Misdiagnosis: Bipolar Disorder Or Drug Toxicity?

Our bipolar disorder boom is far from over. This is illustrated by an article in the Las Vegas Review-Journal , Bipolar disorder often misdiagnosed, that would misconstrue matters even farther. [Betty] Smith is one of the 2.5 million Americans affected by bipolar disorder every year, according to the National Institute of Mental Health. The mental [...]

Panel Recommends Testing Of Shock Devices

The FDA Panel voted Friday to recommend testing of electroshock devices before their safety status might be changed. The New York Times covered the story in an article bearing the headline F.D.A. Panel Is Split on Electroshock Risks. Comments sent to the FDA on the subject overwhelmingly favored testing. Nearly 80 percent of 3,045 comments [...]

Hearings on the safety of shock treatment taking place

The matter shouldn’t require a lot of thought. You don’t declare a medical device safe without testing it for safety. Any device that isn’t tested for safety couldn’t reliably be said to be safe. Having pointed out the obvious fact that a device that hasn’t been tested for safety can’t be said to be safe, [...]

Baby killing doctor suit settled for 2 and ½ million dollars

The headline and the implication is a little more subdued in the Boston Globe, Tufts settles suit against doctor in girl’s death for $2.5m. The money will be distributed to the remaining living siblings of Rebecca Riley who was 4 years old when she was found dead on December 13, 2006. Early in 2010, Carolyn [...]

Human Rights Violations Past And Present

I’m sure that many people don’t have a good understanding of the human rights issues involved in the mental health treatment world. I feel that one of those people is James Dailey who writes in a UVA Daily Cavalier article, Evolving standards. Today’s mental health crisis is similar to that of yesteryear. The idea of [...]

Small Psychiatric Prison Unit Coming To Oregon

Language is important. Language is about communication. Language is also about lying. When disinformation is as common as it is, you get a lot of lies. Lies are about saying one thing so that you can do another thing altogether. When we don’t give a little thought to the words that are being used, we [...]

Erica Jong Gets It Wrong

Erica Jong, the author, has posted to her Huffington blog an entry with the heading Guns and Madness. So sad that the corporate media does not know what paranoid schizophrenic thinking is. I know because my college boyfriend and 1st husband had a paranoid schizophrenic breakdown. As if Erica Jong, leading members of the APA, [...]

On The Questionable Wisdom Of Pathologizing Criminality

I’m numb with all of the media diagnosing of the Arizona killer going on. Just imagine, he’s not being convicted by the press, he’s being diagnosed. Do you want to know what’s wrong with the mental health/illness system? Given one incident such as this one, all sorts of people are saying the man was “sick”. [...]

Partners In Crime And Oppression

Question: When do you know you’re saying the wrong thing? Answer: You know you must be saying the wrong thing when you’re a mental patient, and E. Fuller Torrey agrees with you. You can get the whole thoroughly disgusting slanted story at KPHO.com, Mental Health Patient Relates To Loughner. Does this numbskull have any idea [...]

Statement Issued On Arizona Tragedy

All sorts of the people are using the Arizona shooting to argue for more restrictive mental health laws. Reform was a keyword that was bandied about in Virginia by the Virginia Supreme Court Commission on Mental Health Reform as they debated more restrictive legislation in that state. Many of the people serving on this commission [...]