Interpreting Harrow’s 20-Year Results: Are the Drugs to Blame? | Mad In America

The latest from Robert Whitaker on the long term studies that we – those who have been conditioned to believe in and use these drugs – have not been told of.

An excerpt:

Of all the research that has been done in the past 20 years on psychotic disorders, Martin Harrow’s ongoing study of long-term outcomes in such patients is, in my opinion, the most important work. He and his colleagues have now published their 20-year results. Given the 15-year outcomes data he published in 2007, his latest findings should not be surprising. The schizophrenia and schizoaffective patients who took antipsychotics regularly during the 20 years, compared to those who quit taking the medications usually within the first two years, experienced more psychosis, more anxiety, and markedly fewer periods of “sustained recovery.”� They were also more cognitively impaired.The same dramatic difference in outcomes was seen in patients diagnosed with a mood disorder with psychotic features: �those who stayed on antipsychotics fared markedly worse over the long-term.The psychiatric establishment mostly ignored Harrow’s 2007 report, or tried to explain away his findings. But with the publication of the 20-year results, I think the time has come for psychiatry—and our society—to take a close look at his research, and to try to honestly assess what is going on. A full-bodied inquiry is essential for another reason too: We are now prescribing antipsychotics to an ever larger number of children, and to many non-psychotic adults as well, and if antipsychotics are worsening the long-term outcomes of people with a psychotic disorder, which is the obvious concern raised by Harrow’s findings, then we really need to rethink the use of these medications in those other populations.Here is a review of the study’s design, and the findings from the two papers.

Read the studies and outcomes here:  Interpreting Harrow’s 20-Year Results: Are the Drugs to Blame? | Mad In America.

via Interpreting Harrow’s 20-Year Results: Are the Drugs to Blame? | Mad In America.

Sugar Pills

It has long been known that the Placebo Effect  works better than drugs very often.

So here’s something to think about as we look at the effect of the past 60 years of social conditioning to see emotional distress and socially unacceptable behaviors as this mysterious disease called “mental illness”.

If people can be convinced that a pill (a sugar pill) has cured their depression…

and they begin to feel better, have happier thoughts, become dependent on believing that if they don’t have their pill the depression will return….*

Wouldn’t it stand to make sense that an individual could become conditioned to believe their brain is broken and it was not possible to ever not be “sick”?

Brainwashing is very subtle sometimes.

Our belief systems are shaped by what we experience.

If we are told repeatedly by those in authority that we are at risk for “mental illness” and then when life hits us square in the face and overwhelms our learned or human ability to cope…

and our emotional response and related behaviors are said to be evidence of this sudden onset “mental illness”…

Why wouldn’t we believe that?

And why wouldn’t we become convineced we are “sick”….

And that these magic bullets that pyschiatry doles out like candy…

Are fixing us?

Especially when we are told that the side effects are actually this magical illness/time bomb that suddenly went off in our head….and that we will need these drugs for life. This is just the best you can hope for….

and “treatment failure” is blamed on the victim.

When our reality is denied over and over by those in power – our reality becomes the reality we are told exists and that the reality we are living – our own perceptions….are an indicator of just how sick we are.

mmmmm……

* In psychotropics drugs though they are NOT sugar pills and actually cause the brain/chemical imbalances they are said to cure. This is physical addiction is used to tell us “See. you ARE sick” when the withdrawal symtoms kick in. So we continue to believe we are “sick” and that the drugs that stave off the “discontinuation syndrome” are our “magic bullet” that we will need “for life”.

And – some may never be able to go off the drugs entirely and its not because they are the unlucky ones who really are “mentally ill”…..read more here. 

Knowledge is power.

Don’t take my word for any of this. My goal is not to create dissension but to cause you to consider your own beliefs, where they come from and encourage you to uncover your own truths.

Start the conversation by clicking on the box that says “No Responses”.

Robert Whitaker slays the critics – Beyond Meds

Sharing only today……

Robert Whitaker slays the critics – Beyond Meds.

via Robert Whitaker slays the critics – Beyond Meds.

Thanks for following and reading:)

Susan

Knowledge is Power.

Truth sets us free.

MY FIRST PROZAC PILL « International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry ISEPP Blog

First….if you are content with your life, your diagnosis, your prescriptions and your treatment plan – this post may not be for you. 

