factors in mental illness?

[hell2breakfast]

Several, I think. It's complex and not easily reduced to one thing.

1. To some extent social/economic conditions. Information overload in our faster- and faster-paced world (back in the 70s Alvin Toffler was already calling it Future Shock - a good book for its time, btw.)

2. To some extent the spread of Western notions of illness.

3. What medical insurances will pay for. I'm serious. This is known to affect the sorts of diagnoses.

4. Fads. "Flavour of the Month" illnesses - mental ones are great as where exactly do you draw the line? - it's open to interpretation. That is very lousy if you really have a serious case, as the diagnosis then tends to be trivialised - if every second person is bipolar, then several really aren't but then no-one realises you do have a bad case.

5. The latest version of the DSM. Again, I'm serious. They're discussing the 5th now and there have been proposals that the "threshold" for several illnesses be lowered, which of course will define more people as "mentally ill", again trivialising the diagnosis. Still under discussion.

6. Social security benefits if you can get someone to diagnose you. Again, trivialising it for those who really have the illness and need it. (Let's call the hermit who talks to himself, "schizoid". Maybe he is, maybe he's just not very social and thinks a lot. "But I heard once, on Oprah, that ... and he's just like that man on the show, so that must be it!")

7. People wanting fancy names for their difficulties to escape having to take responsibility for them. Again, trivialises things for us.

8. Add your own opinion here.

9. And here. In other words, lots.

This is interesting, especially number four...It seems everybody who is anybody must have ADD, BPD, OCD, etc, I blame it on that movie with Jack Nickleson where he plays the obssesive-compulsive writer that hooks up with the waitress, now people think you have to be sick if your a celebrity...maybe they're right.

good movie though, if you like chick-flick comedies, which I must admit I do, if they're good (Sorry, I forgot the title)...it wasn't THAT good. I just a sucker for Helen Hunt.

[Luna-]

(H2b: this is an aside, and please don't get offended? I pay for the amount of bandwidth I use and the quota I can afford is 1 Gig per month for my internet access. I could buy unlimited access but it is too expensive for me. (I believe that in the US local phone calls are free (not so, here) and unlimited access seems to be the norm?)

I sometimes run out before the end of the month and then I can't access the 'net until I get the next month's Gig. If I see I am close to running out I have to limit my reading (here and elsewhere) towards the end of the month, to avoid using up my quota so that I can't even read my email or pay accounts with internet banking.

When someone quotes entire posts and sometimes posts within posts, it uses up my quota faster. I'm sorry to ask this but would you mind not quoting entire posts before you add what you want to say...? Perhaps just quote the relevant bit you're replying to or write the person's name so you can indicate what you're replying to, specifically? I know it's a hassle, but it will really help me... )

[hell2breakfast]

Calla: On the contrary, I am thankfull for the info, I will have to learn to form a new habit, feel free to remind me as necessary (am new at this computer thing).

[Luna-]

Did you mean me?

If you click on the "Post Reply" button below the last post, it won't quote it. Thanks, I appreciate it. Back to your topic.

[spiritual_emergency]

hell2breakfast: What Is causing the rise in the rate of mental illness?

I have an answer for you although it's not going to be a popular one.

About the Book: Anatomy of an Epidemic investigates a medical mystery: Why has the number of adults and children disabled by mental illness skyrocketed over the past fifty years? There are now more than four million people in the United States who receive a government disability check because of a mental illness, and the number continues to soar. Every day, 850 adults and 250 children with a mental illness are added to the government disability rolls. What is going on?

The Mystery: The modern era of psychiatry is usually said to have begun with the introduction of Thorazine into asylum medicine in 1955. This kicked off a “psychopharmacological revolution,” or so our society is told, with psychiatry discovering effective drugs for mental disorders of all kinds. In 1988, the first of the “second-generation” psychiatric drugs--Prozac--was introduced, and these new drugs were said to represent another therapeutic advance. Yet, even as this “psychopharmacological revolution” has unfolded over the past 50 years, the number of people disabled by mental illness has soared.

In 1955, there were 355,000 adults in state and county mental hospitals with a psychiatric diagnosis. During the next three decades (the era of the first generation psychiaric drugs), the number of disabled mentally ill rose to 1.25 million. Prozac arrived on the market in 1988, and during the next 20 years, the number of disabled mentally ill grew to more than four million adults (in 2007.) Finally, the prescribing of psychiatric medications to children and adolescents took off during this period (1987 to 2007), and as this medical practice took hold, the number of youth in America receiving a government disability check because of a mental illness leapt from 16,200 in 1987 to 561,569 in 2007 (a 35-fold increase.)

The Investigation: The astonishing increase in the disability numbers during the past fifty years raises an obvious question: Could the widespread use of psychiatric medications--for one reason or another--be fueling this epidemic? Anatomy of an Epidemic investigates that question, and it does so by focusing on the long-term outcome studies in the research literature. Do the studies tell of a paradigm of care that helps people get well and stay well over the long term? Or do they tell of a paradigm of care that increases the likelihood that people diagnosed with mental disorders will become chronically ill?

