Posts Tagged ‘mental disorder’

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Latest list of mental disorders leaves a bad taste in one’s mouth

Thursday, January 26th, 2012

The StarPhoenix January 26, 2012

by Les MacPherson

 It has come to my attention that I am mentally ill.

I always knew I was neurotic – who isn’t? – but it still comes as something of a surprise to learn that I am suffering from an actual mental illness. Others, perhaps, will not be surprised in the least.

The particular mental illness that afflicts me was added only recently to the so-called Bible of psychiatry, otherwise known as the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This is the big reference book that officially catalogues all the mental illnesses recognized by modern psychiatry. The latest edition is nearly 1,000 pages. You would have to be almost pathologically normal to find nothing in there that applies to you.

Qualifying as entirely sane does not get any easier when new disorders are regularly added to the already voluminous manual. The goalposts of sanity now have been moved so close together that I can no longer squeeze through.

What afflicts me is one of the latest additions proposed for the diagnostic manual, something called avoidant/ restrictive food intake disorder, or ARFID. Until recently, people suffering from this disorder were dismissed as picky eaters. Now, we suddenly are sick and need help.

ARFID is defined as an “eating or feeding disturbance” that includes avoiding foods of a particular taste, colour or texture. That’s exactly what I do. I avoid foods if the taste is bad, if the texture is lumpy or slimy and if the colour is grey, green or mottled beige. If this makes me mentally ill, I plead not hungry by reason of insanity.

Consider oatmeal, for example, a slimy, lumpy, grey food I have always found unspeakably horrible. I always thought it was the people who liked oatmeal who were mentally ill. And yet it clearly is not them but me whose symptoms are to be described in psychiatry’s foremost diagnostic textbook. Well, I don’t care what the doctors say, I still hate oatmeal.

I hate liver, too. If there was a religion that forbade eating liver, I would sign on as a missionary: Eat not of the liver, for it is an unclean thing, and also slimy, with a putrid taste and disgusting appearance. Whosoever filleth his mouth with liver, whether cooked with bacon or not, shall be cast into the fiery pit, along with some fried onions.

This is somewhat by the way, but notice how easily mental illness is repurposed as theology. It goes the other way, too, when the mentally ill are afflicted with religious delusions. I have never heard of a mentally ill person yet who thought he was a newspaper columnist, incidentally, except, of course, for those who really are newspaper columnists.

If it was just liver and oatmeal that provoked my involuntary gag reflex, I probably would not need professional help. There are many other foods, however, that I would rather wrap in a napkin and secretly slip into my pocket than eat. Among them are broccoli, spinach and all organ meats except the baloney. Heart, lungs or tongue will be scraped off my plate untouched, but I do like a thin slice of baloney, in a sandwich with lettuce and a little mustard.

I also cannot eat anything smothered in cream sauce. Any food that could possibly be improved by immersion in cream sauce I would dispose of as hazardous waste.

Asparagus likewise disgusts me. Fish, too, I mostly find off-putting. It doesn’t help when I am told that this particular fish dish has no fishy taste. Why would anyone want to eat something that is not supposed to taste like what it is? I wouldn’t eat beef, either, if the best that could be said of it was that it had no beefy taste. And I’m supposed to be the crazy one?

Now that picky eating is to be regarded as a mental illness, we can perhaps look forward to a cure. The big pharmaceutical companies probably are working even now on new drugs to treat the disorder. Imagine a pill that could make me like liver.

I’d spit it out when no one was looking.

http://www.thestarphoenix.com/health/Latest+list+mental+disorders+leaves+taste+mouth/6052784/story.html

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Shy children now candidates for dangerous psychiatric drugs

Wednesday, October 5th, 2011

NaturalNews
By Elizabeth Walling
October 5, 2011

(NaturalNews) New guidelines for mental illness turn shyness in children from a personality trait into a mental disorder that warrants drug treatment. Drug companies already target children, who fidget too much in class or have trouble concentrating on their homework, with stimulant drugs for treating attention deficit disorder. Now children who sit too quietly or are more withdrawn than their peers will also be targeted with medication for social anxiety disorder or depression.

These new guidelines increase the likelihood that children, who tend to be quiet or sad, will be diagnosed with depression. And children who talk back to adults or lose their temper frequently may be diagnosed with what is called oppositional defiant disorder. A diagnose in either case will likely lead to treatment with powerful psychotropic drugs.

