration: 80 Years of Convulsive ‘Therapy’
There’s an interesting article in the June 2014 issue of the Journal of ECT. It’s written by Max Fink, MD, and is titled Celebrating 80 Years of Inducing Brain Seizures as Psychiatric Treatment. Dr. Fink is a psychiatrist and neurologist, and professor emeritus of psychiatry and neurology at the State University of New York, Stony Brook…. Continue Reading
Childhood Social Functioning Predicts Adult Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorder. Or Does It?
In November 2013, the journal Schizophrenia Research published a paper by Tsuji, T. et al. titled Premorbid teacher-rated social functioning predicts adult schizophrenia-spectrum disorder: A high-risk prospective investigation. Here’s the abstract: “Social functioning deficits are a core component of schizophrenia spectrum disorders, and may emerge years prior to the onset of diagnosable illness. The current… Continue Reading
Another Critique of the Schizophrenia Diagnosis
In January 2014, the journal Research on Social Work Practice ran a special issue called A Critical Appraisal of the DSM-5: Social Work Perspectives. There are fifteen articles on this general theme, and together they present a wide range of arguments against the DSM system. Social workers represent the numerically biggest group of mental health… Continue Reading
A Blood Test for Schizophrenia with 83% Accuracy?
INTRODUCTION An NBC online News article dated October 15, 2010, carried the noteworthy title New blood test may help detect schizophrenia. Thanks to Francesca for the link. The article was written by Natasha Allen, a freelance medical journalist. The gist of the article is that there is a new blood test called VeriPsych which “researchers… Continue Reading
Genetic Protection Against Schizophrenia?
On November 12, 2013, Molecular Psychiatry published online Evidence that duplications of 22q11.2 protect against schizophrenia, by Rees et al. The print version was published last month – January 2014. Here’s the authors’ summary: “A number of large, rare copy number variants (CNVs) are deleterious for neurodevelopmental disorders, but large, rare, protective CNVs have not… Continue Reading
Schizophrenia Research
Psychiatric News is the APA’s online bulletin. On Jan 15, it ran an article by Vabren Watts (an APA staff writer). The article is called APA Gives Schizophrenia Research Capitol Hill Spotlight. It is reported in the article that on December 12, 2013, the APA, together with the Congressional Neuroscience Caucus and the American Brain… Continue Reading
Role of Childhood Abuse in Development of “Schizophrenia”
BACKGROUND There has been some discussion in recent weeks concerning the role of childhood abuse in the etiology of the condition known as schizophrenia. It is particularly difficult to address this problem because the condition known as schizophrenia is not a unified phenomenon. Rather, it is an assortment of loosely clustered behaviors which has been… Continue Reading
Talk Therapy for Schizophrenia
There’s an interesting article on Vermont’s Seven Days. It’s called Burlington’s HowardCenter Tries a New Approach to Treating Mental Illness: More Talk, Fewer Meds. You can see it here. (Thanks to Steven Coles on Twitter for the link.) Apparently Vermont’s Department of Mental Health is promoting a “new” kind of treatment for psychosis: talk therapy. … Continue Reading
“You must take these pills for life.” Or is it for death?
There’s an important article (here) on Monica Cassani’s website BeyondMeds in which she tackles the myth that once a person has been assigned a “diagnosis” of schizophrenia, he/she must take neuroleptics for life. Here’s a quote: “Unfortunately, at this juncture in history many people who get labeled with psychiatric illness these days do not have… Continue Reading
Neuroleptics Increase the Risk of Osteoporosis
We’ve all known for a long time that neuroleptic drugs damage brain cells. But now it seems clear that they also increase the risk of osteoporosis and consequently bone fractures. There’s an article about this in the International Journal of Endocrinology, dated March 2013. It’s titled Osteoporosis Associated with Antipsychotic Treatment in Schizophrenia, and was… Continue Reading
Do Major Tranquilizers Make Things Worse?
BACKGROUND On March 19 of this year an article by Martin Harrow and Thomas Jobe was published in the Schizophrenia Bulletin: Does Long-Term Treatment of Schizophrenia with Antipsychotic Medications Facilitate Recovery? You can see it here. The term “antipsychotics” embraces drugs such as Haldol, Risperdal, Thorazine, etc… I prefer the term major tranquilizers, because it… Continue Reading
Lab Tests for Psychiatric Disorders – More Promises
I’ve recently come across (courtesy of Tallaght Trialogue) an article in Current Psychiatry (Feb 2013) on this topic. The author is Henry A. Nasrallah, M.D., and you can see it here. Dr. Nasrallah, who is Editor-in-Chief of Current Psychiatry, states that there are 273 bio-markers for schizophrenia. But wait. Dr. Nasrallah goes on to say:… Continue Reading
Mental Health After Newtown
On March 5, 2013, a bipartisan panel of leading mental health experts and parents of children with “mental disorders” held a conversation (that’s newspeak for meeting) in Washington D.C. on the topic: Violence and Severe Mental Illness. The invited panelists were: Thomas Insel, MD, Director of NIMH Harold Koplewicz, MD, President of Child Mind Institute… Continue Reading
Schizophrenia – Two Short Stories
First story In the early 70’s I worked in Grendon Prison in England. The facility was run on the lines of a therapeutic community – lots of meetings, groups, etc… One of the prisoners – let’s call him William – was serving time for burglary. He was about 24 years old, and during his intake… Continue Reading