The Documents: This website is designed to provide readers of Anatomy of an Epidemic with access to the key studies reviewed in the book. (See documents.)

Source: Anatomy of an Epidemic

There you go. Like I said, it's not going to be a popular answer.

[spiritual_emergency]

A very good video presentation of Robert Whitaker speaking...

The Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America

Just as good but more disturbing...

Psychotropic Drugs and Children

[spiritual_emergency]

Some excerpts from the link provided above regarding studies done on schizophrenia treatment with medications and without...

A. The Chronicity Problem Becomes Apparent (1960s-1970s)

It seems paradoxical that drugs that ameliorate acute psychotic symptoms over the short term will increase the likelihood that a person so treated will fare poorly over the long term. But that disturbing fact showed up in the very first outcome studies, and has continued to show up ever since.

1.NIMH’s first follow-up study (National Institute of Mental Health)

a) One Year After Discharge. Schooler, N. American Journal of Psychiatry 123 (1967): 986-995.

This NIMH study looked at one-year outcomes for 299 patients who had been treated either with neuroleptics or placebo upon their admission to a hospital. This was the first long-term study conducted by the NIMH, and the researchers found that patients who received placebo “were less likely to be rehospitalized than those who received any of the three active phenothiazines (antipsychotic medication).”

2. NIMH”s first two relapse studies

a) Relapse in Chronic Schizophrenics Following Abrupt Withdrawal of Tranquilizing Medication. Prien, R. British Journal of Psychiatry 115 (1968): 679-86.

The critical finding of this NIMH study was that relapse rates rose in direct relation to dosage--the higher the dosage that patients were on before the antipsychotic was withdrawn, the greater the relapse rate. At the start of the study, 18 patients were on placebo, and only one got worse over the next six months (6%). Sixty-five patients were on 300 mg. of chlorpromazine at the start of the study, and 54% of those patients worsened after the drug was withdrawn. One hundred thirteen patients were on more than 300 mg. of chlorpromazine at the start of the study, and 66% of those patients got worse after drug withdrawal.

Discontinuation of Chemotherapy for Chronic Schizophrenics. Prien, R. Hospital and Community Psychiatry 22 (1971): 20-23.

In this NIMH study, the earlier finding that relapse rates rose in correlation with neuroleptic dosage was confirmed. Only 2 of 30 patients who were on placebo at the start of the study relapsed during the next 24 weeks (7%). Twenty-three percent of the 99 patients who were on less than 300 mg. of chlorpromazine at the start of the study relapsed following drug withdrawal. Fifty-two percent of the 91 patients who were on 300 to 500 mg. of chlorpromazine at the start of the study relapsed following drug withdrawal, and sixty-five percent of the 81 patients who were on more than 500 mg. of chlorpromazine at the start of the study relapsed following drug withdrawal. The researchers concluded: "Relapse was found to be significantly related to the dose of the tranquilizing medication the patient was receiving before he was put on placebo--the higher the dose, the greater the probability of relapse." (See page 22, 23.)

3. A study comparing five-year outcomes in the pre-Thorazine and post-Thorazine eras

a) Comparison of Two Five-Year Follow-up Studies. Bockoven, J. American Journal of Psychiatry 132 (1975): 796-801.

In this study, Boston psychiatrists Sanbourne Bockoven and Harry Solomon compared relapse rates in the pre-drug era to those in the drug era, and found that patients in the pre-drug era had done better. Forty-five percent of the patients treated at Boston Psychopathic Hospital in 1947 had not relapsed in the five years following discharge, and 76% were successfully living in the community at the end of that follow-up period. In contrast, only 31% of patients treated in 1967 with drugs at a Boston community health center remained relapse-free for the next five years, and as a group they were much more "socially dependent"--on welfare, etc.--than those in the 1947 cohort.

Other researchers who reviewed relapse rates for New York psychiatric hospitals in the 1940s and early 1950s reported similar findings: roughly 50% of discharged schizophrenia patients had remained continuously well through lengthy follow-up periods, which was markedly superior to outcomes with neuroleptics. See Nathaniel Lehrman, "A state hospital population five years after admission: a yardstick for evaluative comparison of follow-up studies," Psychiatric Quarterly, 34 (1960), 658-681; and H.L. Rachlin, "Follow-up study of 317 patients discharged from Hillside Hospital in 1950," Journal of Hillside Hospital 5 (1956), 17-40.

Source: Neuroleptic Treatment and Schizophrenia

[spiritual_emergency]

Then, there's factors like this to consider as well...

Risks Associated with Medication...

... The big finding is that people with schizophrenia are losing brain tissue at a more rapid rate than healthy people of comparable age. Some are losing as much as 1 percent per year. That’s an awful lot over an 18-year period. And then we’re trying to figure out why. Another thing we’ve discovered is that the more drugs you’ve been given, the more brain tissue you lose.

Q. WHY DO YOU THINK THIS IS HAPPENING?

A. Well, what exactly do these drugs do? They block basal ganglia activity. The prefrontal cortex doesn’t get the input it needs and is being shut down by drugs. That reduces the psychotic symptoms. It also causes the prefrontal cortex to slowly atrophy.