Serious Risks for Children who take Psychiatric Drugs

The idea of turning every spectrum of human emotion into some kind of mental disorder is not only absurd, but it also threatens the long-term mental and physical health of our children.

Millions of children are currently taking one or more behavior-altering medications, despite the fact that these drugs carry the risk of serious side effects. Some of these side effects include suicidal thinking, loss of appetite, nausea, insomnia, sedation, seizures, insulin resistance, acne, tremors, muscle stiffness and more.

Some psychologists also point out that simply drugging children for behaving out of the norm could actually be masking very serious underlying problems. Children, who are the victims of mental, physical or sexual abuse, will often exhibit behaviors such as shyness, sadness or being more withdrawn. These experts warn that trying to seek a quick-fix for negative emotions denies children what they truly need: long-term care and guidance.

Who stands to profit from expanding the guidelines for diagnosable mental disorders? The answer is quite simple: the pharmaceutical companies which manufacture the drugs for treating these conditions. However, when we start labeling children as disordered for simply being quieter than their peers or having an occasional angry outburst, we are stepping into dangerous territory that threatens the future of an entire generation and beyond.

Sources for this article include:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/a…

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/h…

http://www.sciencedaily.com/release…

http://www.aboutourkids.org/article…

About the author:

Elizabeth Walling is a freelance writer specializing in health and family nutrition. She is a strong believer in natural living as a way to improve health and prevent modern disease. She enjoys thinking outside of the box and challenging common myths about health and wellness. You can visit her blog to learn more:
www.livingthenourishedlife.com/2009…

Read the article here:  http://www.naturalnews.com/033778_shy_children_psychiatric_drugs.html

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Ron Paul Reintroduces The Parental Consent Act 2011! Prohibits Federal Funding For Psychiatric ‘Screening’ of Kids

Tuesday, August 9th, 2011

Congressman Ron Paul has re-introduced  The Parental Consent Act ,  A bill which prohibits federal funds from being used to establish or implement any universal or mandatory mental health, psychiatric, or socioemotional screening program.

Click Video for more information on the Parental Consent Act

Sign the petition in support of the Parental Consent Act here: http://www.petitiononline.com/rppca/petition.html

Bill information:  The Parental Consent Act 2011 (H.R. 2769 – previously H.R. 2218  in 2009) Prohibits federal education funds from being used to pay any local educational agency or other instrument of government that uses the refusal of a parent or legal guardian to provide consent to mental health screening as the basis of a charge of child abuse, child neglect, medical neglect, or education neglect until the agency or instrument demonstrates that it is no longer using such refusal as a basis of such charge.

Defines a screening program under this Act as any mental health screening program in which a set of individuals is automatically screened without regard to whether there was a prior indication of a need for mental health treatment, including: (1) any program of state incentive grants to implement recommendations in the July 2003 report of the New Freedom Commission on Mental Health, the State Early Childhood Comprehensive System, grants for TeenScreen, and the Foundations for Learning Grants; and (2) any student mental health screening program that allows mental health screening of individuals under 18 years of age without the express, written, voluntary, informed consent of the parent or legal guardian of the individual involved.

Ron Paul speech given on April 30, 2009 on his bill, The Parental Consent Act (formerly H.R. 2218, now  reintroduced as H.R. 2769 ):

Madam Speaker, I rise to introduce the Parental Consent Act. This bill forbids Federal funds from being used for any universal or mandatory mental-health screening of students without the express, written, voluntary, informed consent of their parents or legal guardians. This bill protects the fundamental right of parents to direct and control the upbringing and education of their children.

The New Freedom Commission on Mental Health has recommended that the federal and state governments work toward the implementation of a comprehensive system of mental-health screening for all Americans. The commission recommends that universal or mandatory mental-health screening first be implemented in public schools as a prelude to expanding it to the general public. However, neither the commission’s report nor any related mental-health screening proposal requires parental consent before a child is subjected to mental-health screening. Federally-funded universal or mandatory mental-health screening in schools without parental consent could lead to labeling more children as “ADD” or “hyperactive” and thus force more children to take psychotropic drugs, such as Ritalin, against their parents’ wishes.

Already, too many children are suffering from being prescribed psychotropic drugs for nothing more than children’s typical rambunctious behavior. According to Medco Health Solutions, more than 2.2 million children are receiving more than one psychotropic drug at one time. In fact, according to Medico Trends, in 2003, total spending on psychiatric drugs for children exceeded spending on antibiotics or asthma medication.

