I got Vera Sharav’s email today on this topic and asked if I could reprint it. It appears below.
ALLIANCE FOR HUMAN RESEARCH PROTECTION
A Catalyst for Public Debate: Promoting Openness, Full Disclosure, and Accountability
True to an ignoble tradition of lending its “authoritative” front page to promote psychiatry’s most radical experimental approaches to dealing with patients disabled by mental illness, today’s front and center article in The New York Times, “Surgery for Mental Ills Offers Both Hope and Risk,” by Benedict Carey, sends an optimistic positive spin on psychiatry’s current spade of experimental brain surgeries. A large photograph–rather than compelling evidence–attempts to lend the story significance.
The article acknowledges that the new surgeries are not backed by new scientific evidence of their benefit to justify the serious risks involved:
“The great promise of neuroscience at the end of the last century was that it would revolutionize the treatment of psychiatric problems. But the first
real application of advanced brain science is not novel at all. It is a precise, sophisticated version of an old and controversial approach: psychosurgery, in which doctors operate directly on the brain.”
Indeed, Paul Root Wolpe, a medical ethicist at Emory University, acknowledges the high risk experimental procedures that patients are being put through: “We have this idea — it’s almost a fetish — that progress is its own justification, that if something is promising, then how can we not rush to
relieve suffering?” But, Dr. Wolpe reminds readers, “It was not so long ago, he noted, that doctors considered the frontal lobotomy a major advance — only to learn that the operation left thousands of patients with irreversible brain damage. Many promising medical ideas have run aground, and that’s why we have to move very cautiously.”
Despite “large gaps” in the neurosurgeons’ understanding of the brain circuits they are operating on, several surgeries are currently being promoted: cingulotomy, capsulotomy, brain stimulation (DBS), and radiation (gamma knife surgery)–all pose high risk for patients with little demonstrable evidence of success.
In cingulotomy, doctors drill into the skull and thread wires into an area of the brain called the anterior cingulate. “There they pinpoint and destroy
pinches of tissue that lie along a circuit in each hemisphere that connects deeper, emotional centers of the brain to areas of the frontal cortex, where
conscious planning is centered.”
“This circuit appears to be hyperactive in people with severe O.C.D., and imaging studies suggest that the surgery quiets that activity.” The evidence to justify the risks does not exist: neurosurgeons proceed on what ”appears” and imaging studies that “suggest” but do not demonstrate.
In capsulotomy, “surgeons go deeper, into an area called the internal capsule, and burn out spots in a circuit also thought to be overactive.”
Surgeons who perform DBS, sink wires into the brain but leave them in place. “A pacemaker-like device sends a current to the electrodes, apparently
interfering with circuits thought to be hyperactive in people with obsessive-compulsive disorder (and also those with severe depression). The
current can be turned up, down or off, so deep brain stimulation is adjustable and, to some extent, reversible.”
The technique described in the Times article is called gamma knife surgery. “Doctors place the patient in an M.R.I.-like machine that sends beams of radiation into the skull. The beams pass through the brain without causing damage, except at the point where they converge. There they burn out spots of brain tissue…”
Underscoring the danger these latest neurosurgical procedures pose, Dr. Darin D. Dougherty, director of the division of neurotherapeutics at
Massachusetts General Hospital and an associate professor of psychiatry at Harvard, put it more bluntly.” Given the history of failed techniques, like
frontal lobotomy, if this effort somehow goes wrong, it’ll shut down this approach for another hundred years.”
The evidence, from a small long-term follow-up study, reported by the respected Swedish Karolinska Institute in the Archives of General Psychiatry, [1] found that 50% of 25 patients treated with any of the commonly used surgeries for OCD, showed that response rates did not differ significantly between surgical methods.
“Only 3 patients were in remission without adverse effects at long-term follow-up.”
“One of the 9 patients undergoing radiosurgery (patient 20) developed a right-sided radiation necrosis with subsequent apathy, memory problems, and
executive dysfunction. Another (patient 10) developed a brain edema that reached its peak size 1 year after surgery; the patient was hospitalized
with symptoms of apathy, incontinence, and seizures. At long-term follow-up, urinary incontinence, apathy, and executive problems persisted. In both
cases, complications may have been caused by too high a radiation dose. Another patient who underwent multiple thermocapsulotomies (patient 8 ) had persistent urinary incontinence at long-term follow-up. Symptoms of apathy and poor self-control for years afterward.”
“A mean weight gain of 6 kg was reported in the first postoperative year. Ten patients were considered to have significant problems with executive
functioning, apathy, or disinhibition. Six of these 10 patients had received high doses of radiation or had undergone multiple surgical procedures.”