Source: The New York Times > Log In

... researchers in Ireland reported in 2003 that since the introduction of the atypical antipsychotics, the death rate among people with schizophrenia has doubled. They have done death rates of people treated with standard neuroleptics and then they compare that with death rates of people treated with atypical antipsychotics, and it doubles. It doubles! It didn't reduce harm. In fact, in their seven-year study, 25 of the 72 patients died.

Source: Psychiatric Drugs: Chemical Warfare on Humans - interview with Robert Whitaker

... There is an excess of death from natural causes among people with schizophrenia. Aims Schizophrenia and its treatment with neuroleptics were studied for their prediction of mortality in a representative population sample ... During a 17-year follow-up, 39 of the 99 people with schizophrenia died. There is an urgent need to ascertain whether the high mortality in schizophrenia is attributable to the disorder itself or the antipsychotic medication.

Source: Schizophrenia, neuroleptic medication and mortality.

... A study in France found that excess in mortality among patients with schizophrenia was, among all variables studied, most directly correlated with the dosages of antipsychotic medication received. In the United States, high rates of death, and especially of fatal injury, have also been reported in people treated with antipsychotics. Further, a study from Finland found that the number of antipsychotic drugs used correlated with mortality...

Source: http://publications.cpa-apc.org/media.php?mid=341 [PDF File]

... Both in vivo and post-mortem investigations have demonstrated smaller volumes of the whole brain and of certain brain regions in individuals with schizophrenia. It is unclear to what degree such smaller volumes are due to the illness or to the effects of antipsychotic medication treatment. Indeed, we recently reported that chronic exposure of macaque monkeys to haloperidol or olanzapine, at doses producing plasma levels in the therapeutic range in schizophrenia subjects, was associated with significantly smaller total brain weight and volume, including an 11.8–15.2% smaller gray matter volume in the left parietal lobe.

Source: Neuropsychopharmacology - Abstract of article: Effect of Chronic Exposure to Antipsychotic Medication on Cell Numbers in the Parietal Cortex of Macaque Monkeys

... Both typical (first generation) and atypical (second generation) antipsychotics are associated with an increased risk of stroke, Douglas said. ... The risk for stroke was slightly higher for people taking the newer atypical antipsychotics, compared with people taking the older typical antipsychotics. Atypical antipsychotics include drugs such as Abilify, Clozaril and Zyprexa. Typical antipsychotics include Thorazine, Haldol and Clopixol.

Source: http://www.nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/news/fullstory_68678.html

Most Frequent Suspect Drugs in Deaths 1998 - 2005 [FDA Report]

Clozapine (Anti-psychotic): 3,277

Risperidone (Anti-psychotic): 1,093

Olanzapine (Anti-psychotic): 1,005

Source: FDA - Adverse Affects [PDF File]

When soldiers return from Iraq or Afghanistan, and they have suffered either emotional or physical wounds, especially Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI), they are sent to Warrior Transition Units (WTU’s). Some shocking news has come to light concerning the large numbers of deaths in these WTU’s. ... "suicide is not the major cause of death." That honor belongs to something being referred to as "sudden cardiac arrest." ... Naturally, these hundred of deaths are only the tip of the iceberg. Thousands of veterans return home on psychotropic drugs, and if they are not given psychotherapy or other non-drug interventions, we can only assume that this death toll will continue to rise.

Source: Soldiers are Dying and Not Just From Guns

RESULTS: Over the decade, 39 of the 88 patients (44%) died, with no instances of suicide. Reduced survival was predicted by increasing age, male gender, edentulousness and time since pre-terminal withdrawal of antipsychotics; additionally, two indices of polypharmacy predicted reduced survival: maximum number of antipsychotics given concurrently and absence of co- treatment with an anticholinergic...

CONCLUSIONS: Receiving more than one antipsychotic concurrently was associated with reduced survival, in the face of little or no systematic evidence to justify the widespread use of antipsychotic polypharmacy. Conversely, over-cautious attitudes to the use of adjunctive anticholinergics may require re-evaluation.

Source: Mortality in schizophrenia. Antipsychotic polypharmacy and absence of adjunctive anticholinergics over the course of a 10-year prospective study -- Waddington et al. 173 (4): 325 -- The British Journal of Psychiatry

... "there are studies that have shown that people treated with neuroleptics have changes in brain structure that are at least associated with drug treatment, dosage, and duration -- and have been shown to increase over time as drugs are given." He cites one "horrific study" of children between the ages of 10 and 15 in which the researchers measured the volumes of the kids' cortexes. "The cortex is what you think with, the part on the outside," Mosher explains. Over time, "They watched the cortical volume of these young people decline, while the cortical volume of the nonschizophrenic controls was expanding because they were adolescents and still growing." The researcher concluded that their schizophrenia had caused the decrease in the subjects. "And yet every single one was taking neuroleptic drugs"...