Many children have suffered harmful side effects from using psychotropic drugs. Some of the possible side effects include mania, violence, dependence, and weight gain. Yet, parents are already being threatened with child abuse charges if they resist efforts to drug their children. Imagine how much easier it will be to drug children against their parents’ wishes if a federally-funded mental-health screener makes the recommendation.

Universal or mandatory mental-health screening could also provide a justification for stigmatizing children from families that support traditional values. Even the authors of mental-health diagnosis manuals admit that mental-health diagnoses are subjective and based on social constructions. Therefore, it is all too easy for a psychiatrist to label a person’s disagreement with the psychiatrist’s political beliefs a mental disorder. For example, a federally-funded school violence prevention program lists “intolerance” as a mental problem that may lead to school violence. Because “intolerance” is often a code word for believing in traditional values, children who share their parents’ values could be labeled as having mental problems and a risk of causing violence. If the mandatory mental-health screening program applies to adults, everyone who believes in traditional values could have his or her beliefs stigmatized as a sign of a mental disorder. Taxpayer dollars should not support programs that may label those who adhere to traditional values as having a “mental disorder.”

Madam Speaker, universal or mandatory mental-health screening threatens to undermine parents’ right to raise their children as the parents see fit. Forced mental-health screening could also endanger the health of children by leading to more children being improperly placed on psychotropic drugs, such as Ritalin, or stigmatized as “mentally ill” or a risk of causing violence because they adhere to traditional values. Congress has a responsibility to the nation’s parents and children to stop this from happening. I, therefore, urge my colleagues to cosponsor the Parental Consent Act.

For more information on the Parental Consent Act watch this video featuring Kent Snyder, Ron Paul’s Presidential campaign manager 2008, and former Executive Director of the Liberty Committee  http://www.cchrint.org/videos/experts/ron-pauls-parental-consent-act-of-2009/

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Grief is most definitely not a mental illness

Thursday, April 21st, 2011

The Daily News,  April 21, 2011

by Wendy Pratt

Those of us working at Nanaimo Hospice were shocked at this headline. The proposed revisions to the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders designating grief as a mental illness leaves us wondering if we, as humans, have lost our way. And although I am not a cynical person, one has to wonder who is behind this kind of move to “medicalize” grief — who would benefit most?

Let me be clear — grief is not a mental disorder. It is a natural reaction to a life transition that we must all face many times over a lifetime.

At hospice we know that accessing the right support and having someone to reassure you that you are not “going crazy” and that the emotions and physical symptoms you are experiencing are normal makes a huge difference.

What troubled me most was a quote by Dr. Allen Frances who is, in fact, against changes to the DSM, but who says, “the DSM already allows the diagnosis of major depression soon after a loss if the grief symptoms are severe — when the bereaved becomes incapacitated, suicidal, or psychotic.”

No one is going to disagree with psychoses — but incapacitation and suicidal ideation are not uncommon in the people hospice supports through their grief.

Some losses just seem too hard to move through, but we know that when people access our services, healing is possible.

I am reminded of a gentleman who was ready to end his life just days after his wife died. He came to hospice as the home care nurse’s urging. He was sure we could not help. After nine months of support he sent a card signed “from a reluctant client, you saved my life — thank you.”

A year and a half later he was planning his wedding to someone who had also suffered a loss. Together they honoured and celebrated the memories of their lost spouses at the same time as they were building a new life filled with hope and happiness.

As author Dr. Alan Wofelt once said, “grief is the price we pay for loving deeply.”   We concur.

http://www.canada.com/Grief+most+definitely+mental+illness/4654257/story.html

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Psychiatrists Want To Label Grief a Mental Disorder

Monday, April 18th, 2011
The Montreal Gazette, April 18, 2011
By Sharon April 18, 2011

"This is a disaster," says Frances, a renowned U.S. psychiatrist who chaired the task force that wrote the current edition of the DSM

Human grief could soon be diagnosed as a mental disorder under a proposal critics fear could lead to mood-altering pills being pushed for “mourning.”

Psychiatrists charged with revising the official “bible” of mental illness are recommending changes that would make it easier for doctors to diagnose major depression in the newly bereaved.

Instead of having to wait months, the diagnosis could be made two weeks after the loss of a loved one.

