Posts Tagged ‘psychotherapy’

Hooked on SSRIs:Antidepressant Use Doubles in the U.S.—Drugs not improving mental health but suicide rates are climbing

Thursday, June 17th, 2010

Natural News
By David Gutierrez
June 17, 2010

Antidepressant use more than doubled in the United States between 1996 and 2005, according to a study conducted by researchers from the University of Columbia and University of Pennsylvania and published in the Archives of General Psychiatry.

“Significant increases in antidepressant use were evident across all sociodemographic groups examined, except African Americans,” the researchers wrote. “Not only are more U.S. residents being treated with antidepressants, but also those who are being treated are receiving more antidepressant prescriptions.”

The number of people being treated with antidepressants increased from 13 million in 1996 to 27 million in 2005, rising from 6 percent to 10 percent of the population. More than 164 million antidepressant prescriptions were given out in 2008, generating $9.8 billion for pharmaceutical companies.

Not only selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) like Prozac have seen rises in use, but also other varieties of antidepressant and psychoactive drugs.

“During this period, individuals treated with antidepressants became more likely to also receive treatment with antipsychotic medications and less likely to undergo psychotherapy,” the researchers wrote.

Read entire article:  http://www.naturalnews.com/029010_antidepressants_SSRI.html

« Return to news items

RSS News Feed

Share

Tags: , , , , , , ,
Posted in News | No Comments »

The Psychopharmaceutical Industrial Complex—creating epidemic of mental illness through psychiatry’s chemical imbalance hoax

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

Dissident Voice
By Evelyn Pringle
June 8, 2010

For the past two decades, the Psychopharmaceutical Industrial Complex has been the driving force behind the epidemic of mental illness in the United States with the promotion of biological psychiatry and a bogus “chemical imbalance” in the brain theory.

The Psychopharmaceutical Industrial Complex (PPIC) is a symbiotic system composed of the American Psychiatric Association, the pharmaceutical industry, public relations and advertising firms, patient support organizations, the National Institute of Mental Health, managed care organizations, and the flow of resources and money among these groups, according to an October 1, 2009 paper in the Journal of Mental Health Counseling, by Dr Thomas Murray, director of Counseling and Disability Services at the University of North Caroline School of Art.

Murray’s paper draws parallels between cult indoctrination and PPIC techniques and notes the similarities between cult members and mental health consumers who are vulnerable to losing their identities to the PPIC.

The PPIC and “its adherence to the disease model pervades mainstream culture and greatly impacts psychotherapy,” he says. “Consequently, the effects of the PPIC may have resulted in some psychiatric consumers adopting disease-model messages in ways similar to cult indoctrination.”

“Consumer adoption of the disease model can create obstacles to treatment when hope is fundamental,” he advises.

Murray says his most difficult cases “involve clients who have in essence been drawn into the PPIC and have become resigned to the disease model with little sense of empowerment to overcome their emotional problems.”

“These are the consumers who have little self-efficacy and little hope that they have options other than to suffer,” he reports.

“Insurance companies rely on pharmaceuticals to contain costs (and limit psychotherapy sessions), and reimbursement depends on a diagnosis of a diseased brain,” Murray notes.

Read entire article:  http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/06/tracking-the-american-epidemic-of-mental-illness-part-iii/

« Return to news items

RSS News Feed

Share

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in News | No Comments »

The Portland Press Herald: Psychiatric Drugging of American Children is Cause for Alarm

Monday, May 3rd, 2010

The use of powerful drugs to treat younger and younger patients has gone far beyond disturbing.

The Portland Press Herald
By Leigh Donaldson
May 3, 2010

The age of children being medicated with prescription psychiatric drugs is getting younger and more widespread every year.

According to a 2010 study of data on more than a million children reported by American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry’s journal, the use of powerful anti-psychotics with privately insured U.S. children, ages 2 through 5, doubled between 1999 and 2007.

In the 2007 study, the most common diagnoses of anti-psychotic treated children were pervasive developmental disorder or mental retardation (28.2 percent), attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (23.7 percent) and disruptive behavior disorder (12.9 percent).

Fewer than half of drug-treated children received a mental health assessment, a psychotherapy visit, or a visit with a psychiatrist, during the year of anti-psychotic drug use.

“Anti-psychotics, which are being widely and irresponsibly prescribed for American children — mostly as chemical restraints — are shown to be causing irreparable harm.” Vera Hassner Sharav, president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection, warns. She further asserts that long-term use of these drugs can have hazardous effects on cardiovascular and metabolic systems.

Dr. Peter Breggin, founder of the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology and author of “Medication Madness,” characterizes anti-depressants, stimulants, mood stabilizers and anti-psychotic substances as bathing the brains of growing children with agents that threaten the normal development of the brain.

Highlighting the controversial nature of medicating American children is the recent death of Rebecca Riley, a 4-year-old Boston girl diagnosed with ADHD and pediatric bipolar disorder at 28 months of age.

According to a medical examiner, she died from the effects of a combination of Clonidine, a blood pressure medication prescribed for ADHD, Depakote, an anti-seizure and a mood stabilizer for her bipolar disorder, as well as a cough suppressant and an antihistamine.

Read entire article:  http://www.pressherald.com/opinion/psychiatric-drugging-of-american-children-is-cause-for-alarm_2010-05-03.html

« Return to news items

RSS News Feed

Share

Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Posted in News | 4 Comments »