Source: http://laingsociety.org/colloquia/thercommuns/stillcrazy1.htm

There are solidly good reasons why I promote the work of clinicians who have produced recovery with minimal or no medication. I don't want to be responsible for killing someone and "schizophrenics" are certainly dying from their treatment. It's one of those things no one wants to look at or talk about.

[spiritual_emergency]

From the book...

... The disability numbers only hint at the extraordinary toll that mental illness is extracting on society. The GAO, in its June 2008 report, concluded that one in every sixteen young adults in the United States is now seriously mentally ill. There has never been a society that has seen such a plague of mental illness in its newly minted adults, and those who go on the SSI and SSDI rolls at this young age are likely to spend the rest of their lives receiving disability payments. The twenty-year old who goes on SSI or SSDI will receive more than $1 million in benefits over the next forty or so years, and that is a cost -- should the epidemic continue to grow -- that our society will not be able to afford.

... So here is what is at stake in this investigation: If the conventional history is true, and psychiatry has in fact made great progress in identifying the biological causes of mental disorders and in developing effective treatments for those illnesses, then we can conclude that psychiatry's reshaping or our society has been for the good. As bad as the epidemic of disabling mental illness may be, it is reasonable to assume that without such advances in psychiatry, it would be much worse. The scientific literature will show that millions of children and adults are being helped by psychiatric approaches, their lives made richer and fuller, just as APA president Carolyn Robinowitz said in her speech at the APA's 2008 convention.

But if we uncover a history of a different sort -- a history that shows that the biological causes of mental disorders remain to be discovered and that psychiatric drugs are in fact fuelling the epidemic of disabling mental illness -- what then? We will have documented a history that tells of a society led horribly astray and, one might say, betrayed.

Source: Robert Whitaker ~ Anatomy of an Epidemic

[spiritual_emergency]

A psychiatrist comments on Whitaker's book, Anatomy of an Epidemic

Psychopharmaceutical Industry 1987-2010

Aug 1, 2010

Mary Beth Ackerley MD is a Harvard and Johns Hopkins trained board certified psychiatrist. She now practices holistic psychiatry.

Robert Whitaker’s brilliant book Anatomy of an Epidemic asks a simple question. Why, if psychiatric drug treatments are so efficacious, has the number of people on disability for mental illness more than tripled in the last 25 years?

Most doctors and researchers answered this question by stating that the numbers have increased simply because we are diagnosing more people with mental illness. In response to this stereotyped dismissal of his data, Robert began to do more research on the efficacy of known psychiatric treatments. And then, while poring through the psychiatric scientific literature on treatment effectiveness for the last fifty years he found an even darker question beginning to emerge. “Is it possible that psychiatric drugs are actually making people much worse?” Could it be that far from “fixing broken brains” the drugs being offered actually are worsening, and even causing, the very illnesses they claim to heal?

1987 can be considered ground zero for the new era of psychopharmacology. Prozac had just been introduced and was being widely advertised to the psychiatric profession, as well as to the general public, as a new safer antidepressant. Many people became aware that a chemical imbalance of serotonin might be causing their depression, and begged for the drugs. In one notable Newsweek article a woman stated that in case of nuclear war it would be the first thing she grabbed for.

As a young psychiatric resident I was proudly confident that the treatment of psychiatric illness was being revolutionized and that we could all look forward to a world where severe depression, anxiety and mania no longer crippled and ruined human lives. WRONG!! It should be apparent to many that despite the incredible profiteering of the pharmaceutical industry off of psychiatric illness that depression and anxiety are still rampant in this country. If psychiatric medications worked the way the are supposed to, and they way the drug companies and psychiatric industry tells us they do, why are so many people still severely depressed and anxious? At the start of the psychopharmacological “revolution” when it became popular to blame all illness on “imbalanced brain chemistry” the percentage of bipolar patients who could return to work was 85 percent. Now it is less than thirty percent...

... This story leads into one of the most interesting parts of the book for me. It seems that if you are schizophrenic and living in India or Nigeria your chances of a good outcome are far higher than if you live in the US where everyone is medicated. The fact seems astonishing, and World Health Organization repeated the study, but found the same thing – that living in an undeveloped country where meds are scarce but patients are cared for by the community assures a much better prognosis for schizophrenia. However Whitaker also quotes several studies done in the US from the late seventies that also showed similar results, that young adults suffering a first episode of schizophrenia who were not medicated showed significantly better outcomes in terms of subsequent relapse. Later in the book he details the current treatment of schizophrenia in an experimental clinic where drugs are rarely prescribed. Again the findings are similar that patients there have much better long-term outcomes than other Finnish schizophrenics who are routinely medicated.

I admit to being somewhat naïve as a young doctor. Even in the 80’s there were always people demonstrating at APA conventions against the “brain killing and mind numbing effects of drugs”. I, like many of my colleagues, dismissed them as either angry ex-patients or Scientologists. I thought that the fact that drugs companies paid psychiatric professors to do their research was not a big deal. Again WRONG! The last chapters of Anatomy of an Epidemic tallies up the enormous profits the drug companies, and certain psychiatrists, have made off the reinvention of psychiatry as biological psychopharmacology. He details how the growth of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual from DSM 2 to DSM 4 has fueled the growth of diagnosing more and more Americans as having a psychiatric illness which requires pharmacological treatment ...