The current edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders – an influential tome used the world over – excludes people who have recently suffered a loss from being diagnosed with a major depressive disorder unless his or her symptoms persist beyond two months. It’s known as the “grief exclusion,” the theory being that “normal” grief shouldn’t be labelled a mental disorder.

But in what critics have called a potentially disastrous suggestion tucked among the proposed changes to the manual, “grief exclusion” would be eliminated from the DSM.

Proponents argue that major depression is major depression, that it makes little difference whether it comes on after the loss of a loved one, the loss of a job, the loss of a marriage or any other major life stressor. Eliminating “grief exclusion” would help people get treatment sooner than they otherwise would.

But critics fear that those experiencing completely expectable symptoms of grief would be labelled mentally “sick.” Dr. Allen Frances says the proposal would pathologize a normal human emotion and could bring on even wider prescribing of moodaltering pills.

“This is a disaster,” says Frances, a renowned U.S. psychiatrist who chaired the task force that wrote the current edition of the DSM, which is now undergoing its fifth revision. “Say you lose someone you love and two weeks later you feel sad, can’t sleep well, and have reduced interest, appetite, and energy. These five symptoms are completely typical of normal grieving, but DSM-5 would instead label you with a mental disorder.”

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New “Study” Claiming Brain Differences in “Troubled Teens” is Totally Bogus—

Friday, April 1st, 2011

Perhaps the press should read study conclusions before coming up with their headlines. Just a thought.The press are ranting today about a “new study” that shows boys with “Conduct Disorder” or “antisocial behavior” have differences in “size and structure of their brain” that is linked to their behavior.

Before we point out just how lame this new study is on a scientific level – let’s start with the fact that it was was funded by Wellcome Trust. If the name Wellcome sounds familiar it’s because  it was named after, and established in order to administer the fortune of American born pharmaceutical giant, Sir Henry Wellcome (Glaxo-Wellcome later became GlaxoSmithKline).

Secondly, let’s look at the “study” and break it down. This  marketing campaign study took 65 male adolescents with the diagnoses of “conduct disorder” and compared it to a group of 27 male “healthy” adolescents (just over 1/3 the size of the conduct disorder group), and scanned their brains for changes. The first omitted datum in this “study”  is that there is no mention of previous psych drug usage/history which is documented to cause changes in brain chemistry— -if these 65 males were already diagnosed with “Conduct Disorder” how do we know whether they were taking drugs documented to cause brain changes – such as Antipsychotics—documented to cause brain atrophy (shrinkage).

In the conclusion on the first page of the study they say: “Brain structural abnormalities may contribute to the emergence of adolescent-onset as well as early-onset conduct disorder.”
okayyy…. another “may”  “might” “we believe” but no scientific evidence.  Now we’d let this slide if this was the first or second, or fiftieth psychiatric study to say “may,” but they all say may.  Yet the press are touting this study as if it were proven, conclusive, fact.  Take a look at these headlines—”Teens with severe antisocial behavior have smaller brain structures” “Brain Scans Show Differences in Troubled Teens”  “Troubled Teens Have Underdeveloped Brains.”

Really? They do?  Apparently the press were too busy to read the actual CONCLUSION of the study which stated,
“In common with the vast majority of neuroimaging studies of psychiatric disorders, our findings are cross-sectional, meaning we cannot infer that the structural abnormalities observed in individuals with early- or adolescent-onset conduct disorder have played a causal role in the etiology [the cause of a disease]  of their antisocial or violent behavior.”

Get it? They can’t prove anything. They can’t even “infer” anything.   So once again, to the press running these bogus studies as fact — try reading the study next time.

The most obvious thing the public can learn from this study is this—even when they fail miserably to prove anything, psycho/pharma can get the press spinning their failure into a success story.
—CCHR

(Reuters Life!) – Brain scans of aggressive, antisocial teenage boys with the condition known as conduct disorder have found differences in the size and structure of parts of the brain that may be linked to their behavior.

A study by British scientists showed the differences were there regardless of the age at which the patients developed the disorder — a finding which challenges the view that adolescents who develop conduct disorder are merely imitating badly behaved peers and do not have differences in their brains.