If you are curious or concerned about the issues related to long term use of psychotropic drugs and the long term disability and chronic – and extensive – increase of America’s very poor outcomes in “mental health” industry…You may find this post at least interesting and perhaps even enlightening…for sure, validating.

Regardless of your personal choices – this post reflects only one of millions whose life has been irreparably changed by falling into the arms of psychiatry and their “magic bullets”. 

When I, personally, “awoke” after a 15+ year journey into, through and out of America’s mental health system my first reaction was numbness.

Then confusion as I tried to piece the past nearly 20 years of my life together.

It was only after connecting with other survivors of (SEVERE) poly-pharmacy and mental health abuse and neglect online that I realized the horror of what had not just happened to me – but been done to me.

Carolyn Anderson shares her own experience in today’s post.

An excerpt by Carolyn:

I have often wondered what my life would have been like had I not swallowed my first Prozacpill. Now I am horrified to learn that twenty years of being prescribed antidepressants, mood stabilisers and antipsychotic drugs, several suicide attempts, numerous admissions to psychiatric hospital and ending up like a zombie…could have been avoided. Read the rest of this piece here: via MY FIRST PROZAC PILL « International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry ISEPP Blog.

Related Posts

Dr  Peter Breggin: Antidepressants Can Cause Long Term Depression

Paula Caplan, Ph.D: Emotional Healing Without Pathologizing or Drugging

Irish Examiner: Psychiatric Patients Unaware of Prescription Drug Risks

The book that opened the dialogue and let the cat out of the bag in 2010: Anatomy of an Epidemic by scientific (award winning) Journalist, Robert Whitaker

Thank you for reading, please consider sharing/liking:)

Always and forever in hope for that truth that sets us free,

Susan

KIP Central: News, information and resources for those learning to live beyond psychiatry.

New Research: Antidepressants Can Cause Long-Term Depression

Today a short post – minus commentary other than to say if you have not yet read the book Anatomy of an Epidemic by Robert Whitaker – when you do you will discover some amazing research and how we as a country have been misled. You can find Whitaker and his work at www.madinamerica.com. Tons of evidence for those who like evidence.

Another resource for some surprising statistics and evidence – Peter Lehmann at Peter Lehmann Publishing. Excellant reasearch went into his books that tell the story from views of those who have used and withdrawn from various psychotropic drugs.

Today’s breaking news from Dr. Peter Breggin at Huffington Post: Dr. Peter Breggin: New Research: Antidepressants Can Cause Long-Term Depression.

Thanks for reading, please consider sharing/liking/tweeting:)

In peace and hope always,

Susan

KIP Central: News, information and resources for those learning to live beyond psychiatry.

Expert: Ban psych labels such as ADHD | Irish Examiner

I don’t think I’ve shared this with you yet…from Ireland (who is making great strides in advocating against coercive psychiatry).

Another quick post, worth the time it takes to click over and read it:

Expert: Ban psych labels such as ADHD | Irish Examiner.

via Expert: Ban psych labels such as ADHD | Irish Examiner.

May your day be amazing!

And when I figure out how to condense all posts into a daily summary email – I will definately do so!

Until then…enjoy the reads!

Susan

Dr. Peter Breggin: New Research: Antidepressants Can Cause Long-Term Depression

A quick post….read and follow Dr. Peter Breggin at the Huffington post.

Today….validates my own personal experience. I never had long term depression – until I took anti-depressants.

Read this piece here:Dr. Peter Breggin: New Research: Antidepressants Can Cause Long-Term Depression.

via Dr. Peter Breggin: New Research: Antidepressants Can Cause Long-Term Depression.

Always, always….there is a solution:)

Knowledge Is Power….

Susan

To Sit With Pain

Photo By Artist Amy Smith (C)

Yesterday I posted a piece on learning to live in mindful awareness of our “whole” self – body, mind and spirit or consciousness. You can read that post here.

Today I wanted to share a post by popular Blogger, Gianna Kali at her site Beyond Meds and this inspiring quote of Pema Chodran.

The only reason we don’t open our hearts and minds to other people is that they trigger confusion in us that we don’t feel brave enough or sane enough to deal with. To the degree that we look clearly and compassionately at ourselves, we feel confident and fearless about looking into someone else’s eyes. ― Pema Chödrön

As survivors of really bad things (SRBT’s) we often want desparately for others to hear our pain, to sit with us, hold our hand and give us that soft place to fall – when things fall apart.