Read the full article here: Dr. Mary Ackerley: The Rise of the Psychopharmaceutical Industry

See also: ISPS: Long-Term Follow Up Studies of Schizophrenia

[spiritual_emergency]

To respond in greater depth to the earlier question hell2breakfast asked (before they asked what was causing the rise in mental illness).

hell2breakfast: I didn't know where to put this but I would like to get the opinion of others on this board regarding the environmental cause/causes of (debilitating) mental illness. everything seems to point to poor parenting IMO, but would like the opinions of others. Thanks

My own area of knowledge is related to psychosis and schizophrenia so whatever I have to say pertains to those forms of "mental illness". Other people could probably speak more authentically to other forms but I don't have the same degree of personal experience so I'll leave it for others to do so.

Whatever I have to say from this point forward is based on my own experience of ... psychosis, at minimum ... and the experiences of the numerous schizophrenics I've spoken with in depth over the past several years. It would be reasonable to state that has been probably close to several hundred. It's also worth noting people will often share intimate details more easily with a peer than someone in a position of authority who has the power to lock them up as based on what they have to say.

The first point I'd like to address is that of parenting. For some reason, we accept that poor parenting can produce mental illnesses as severe as dissociative identity disorder but when it comes to schizophrenia there is a need to flock to the idea that it can be purely and only biological. Out of respect for the many personal stories I have heard over the years, I think we're doing a grave disservice to the life experiences of many a schizophrenic. There is, in fact, a very strong correlation between traumatic life experiences in childhood and schizophrenia. [Ref: Child Abuse Can Cause Schizophrenia.]

However, I'm also in agreement with yourself, Luna and Winnicott in regard to the concept of the "good enough" parent. I'm also assuming that "good enough" parents can accept, without being threatened by the idea, the reality that some parents are not anywhere near good or good enough. It's probably not necessary to go into details -- you need only spend a bit of time in environments such as this one to know that some people have had horrific childhoods with horrific parents.

As based on the personal accounts I've been privileged to hear over the years, I do not doubt that poor parenting plays a role in the experiences of some people and out of respect for the suffering they have endured, I feel that message should be heard. However, poor parenting did not play a role in all or even the majority of personal accounts relayed to me.

What does seem to play a frequent role is some event or series of events that significantly challenges an individual's sense of self-identity. These are events that most parents -- loving or otherwise -- have little or no control over. Examples include:

- Failing to achieve a personal or imposed goal or standard

- Moving to a new country/environment

- The loss of a significant relationship

- The loss of financial livelihood or financial security

- The loss of public status or being publicly humiliated in some manner

- Discovering the relative you thought was your blood relative was not your blood relative (i.e. parent, sibling)

- Trauma

- Discovering your partner has been unfaithful

- Serving in a war zone or being told you will have to do so

I have also noted that psychotic episodes seem to be more prevalent during times of life transition when the ego-identity is already in a state of flux and thus, is in a more vulnerable state due to one's transitional state. The most common time for schizophrenia to strike is the transition from adolescence to adulthood. My own experience arrived during the transition from adulthood to mid-life.

Other factors that seem to play a role have included:

- Drug reactions (involving both "sanctified" prescription drugs and recreational drugs)

- Sleep deprivation

- Deliberate attempts to remove or strip down the ego-identity such as meditation or contemplation

- Ongoing and relentless stress

Very rarely, true physiological causes have been to blame; brain tumors were identified as the cause in two individuals; possible Lyme Disease in another. I have spoken with one person who could not identify any triggering event but they also relayed that their episodes seemed to begin in childhood.

Quite often, multiple factors played a role, i.e., sexual abuse+loss of a significant relationship. Among the people I spoke with, I did not ask if there was a history of mental illness within the family. Some people furnished that information readily.

For what it's worth, I had a very loving mother. She was not perfect but I did not doubt that she loved me. I feel I have also been a loving parent to my own children. Despite as much, I had a breakdown and one of my children also has a diagnosis. I would identify multiple losses and trauma as the triggers for my experience. In my child's case, sleep deprivation, drug use, financial stressors and the loss of a significant romantic relationship all seem to have played a role.

[spiritual_emergency]

Also for what it's worth, I think psychiatry and larger society is going to keep on killing schizophrenics while telling themselves that everything they are doing to help them is "for their own good".

As a disclaimer, I note that it only counts as paranoia if there is no justification for the belief but those stats above are a reality that most people will walk right over without a second thought. I know, because I keep watching it happen. No one says a thing. No one is outraged. No one is moved to take action. They just look the other way as if they never saw it.

[hell2breakfast]

Spiritual:

Thank you so much for the info. sorry I have not responded but have been busy and anyway I thought the thread was dead.

I agree the high rate of MI is Partially caused by the pharmaceutical industry. I will respond more fully after I get some rest. Once again thanks.