Conduct disorder (CD) is a psychiatric condition characterized by higher than normal levels of aggressive and antisocial behavior. It is more common in boys than girls, can develop in childhood or in adolescence, and experts say it affects around five out of every 100 teenagers. Children and adolescents with CD are at greater risk of developing further mental and physical health problems when they are adults.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/04/01/us-teenage-brain-scans-idUSTRE7304WO20110401

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25 Good Reasons Why Psychiatry Must Be Abolished

Monday, March 21st, 2011

by Don Weitz, Psychiatric Survivor & 24-year activist in the psychiatric liberation movement

1. Because psychiatrists frequently cause harm, permanent disabilities, death – death of the body-mind-spirit.

2. Because psychiatrists frequently violate the Hippocratic Oath which orders all physicians “First Do No Harm.”

3. Because psychiatrists patronize and dis-empower people, especially their patients.

4. Because psychiatry is not a medical science.

5. Because psychiatry is quackery, a pseudo-science which lacks independent diagnostic tests, testable hypotheses, and cures for “schizophrenia” and all other types of alleged “mental illness” or “mental disorder”.

6. Because psychiatrists can not accurately and reliably predict dangerousness, violence, or any other type of human behaviour, yet make such claims as “expert witnesses”, and with the media promote the “dangerous mental patient” myth/stereotype.

7. Because psychiatrists have caused a worldwide epidemic of brain damage by promoting and prescribing brain-disabling treatments such as the neuroleptics, antidepressants, electroconvulsive brainwashing (electroshock), and psychosurgery (lobotomy).

8. Because psychiatrists manufacture hundreds of “mental disorders” classified in its bible called “Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders” (a modern witch-hunting manual); such “mental disorders” and “symptoms” are in fact negative, class-and-culturally-biased moral judgments for dissident ways of coping with personal problems and alternative ways of perceiving, interpreting or being in the world.

9. Because psychiatrists, blinded by their medical model bias, fraudulently pathologize and label people’s serious life or existential crises as “symptoms” of “mental illness” or “mental disorder” such as “schizophrenia”, “bipolar affective disorder”, and “personality disorder”.

10. Because psychiatrists compound this fraud by falsely claiming, without scientific proof, that these “mental disorders” are caused by a “biochemical imbalance” in the brain, genetic factors or “genetic predispositions”, despite the fact that there are no genetic factors in “mental illness”.

11. Because psychiatrists frequently misinform their patients, families and the public by claiming that brain-disabling procedures such as the neurotoxins (e.g., “antipsychotic medication” and “antidepressants”), electroconvulsive brainwashing (electroconvulsive therapy/”ECT”), psychosurgery (lobotomy) and other behaviour modification-mind control procedures are “safe, effective and lifesaving”.  The exact opposite is tragically true.

12. Because psychiatrists routinely deceive or lie to patients, prisoners, their families, and the public.

13. Because psychiatrists routinely and willfully violate the medical-ethical principle of “informed consent” by misinforming or not informing their patients about the numerous toxic, disabling and frequently permanent effects of the neuroleptics such as memory loss, tardive dyskinesia, tardive psychosis, parkinsonism, dementia (all signs of brain damage), and death.

14. Because psychiatrists routinely threaten, intimidate or coerce many patients – particularly women, children, the elderly, and prisoners – into consenting to health-threatening/brain-damaging “treatment” such as the antidepressants, neuroleptics, electroconvulsive brainwashing, and hi-risk experiments.

15. Because psychiatrists frequently fail to fully inform psychiatric inmates and prisoners about existing safe and humane, non-medical alternatives in the community such as survivor-controlled crisis centres, drop-ins, self-help or advocacy groups, diet, massage, wholistic medicine, affordable supportive housing, and jobs.

16. Because psychiatrists are sexist in frequently stereotyping women in crisis as “hysterical” or “over-emotional”, blaming women whenever they voice real complaints and assertively express their feelings and emotions, prescribing massive doses of tranquilizers and antidepressants to disproportionately large numbers of women, and in sexually assaulting women in their offices and institutions.

17. Because psychiatrists, particularly white male psychiatrists, are homophobic – the American Psychiatric Association (APA) once labelled homosexuality as a “mental illness” or “mental disorder” – and have used forced electroshock on lesbians, trying to coerce them into adopting a heterosexual life style.

18. Because psychiatrists are ageist in prescribing tranquilizers, antidepressants (“medication”) and electroconvulsive brainwashing for disproportionately large numbers of elderly people – a form of elder abuse.

19. Because psychiatrists are racist in disproportionately incarcerating and drugging people of African descent, aboriginal people, other people of colour and labelling them “psychotic” or “schizophrenic”.