Yet – as SRBT’s – we are also prone to expecting those in our life who may not have yet resolved their own issues to be able to help and support us in resolving ours.

And this is not just in friendships or family relationships but is also very prominant in “therapuitic” relationships. Often with those who have been trained in the bio medical/Fruedian model of denying environment, experience and emotions will focus on our “behavior” as the problem.

Very often – and sadly – most mental health providers are not trained in how to either sit with our distress nor to teach us how to sit with our own distress and emotional pain. Many enter the field of helping in order to understand and work out their own issues – often ending up doing that by playing out their own life issues in their client relationships. Ultimately – after over half a century of this approach, the end result is now a nation that has been socially conditioned not to support and empathize but to make a fast exit, suggest “professional help” and pathologize the distress of those around them.

“Poor So and So. She is so terribly ill.”

“You know – before he got sick….”

The solution given is to avoid. To minimize. To medicate. To dismiss and portray this normal human behavior of meeting our emotional needs through connecting with others as something that is yet another “disorder” … an unnatural “dependence”, a seeking for approval, a social abnormality.

Yet – it is only through the witness of another that the wound begins to heal. 

A terrible side effect of this framework of denying,minimizing and avoiding our emotional distress is that we develop an inability to see our trauma experiences as “abnormal”. Instead see our emotional distress as the thing that is “abnormal”. This in turn, perpetuates trauma in our lives and society as we do not have the ability to see the true effect of it on our own lives or in the lives of others.

In denying our normal human emotional response to the trauma experiences, our reality is now unreal. Our “behavior” that is driven by our thoughts and beliefs has now become “disordered”. We begin to believe that…

…it wasn’t that bad. 

It is when another bears witness to our pain and experience that we see our reality as real.

It is in this acknowledgement that we see ourselves as normal vs. abnormal, disordered, diseased. 

The secret then to learning to sit with our own pain – is to seek to share it with those who can sit with their own. To share with those who can allow our anger, our fears and anxieties, our deep sadness and terrors…without having the need to  fix it, minimize it –  or dismiss it.

This is how we as a society will cultivate the consciousness that will create the change where compassion is the norm rather than the exception; by learning to sit with out own pain we will then have the ability to sit with the pain of another.

Read more of this inspiring post here: Are your heart and mind open to others? – Beyond Meds.

Thank you for reading, please consider sharing:)

In peace and hope always,

Susan

KIP Central: News, information and resources for those learning to live beyond psychiatry and reclaim their lives. 

Knowledge Is Necessity: Rebutting Whitaker: Not Such a Good Idea

This is a great piece by someone who started to challenge the work of Robert Whitaker and Anatomy of an Epdidemic. But – in the end….he is endorsing this work as the authority on psychiatry.

 

No further comment needed; a great piece you can read here: Knowledge Is Necessity: Rebutting Whitaker: Not Such a Good Idea.

Psychiatry: The Next Great American Hoax. Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill

KIP Central is not about creating drama but about putting the truth out for those who have perhaps not been aware of the reality behind psychiatry that they might come to their own conclusions. Today’s post will shed a bit more light on the similarities between psychiatry’s propaganda and fear based message and big tobacco that took us for a ride in the last century.

Via Chrys Murehead at the Facebook Clear Mind, Inc community page on Robert Whitakers book Mad In America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill”…

“…reading Mad in America by Robert Whitaker and it’s a powerful piece of writing, exposing the major flaws in the psychiatric system and the inhumane treatment historically of people with ‘mental illness’ – from eugenics to lobotomies, ECT to chemical coshes – painful to read about the abuses but necessary to remember”

And agreed Chrys. It is vital that we remember the millions who have suffered and died at the hands of psychiatries archaic “treatments”. Especially as we are beginning to see psychiatry reframing their focus to things like psycho-surgery.

Self screening “tests” are based on cultivating fear and encouraging folks to take “preventitive” measures for both themselves and their children.

At some point the world will understand that this is all of us. As psychiatry is preparing to release their next version of the DSM every individual is at risk for what has become the next Great American Fraud called Psychaitry and “mental health care”.

Psychiatry and Big Tobacco seem to have been reading the same play book. Bury the truth and perpetrate the hoax on those who have been taught to follow “doctors orders”.

Remember? Big Tobacco?

Read about the book here: Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill: Amazon.co.uk: Robert Whitaker: Books.

Find Bob Whitakers body of work here: www.madinamerica.com

 

Knowledge

Is

Power

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