[hell2breakfast]

A very good video presentation of Robert Whitaker speaking...

The Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America

Just as good but more disturbing...

Psychotropic Drugs and Children

Spiritual:

This is good stuff, thank you However I am still digesting all the info (kind of slow reader) will be responding soon.

[hell2breakfast]

Spiritual:

I can visualize you at the keyboard, typing with lightening speed, as if all ten fingers were independant agents each with a mind of it's own. It is rather intimidating to respond with only two fingers (3 on a good day) but I will try.

I agree.

My own experience has been somewhat similar to yours, and with similar conclusions. I stopped taking the major tranquilizers stellazine and prolixin years ago because I noticed no appreciable change in my thinking but rather put me in a zombie-like state...and made my legs shake with electrical spasms at night when I was trying to go to sleep.

If you read much of my stuff you will discover that my main whipping-boy is unplanned, uncontrolled technology and its negative effects on humanity (the positive effects are obvious)

I believe the changes of the last 150 years or so have been a shock to the physical, spiritual, and psychological hard-wiring of humans and we are asked to evolve faster than the mechanisms of evolution can accomodate.

Such a drastic upheaval in the traditional values of humans, religious, cultural, economic,etc. can not but have consequences both good and bad.

Anecdotally, A child of 1890 would probably not have the excess energy to be diagnosed with ADD because of the low sugar diet, the physical life, etc. Also, the institution of marriage was still alive which meant the male-female "Identity" was still functioning along with the various other identities...religious, racial, cultural, class, etc. Life was simpler and most people had never heard the term psychology.

It is true that a person judged "insane" at that time were put in "snake pits" to be forgotten and die with strangers. Mental illness was not that common perhaps because people were to busy to get sick and/or no one else was, who knows.

Certainly Crime, divorce, and mental illness existed but in numbers statistically insignificant when compared to today. Simply put, we can not change 5,000 years of hard-wiring in 150 years without many people getting short-circuited in the process. The drug industry is just part of the problem IMO

What do you think?

[hell2breakfast]

Also for what it's worth, I think psychiatry and larger society is going to keep on killing schizophrenics while telling themselves that everything they are doing to help them is "for their own good".

As a disclaimer, I note that it only counts as paranoia if there is no justification for the belief but those stats above are a reality that most people will walk right over without a second thought. I know, because I keep watching it happen. No one says a thing. No one is outraged. No one is moved to take action. They just look the other way as if they never saw it.

I don't think it's paranoia at all But people being what they are (apathetic) it will take more people like you and whittiker exposing the abuses to make a change. It's like the lobotomy fad, how many people died before it was over? how many people were made zombies? Then there is the thalidimide babies, and I am sure others could be named.

I for one applaud you (clap clap )

It is I think, one of the main objections I have with so-called "democracy" nothing happens until the public in general puts up such a fuss the politicans do their obligatory knee-jerk. Unfortunatly by then (30-50 years) the original problem has solved itself or led to an entirely different set of problems.

It is this incredible slowness and gridlock of democrasies that give them what little stability they have and keep them from going too far in any one direction IMO

[spiritual_emergency]

Hello hell2breakfast. Apologies for my late response. I have a tendency to be busy in a number of elsewhere sort of ways.

But people being what they are (apathetic) it will take more people like you and whittiker exposing the abuses to make a change. It's like the lobotomy fad, how many people died before it was over? how many people were made zombies? Then there is the thalidimide babies, and I am sure others could be named.

It might surprise you to know that I'm in support of people making use of medication with one critical caveat -- that they identify it as helpful to them. Of course I also believe they're entitled to fully informed consent which is something a lot of people don't get. You cannot make an accurate risk/benefit assessment if the risks are not honestly brought into the open. I further believe people are entitled to explore their options because there might be something there that works well for them. There are many tools and for some people, meds is a valuable tool.

That's doesn't mean I believe professionals don't make disastrous mistakes -- I do, in fact, believe that when it comes to schizophrenia, we should be making use of treatment programs such as Open Dialogue Treatment, Diabasis, Soteria for the completely practical and common sense reason that they produce recovery rates that are superior by far to those we typically see in the West. Neither do I believe that a pharmaceutical rep is motivated by love in his/her heart when they market their products. If you start looking into what is actually happening with some of these medications -- particularly their use in children -- it's deeply, deeply disturbing. [Ref: What Killed Rebecca Riley?] And yet, none of this negates the fact that medication does help people. But the people it doesn't help, the people who can't make use of it, the people who won't make use of it -- they, perhaps more than anyone -- need to know that there may be other options. Meantime, the people who do make use of them, they too can benefit from using a range of tools because it may help them to reduce the meds they are on.

As for applause, that's not what I'm after. I would like to see real change. I don't know if that's going to come in my lifetime.

I believe the changes of the last 150 years or so have been a shock to the physical, spiritual, and psychological hard-wiring of humans and we are asked to evolve faster than the mechanisms of evolution can accomodate.