20. Because psychiatrists routinely violate people’s civil rights, human rights and constitutional rights such as imprisoning innocent people without court trial or public hearing (“involuntary commitment”), and subjecting them to cruel and unusual punishments or tortures such as forced drugging, electroconvulsive brainwashing, psychosurgery, solitary confinement, “chemical restraints”, and 4-point or 5-point restraints.

21. Because psychiatrists masterminded the mass murder of hundreds of thousands of vulnerable people including disabled children, the elderly and psychiatric patients during The Holocaust in Nazi Germany, and “selected” hundreds of thousands of concentration camp prisoners for death (“T-4 euthanasia” program) – historical facts still missing in psychiatric textbooks and histories.

22. Because psychiatrists have willingly participated in and administered mind-control experiments in the United States and Canada since the early 1950s – its chief targets have been poor patients, women, dissidents and prisoners.

23. Because psychiatry, particularly institutional-biological psychiatry, is based on the 3 Fs: Fear, Fraud, and Force.

24. Because psychiatry is a form of social control or punishment – not treatment.

25. Because psychiatry, particularly institutional-biological psychiatry, is fascist – a direct threat to democracy, human rights and life.

A note from the author: This statement is a slightly revised version of the original written in spring 1998.  Feel free to add and publish your own reasons.  I am a psychiatric survivor and antipsychiatry activist who has been involved in the psychiatric survivor liberation movement for 24 years.  I am also co-editor of “Shrink Resistant: The Struggle Against Psychiatry in Canada” (1988), host-producer of the antipsychiatry program “Shrinkrap” on CKLN radio (88.1 FM) in Toronto, member of People Against Coercive Treatment (P.A.C.T.), and member of the Ontario Coalition Against Poverty (OCAP).

PLEASE SNOWBALL, COPY AND PUBLISH THIS STATEMENT INCLUDING THE NOTE. NO COPYRIGHT OR PERMISSION REQUIRED.

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Shrinks on the couch as they ponder who is and is not crazy

Thursday, March 17th, 2011

Business Day – March 17, 2011

by Marika Sboros

At the heart of this matter is a nasty predilection some psychiatrists have for medicalising normality

Diagnosis is a slippery slope. It involves concepts that are virtually impossible to define precisely with bright lines at the boundaries

SOME psychiatrists — the ones who don’t believe they are godlike creatures — are in a bit of a tizz these days. They are worried about all the damage they might have unwittingly done by misdiagnosing mental illness.

Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi could help to ease their furrowed brows.

Some background, before I explain that apparent non-sequitur: In a soul-searching analysis of his profession in Wired magazine recently, US psychiatrist Dr Allen Frances declares that mental disorders “can’t be defined”, and it’s “bull—-” to suggest otherwise.

Frances is lead editor of the DSM-IV, the fourth edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. It’s a publication that has been described as “the bible” and “the imperial doctrine” of psychiatrists.

It’s what shrinks use, in their godlike wisdom, to decide whether or not you are mentally ill — and then to prescribe powerful, dangerous drugs, and other treatments that can turn you into a shadow of your former self.

In the gut-wrenching Wired article, Frances says: “We psychiatrists have made mistakes that had terrible consequences.”

In particular, he believes the manual has inadvertently facilitated the massive increase in recent years of diagnoses of autism, attention deficit disorders and bipolar depression — that used to be called manic depression, because of the manic swings in mood that characterise the condition.

He believes psychiatrists largely bear the responsibility for a massive increase in child bipolar diagnoses, and an epidemic of prescriptions for dangerous, antipsychotic drugs for very young children — below the age of five.

At the heart of this matter is a nasty predilection some psychiatrists have for medicalising normality, or as Wired writer Gary Greenberg says of the DSM, “to chalk up life’s difficulties to mental illness, and then treat them with psychiatric drugs”.

After all, it’s one thing to be thought of as having the blues after a protracted period of difficulty in your life. It’s quite another to be diagnosed as nuts. Mental illness is a serious diagnosis, aggravated by the burden of stigma that weighs down those deemed to have it. It wreaks havoc on lives, families, reputations and careers.

Yet diagnosis is a slippery slope. It involves concepts that “are virtually impossible to define precisely with bright lines at the boundaries”, says Frances.

He has accused colleagues “not just of bad science, but of bad faith, hubris, and blindness, of making diseases out of everyday suffering and, as a result, padding the bottom lines of drug companies”, as Greenberg so eloquently puts it.