Conclusions: ”Capsulotomy is effective in reducing OCD symptoms. There is a substantial risk of adverse effects, and the risk may vary between surgical methods. Our findings suggest that smaller lesions are safer and that high radiation doses and multiple procedures should be avoided.”
The invariably positive claims made by proponents of neurosurgery are likely explained by the inherent bias of these stakeholders. As Dr. Christian Ruck, the lead author of the Swedish paper, published in the Archives of General Psychiatry correctly notes: “An inherent problem in most research is that innovation is driven by groups that believe in their method, thus introducing bias that is almost impossible to avoid.”
So why, did the New York Times once again, see fit to publicize admittedly high risk, radical surgical procedures that demonstrably cause at least half
of the patients serious long-term debilitating adverse effects that undermine their quality of life? [2]
Reference:
1. Christian Rück, MD, PhD; Andreas Karlsson, MS; J. Douglas Steele, MD,
PhD, MRCPsych; Gunnar Edman, PhD; Björn A. Meyerson, MD, PhD; Kaj Ericson,
MD, PhD; Håkan Nyman, PhD; Marie Åsberg, MD, PhD; Pär Svanborg, MD, PhD
Capsulotomy for Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder: Long-term Follow-up of 25
Patients
Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2008;65(8):914-921.
2. See NYT Archive on psychosurgery:
For example, in 1948, the Times reported: “A revolutionary discovery about
mental illness, which has already resulted in surgical cures with no
apparent ill effects for a group of asylum inmates who had been considered
hopelessly insane, was revealed to a specially called meeting at the New
York Society of Neuro-surgery yesterday.” SURGERY RESTORES ‘INCURABLY’
INSANE: Revolutionary Brain Operation Called Topectomy Removes Tissues in
Certain Areas Mar 19, 1948.
Now in its 18th year, Buy Nothing Day is celebrated every November by environmentalists, social activists and concerned citizens in over 65 countries around the world. Over the years, Buy Nothing Day (followed by Buy Nothing Christmas) has exploded into a global movement, inspiring the world’s citizens to live more simply and buy a whole lot less.
From the last week around the web:
- ‘Mental illness gene’ discovered by Scots scientists I hate this sort of research, not because it’s 100% baseless, while there may be a very loose link to genes and mental health that is worth researching this sort of reporting of the results encourages the belief that one cannot change and that mental illness is forever when in fact the theory of neuroplasticity suggests the opposite. Genes and DNA both are not always deterministic. This sort of stuff shouldn’t be reported unless all the implications are covered. People need to know that DNA and genes are not always deterministic…and there is a huge move to deny people that knowledge. And this partial knowledge leads to the belief that one cannot heal and that one must take meds for the rest of their lives. Both conclusions I’ve seen disproven again and again.
- Wonder drug that stole my memory – Statins have been hailed as a miracle cure for cholesterol, but little is known about their side effects. Also in most cases diet and exercise can change cholesterol enough. What’s more what is considered “high” cholesterol is overblown. There are some instances in which genetics do play and part and it really is a dangerous situation, but in most instances it’s hype that has been created by pharma. One need not take dangerous meds in most cases. Educate yourself before making any decisions.
- Brazilian mint tea ‘as effective as pain-relief drugs’ | Society | guardian.co.uk (the actual herb is “hyptis crenata”)
- BBC News – ‘Doctors should stop pushing drugs at depressed people’ – and cognitive therapy as mentioned in the article is certainly not the only alternative and only sometimes the appropriate alternative. There are as many ways to recovery as there are people.
- Nanoparticles In Everyday Items Caused Genetic Damage In Mice — messing with nature, such a good idea…
- Omega-3 Fats versus Statin Drugs? – Blog – Susan B. Dopart M.S., R.D.
- The Carlat Psychiatry Blog: Brian Vastag’s Concise Review of How Drug Companies Use CME for Marketing
- A tale of two boys – NEC Article an all too common story of destruction juxtaposed with how simple recovery might have been
- Pill-popping approach to female libido | Christine Ottery | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk — Someone talking sense about the female VIAGRA crap. From the article: “However, some are concerned that FSD has been fabricated to monetise women’s sexual insecurities. An article in the journal Sexualities posits that the pharmaceutical industry was looking to replicate the £1bn success of Viagra and so introduced the concept of female sexual dysfunction.”
- BBC News – Morphine ‘might spread cancer’ (all opiate drugs)
- Meditation Halves Risk of Heart Attack Science Now
Those who don’t feel this Love
pulling them like a river,
those who don’t drink dawn
like a cup of spring water
or take in sunset like supper,
those who don’t want to change,
let them sleep.
This Love is beyond the study of theology,
that old trickery and hypocrisy.
If you want to improve your mind that way,
sleep on.
I’ve given up on my brain.
I’ve torn the cloth to shreds
and thrown it away.