It has not escaped my attention that we live in a world in which someone saw fit to create the term: nanosecond. (Is there a "wry-grinning" smiley I can insert here?)

I do agree that we are in a time of rapid cultural transition. The ideals and beliefs we once held that could keep us anchored to a fixed vision of reality have collapsed and in some cases, been thrown out. Apparently, entire cultures can also undergo deep splits and fragmentations of apocalyptic proportions. Change can often be deeply challenging and painful. You might think everything is done for and then, some tiny green sprout forces its way through a block of concrete and you start to wonder about the limits of resiliency. Are we changing in a good way or a bad way? I don't know hell2breakfast. From what I understand we can't have one without the other.

~ Namaste

[hell2breakfast]

Spiritual: Well said! You would be a good writer.

[hell2breakfast]

Spiritual:

I like the soteria approach because it takes the person out of a sick environment...society.... and places them in an environment that is less sick by virtue of common interests etc. Reminiscent of one of the primary perposes of "Mileu" therapy.

Also I have nothing against drugs when used judiciously and with the patients input, but we are not Guinea pigs and new drugs should be tested on serial killers IMO not harmless loonies like us:D

I am always amazed that people think little of killing criminals, but are aghast at using them to futher scientific research. I think careful and humane experiments done for the right reasons, by professionals, is much better than killing people. Thats just me.

[spiritual_emergency]

*sigh*

I'm not really into the idea of killing anyone, hell2breakfast. But I do feel that deep down inside, society is actually quite comfortable with the idea of killing schizophrenics in the same way that people think shooting a mad dog is a kind thing to do.

If people do protest, if they do complain, if they speak their truth...

The silence is deafening.

[spiritual_emergency]

One of the first English physicians to write extensively on madness, its nature, and the proper treatment for it was Thomas Willis. He as highly admired for his investigations into the nervous system, and his 1684 text on insanity set the tone for the many medical guides that would be written over the next 100 years by English mad-doctors. The book’s title neatly summed up his views of the mad: The Practice of Physick: Two Discourses Concerning the Soul of Brutes.

His belief—that the insane were animal-like in kind—reflected prevailing conceptions about the nature of man. The great English scientists and philosophers of the seventeenth century—Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, John Locke, and others—had all argued that reason was the faculty that elevated humankind above the animals. This was the form of intelligence that enabled man to scientifically know his world, and to create a civilized society. Thus the insane, by virtue of having lost their reason, were seen as having descended to a brutish state.

They were, Willis explained, fierce creatures who enjoyed superhuman strength. ““They can break cords and chains, break down doors or walls … they are almost never tired … they bear cold, heat, watching, fasting, strokes, and wounds, without any sensible hurt.”” The mad, he added, if they were to be cured, needed to hold their physicians in awe and think of them as their ““tormentors.””

Discipline, threats, fetters, and blows are needed as much as medical treatment … Truly nothing is more necessary and more effective for the recovery of these people than forcing them to respect and fear intimidation. By this method, the mind, held back by restraint is induced to give up its arrogance and wild ideas and it soon becomes meek and orderly. This is why maniacs often recover much sooner if they are treated with tortures and torments in a hovel instead of with medicaments.

A medical paradigm for treating the mad had been born, and eighteenth-century English medical texts regularly repeated this basic wisdom. In 1751, Richard Mead explained that the madman was a brute who could be expected to ““attack his fellow creatures with fury like a wild beast”” and thus needed ““to be tied down and even beat, to prevent his doing mischief to himself or others.”” Thomas Bakewell told of how a maniac ““bellowed like a wild beast, and shook his chain almost constantly for several days and nights … I therefore got up, took a hand whip, and gave him a few smart stripes upon the shoulders… He disturbed me no more.””

Physician Charles Bell, in his book Essays on the Anatomy of Expression in Painting, advised artists wishing to depict madmen ““to learn the character of the human countenance when devoid of expression, and reduced to the state of lower animals.””

Like all wild animals, lunatics needed to be dominated and broken. The primary treatments advocated by English physicians were those that physically weakened the mad—bleeding to the point of fainting and the regular use of powerful purges, emetics, and nausea-inducing agents. All of this could quickly reduce even the strongest maniac to a pitiful, whimpering state. William Cullen, reviewing bleeding practices, noted that some advised cutting into the jugular vein. Purges and emetics, which would make the mad patient violently sick, were to be repeatedly administered over an extended period. John Monro, superintendent of Bethlehem Asylum, gave one of his patients sixty-one vomit-inducing emetics in six months, including strong doses on eighteen successive nights.

Mercury and other chemical agents, meanwhile, were used to induce nausea so fierce that the patient could not hope to have the mental strength to rant and rave. ““While nausea lasts,”” George Man Burrows advised, ““hallucinations of long adherence will be suspended, and sometimes be perfectly removed, or perhaps exchanged for others, and the most furious will become tranquil and obedient.”” It was, he added, ““far safer to reduce the patient by nauseating him than by depleting him.””