Frances has joined forces with Dr Robert Spitzer, editor of the previous edition DSM-III, to prevent the current DSM-V from bulldozing its way down the same damaging path.

That’s a battle they look unlikely to win, given the power of the vested interests involved. And while this may all seem a little in-medical-house, it has implications for the many at the mercy of psychiatrists.

Frances fears the DSM will continue the “wholesale imperial medicalisation of normality”. It may create yet another bonanza for the pharmaceutical industry with a proposed, new “pre-psychotic disorder” — as if the manual doesn’t contain enough disorders from which pharmaceutical companies can make massive profits.

Of course, there’s nothing new about the idea that psychiatry is unscientific. The most famous proponent of that is US psychiatrist Dr Thomas Szaz, professor emeritus of psychiatry at the State University of New York Health Science Centre since 1990.

Szaz put his iconoclastic views forward in his books, The Myth of Mental Illness, published in 1960, and 10 years later in The Manufacture of Madness: A comparative study of the inquisition and the mental health movement.

These are damning critiques from a fine mind on psychiatry’s moral and scientific foundations — and mania for social control.

But what, you might ask, has this to do with Gaddafi?

Well, the Libyan leader is nothing if not a fascinating specimen, psychiatrically speaking, and an argument for the existence of mental illness. After all, if something looks like a duck, acts like a duck, walks like a duck, sounds like a duck, it’s a duck.

Gaddafi looks, acts, sounds and struts around like a madman. He provides a veritable smorgasbord of disorders guaranteed to titillate the mental tastebuds of orthodox psychiatrists, and have them reaching for their prescription pads in a flash.

Gaddafi, according to DSM specifications, could be diagnosed with borderline personality disorder — psychobabble psychiatrists have dreamt up to pigeonhole people who don’t or won’t do as others expect them to do.

He’s more likely to be diagnosed with into-the-abyss megalomania, paranoia, psychopathy, with a hint of schizophrenia.

Szaz might argue that Gaddafi’s madness is manufactured, a product of the toxic environment he created over the 42 years of his rule, wallowing in the absolute power that corrupts body and mind absolutely.

His bloated, puffy, sallow complexion suggests bad diet, and other unhealthy lifestyle habits that may contribute to the misfiring of neurons in his grey matter. Yet I doubt even the humane and holistic treatment methods Szaz advocates could bring Gaddafi back from the mad brink to anything resembling rational, normal, decent behaviour.

Marika Sboros is Health News editor.

http://www.businessday.co.za/articles/Content.aspx?id=137544

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Federal disability program induces child drugging in low-income families

Wednesday, January 5th, 2011

NaturalNews Jan 5, 2010
by Monica C. Young

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.

(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.

The article’s author, Patricia Wen, reports this has, “created, for many needy parents, a financial motive to seek prescriptions for powerful drugs for their children. And once a family gets on SSI, it can be very hard to let go.” A child diagnosed with ADHD and forced onto a daily med regimen yields $700 a month, which can be more than half the family’s income.

It is not surprising then that children of poor families are diagnosed and prescribed psychiatric drugs at a higher rate than in higher-income families. This system encourages needy parents to obtain psychiatric labels for their kids and keep them medicated. It also discourages healthy alternatives and deters improvement. If a clinician finds the child no longer meets prescription requirements for depression, hyperactivity, study difficulties or such, that assurance of a monthly check is gone.

One unemployed single mother, seeing other medicated boys in the community become “zombie-like”, had resisted advice to medicate her three sons for oppositional defiant disorder and other alleged problems. Her applications for SSI were rejected. Strapped financially and after strong urgings from school officials, she finally conceded to a drug for her 10-year-old for his impulsiveness. Within weeks her SSI application was approved. “To get the check,” she confided to the Globe, “you’ve got to medicate the child.”

Still, she hopes to get her son off the drugs as soon as possible and keeps on hand as a favorite article: “What if Einstein had been on Ritalin?”

The Boston Globe’s report (see Sources below) is well worth reading in full.

Another point to note however is the parallel to drug company revenue. While SSI payouts for behavioral issues rocketed since the ’90s, so have drug profits. Pharmaceutical sales shot up from $40 billion in 1990 to $234 billion in 2008. The drug industry’s vast front network of mental health advocates lobby at every opportunity for government backing of their child medicating campaign.

Common vagaries of growing up — the frustrations, defiances, mood swings, spontaneity — have been redefined into psychiatric “disorders”. With some 15 million kids reportedly having “learning disabilities”, this points to a failure with the schools, not the students.

The truly “mentally disordered” it seems are drug makers and cohorts who push parents to believe this myth and comply with drugging their children.

The tragic victims are the kids. This adult (not youth) lunacy endangers children’s health and can crush their self-esteem and derail their future. Not only are they led onto a life of drug dependency and serious side effects, they are also convinced there is something innately wrong with them — a lie.

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What’s A Mental Disorder? Even Experts Can’t Agree

Thursday, December 30th, 2010
The definitions for some mental illnesses may change.

Mark Strozier/iStockphoto.com

NPR— December 29, 2010

by Alix Spiegel

The American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, or DSM, updated roughly every 15 years, has detailed descriptions of all the mental disorders officially recognized by psychiatry. It’s used by psychiatrists, insurance companies, drug researchers, the courts and even schools.

But it’s not without controversy: The proposed changes suggested this year have sparked a kind of civil war within psychiatry.

In a small condo on the beach in San Diego lives Allen Frances, who blames himself for what he calls the “Epidemic of Asperger’s.” Frances edited the last edition of the DSM, and he’s also the new DSM’s most prominent critic. Frances is the one who put the word Asperger’s in the DSM in the first place, thereby making it an official mental disorder.

In the editions before Frances was editor, there was an entry for autism, but it was defined by severe symptoms. Frances says doctors felt the diagnosis for autism didn’t cover a more mild disorder they were actually encountering.

“Pediatricians and child psychiatrists would see kids who could talk but who had social discomfort — severe social discomfort — and awkwardness and a very restricted and impairing level of interests and activities, and they wanted a diagnosis for this,” Frances says.

A study was done to figure out how common Asperger’s was, and the results were clear: It was vanishingly rare. Then Frances put it in the DSM, and the number of kids diagnosed with the disorder exploded. Frances remembers sitting in his condo reading articles about this new epidemic of Asperger’s that was sweeping the nation.

“At that point I did an ‘oops,’ ” he says. “This is a complete misunderstanding. It was distressing. Quite distressing.”

Ellen Webber/NPR

Surprising Incentives

It’s not that Frances doesn’t think that Asperger’s exists and is a real problem for some people; he does. But he also believes the diagnosis is now radically overused in a way that he and his colleagues never intended. And why, in his view, did Asperger’s explode? Primarily, Frances says, because schools created a strange unintentional incentive.

“In order to get specialized services, often one-to-one education, a child must have a diagnosis of Asperger’s or some other autistic disorder,” he says.

“And so kids who previously might have been considered on the boundary, eccentric, socially shy, but bright and doing well in school would mainstream [into] regular classes,” Frances says. “Now if they get the diagnosis of Asperger’s disorder, [they] get into a special program where they may get $50,000 a year worth of educational services.”

Disturbing Consequences

Frances worried this might cause a misallocation of school resources. And Frances points to another change he made — which, for him, has had even more disturbing consequences. Essentially, Frances and his colleagues made it much easier to get a diagnosis of bipolar disorder. And he says that created this incredible opportunity for drug companies.

“Drug companies got indications for treating bipolar disorder,” Frances says. “Not just with mood stabilizers, but also with the newer antipsychotic drugs. And they began very intensive ubiquitous advertising campaigns. So the rates of bipolar disorder doubled. And lots of people got way too much antipsychotic and mood stabilizing medicines. And these aren’t safe drugs.”

And for Frances, the lesson of these experiences is clear. Once you put a new diagnosis in the DSM, there is no controlling what will happen to it. So there’s only one thing to do:

“Anticipate the worst. If something can be misused, it will be misused,” Frances says. “If diagnosis can lead to overdiagnosis and overtreatment, that will happen. So you need to be very, very cautious in making changes that may open the door for a flood of fad diagnoses.”

As far as Frances is concerned, the new DSM is proposing too many diagnoses that are written in too broad a way, meaning that ultimately a huge number of new people will be categorized as mentally ill.

Read the rest of the article here: http://www.npr.org/2010/12/29/132407384/whats-a-mental-disorder-even-experts-cant-agree

To read statements from other psychiatrists/psychologists on the lack of science to support mental disorders as legitimate “illnesses” click here:
http://www.cchrint.org/psychiatric-disorders/psychiatrists-on-lack-of-any-medical-or-scientific-tests/

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