A near-starvation diet was another recommendation for robbing the madman of his strength. The various depleting remedies—bleedings, purgings, emetics, and nausea-inducing agents—were also said to be therapeutic because they inflicted considerable pain, and thus the madman’s mind became focused on this sensation rather than on his usual raving thoughts. Blistering was another treatment useful for stirring great bodily pain. Mustard powders could be rubbed on a shaved scalp, and once the blisters formed, a caustic rubbed into the blisters to further irritate and infect the scalp. ““The suffering that attends the formation of these pustules is often indescribable,”” wrote one physician. The madman’s pain could be expected to increase as he rubbed his hands in the caustic and touched his genitals, a pain that would enable the patient to ““regain consciousness of his true self, to wake from his supersensual slumber and to stay awake.””

All of these physically depleting, painful therapies also had a psychological value: They were feared by the lunatics, and thus the mere threat of their employment could get the lunatics to behave in a better manner. Together with liberal use of restraints and an occasional beating, the mad would learn to cower before their doctors and attendants.

““In most cases it has appeared to be necessary to employ a very constant impression of fear; and therefore to inspire them with the awe and dread of some particular persons, especially of those who are to be constantly near them,”” Cullen wrote. ““This awe and dread is therefore, by one means or other, to be acquired; in the first place by their being the authors of all the restraints that may be occasionally proper; but sometimes it may be necessary to acquire it even by stripes and blows. The former, although having the appearance of more severity, are much safer than strokes or blows about the head.””

Such were the writings of English mad-doctors in the 1700s. The mad were to be tamed...

Source: A Discourse Concerning The Souls of Brutes

More...

... Today Mosher calls himself "a lapsed psychiatrist" because he thinks the biological explanations of psychotic behavior embraced by so many of his colleagues resemble a religion more than they do a body of science. From his perspective as a heretic, he reflects, "We are all afraid of going crazy. And as long as we have someone out there who can sort of do that job for us, it's not our burden." He thinks it's comforting to believe schizophrenics act the way they do because their brains are diseased. Biological differences "make them different from us fundamentally," he says. "They're sort of a slightly different race than we are." Mosher thinks it's all "a way of carefully saying, 'These people are really different. And therefore we have the right to do whatever we goddamn please with them.' "

Source: Still Crazy After All These Years

The message we hear these days is that things are so much better for those who are "mentally ill" but this is where I start to think the delusions can run deep on both sides because the death rate has gone up and the recovery rate has gone down.

I cannot think of any other field where, if 44% of the study population died during the study, people wouldn't interpret that as some kind of red flag that might prompt them to immediately call for a re-examination of what they were doing. But that particular study is ten years old and the only answer that seems to be tolerated is, "Shut up and take your meds."

[hell2breakfast]

Spiritual:

Unfortunately, humans are prone to seek scapegoats for any little problem that comes along.

[tobeistohope]

That's good to hear. I agree the mother's care and nurturing is critical to a child's development, or any other surrogate person who offers that same care and nurturing to the infant (father, grandparent, adoptive parent). I do feel that's is just too easy to blame the mother though ... as a mother I'm pretty tired of that Mothers are almost forced to work today in order to make ends meet, and they are also often left alone to cope with parenting in cases of separation and divorce. So in my eyes women/mothers do an almost heroic job for their families, so to lay the blame on them for everything that could go wrong with the kids is not helpful in my opinion. I agree that it is a societal problem.

I have to disagree with you, Symora. Yes, my mother was a single mom for awhile, before she got with my stepfather. She did work evenings, but also went out and partied after every shift and brought home men and I would wake up hearing the sounds of my mother having sex. After she married my stepfather, she adopted a baby and sent me to live with my dad because she wanted a better life for her and my stepfather. Yes, I believe without a doubt, most of my adult problems stem from that. I am also a single mom with two kids, but have broken the chain of my mother's behavior. I work in the daytime and spend the rest of the time with my kids trying to build a good childhood that they hopefully will one day build a good life from.

As far a schizophrenia goes, I believe it is very genetic. My son's paternal grandfather and two of his uncles have it. My son so far has ADHD, and is a very difficult child, but has not shown any indications of having the disease, although he is only 14.

[spiritual_emergency]

hell2breakfast: Unfortunately, humans are prone to seek scapegoats for any little problem that comes along.

It's entirely possible I speak with too many people sometimes, hell2b. (Do you mind if I shorten your name to that? Many people shorten mine to s_e or SE.) Anyway, one of those people was lamenting that a friend's son was in critical condition due to organ damage. They didn't know if he was going to pull through.

There is a tremendous need for alternative and responsible programs of care but they're not out there. Those who want them, have to try and create them for themselves and make use of local resources as a means of doing so. Some people get incredibly lucky and find what they need. Others don't.

~ Namaste

[hell2breakfast]

Spiritual:

Thank you for a remarkably good song and video. It ROCKS!...will have to watch it some more to get the full meaning, but I LOVE the hole in the floor.

Check out "jerusalem" by Dan Burn on youtube music videos. Sorry I don't know how to post the link as you did

I agree we need more treatment options, I tried to start a fact-based self help group last spring but ran into financial problems and couldn't keep up the rent.