If you’re not completely naked,
wrap your beautiful robe of words
around you,
and sleep.
- Rumi
Some of you may be familiar with Jim S, a frequent commenter on this blog in the past. He has an awesome story of recovery and has generously shared it with us here. Check out his extensive website for more details about his recovery and life.
This is a what is becoming a continuing series of stories of recovery on this blog. You can see many more at the tab on the top of the page marked “Recovery Stories.” What is most delightful about them is that recovery happens in many different ways. What is important is that complete recovery is indeed possible.
Thank you very much Jim, for this story and all the effort you have put into wonderful comments on this blog.
Jim’s Story
Right before I was hauled off for a one month stay in a psychiatric ward for bipolar disorder, I was a “Big Man on Campus.” Besides being a party animal, I was on the wrestling team, was an officer in two different fraternities, and was always on the Dean’s list. The biology department had even recommended me for Who’s Who’s in College. I found a girl whom I wanted to marry right after college.
Upon my release from that place, I lost all hope of putting together any sort of life because I came face to face with the stigma of being a former mental patient. All social life evaporated since I was reduced to just sitting in a chair day after day.
Once, I went to the beach, but got severe burns as no one had told me that my medication increasing my sensitivity to sunlight. I still remember the big blisters on my lips.
My pills affected all parts of my life. After a small accident in a small parking lot, I had to give up driving. I took up smoking cigarettes to shorten my life. I had always loved to read, but I was on so much medication to control my delusions that I could not remember anything even after just reading a short sentence. Another side effect of my mixture of meds was tremendous weight gain. My fit, strong body was about the only thing that gave me a sense of pride. All self-esteem disappeared as 100 pounds of fat coated my body. The girl, who supposedly loved me, just stopped all communication. I went to church, did the sacraments, and prayed a lot–but nothing helped–I felt that God had forsaken me.
Because my doctor kept insisting that I was doing good, I acquired the belief that I would never get any better. I planned my suicide with car exhaust in the garage, but I chickened out at the last minute. When that occurred, I really felt like a failure. It is painful to write this.
Months after my release, I returned to college to try to finish my degree, but I just could not handle college. Where before, I felt confident of my academic skills, I now went with the attitude of not pushing myself, just trying to finish. All my close friends had already graduated. It was so embarrassing telling people why I did not graduate when I had such high grades before. So, I once again went home, to sit in a chair. My mind seemed to slow even more. To check my mental alertness, my psychiatrist asked me the date. I could not even come close. I did not even know what month it was, despite his hint of do you remember a Christmas tree. A neighbor took me to the polling place to vote for the candidate whom she was backing. I voted for the opponent, and he won by only 4 votes. That wouldn’t have been that bad, but I did not have sense to not say whom I voted for.
On my website I have detailed the history of my recovery so I will just summarize here what turned my life around. Eventually, my depression lifted a bit (it probably ran its course) I completed my one semester of college in two semesters. I managed to still graduate with honors and after a long time got a teaching job in another state. It sure was hard trying to explain the two year gap in my resume.
I bumbled along in my job. I went after a long term dream–learning martial arts. Taking judo in a local YMCA, I got in better shape, lost some weight, raised my self-esteem. At about the same time, I found some self-help groups where I befriended others who had suffered from mental illness, but recovered. One self-help group, called Recovery, Inc. taught me cognitive therapy. After a few years I participated in weekend training to become a group leader. Early on, I started to write in a journal–I’ve done that for decades. I very slowly cut back on my medication until I was off all medications for bipolar disorder–a few days ago I celebrated 32 years off those mind numbing pills. read more…
This was at the end of a long post from the other day. I wanted to post it alone as I think it’s beautiful and perhaps those of you who are not big readers missed it.
‘Let me emerge with my gift of wisdom
Mysterious experience, a seed in dark soil
I come back from the underworld bearing gifts for the soul
I know how to shine light in a dark place
How to navigate through deep waters
I know how to midwife emotions
I speak the tongues of madness, psychosis
I know the terrains of sadness, hidden meanings, metaphors
I have re-drawn the map of my inner landscape
Transformation, transition
I am shedding skins of inhibitions
I meditate in the holy hedgerow
I died and came back to life
Resuscitated by mother love, unconditional
I can guide you back to light
Deliverance, redemption, grace, my epiphany
I am born again, inside out.’
By Grainne Humphrys
Will Hall will be a contributing editor now here on Beyond Meds. He has written other articles for the blog in the past as well.
Here Will describes the concept of harm reduction. I was drawn to harm reduction models and agencies that practiced such while still a social worker in San Francisco. I only worked for places where such philosophies were in place the last 4 years I was in the Bay Area. This was prior to my own decision to come off meds. I always have been pro-choice and supported my clients in what they wanted. The harm reduction philosophy, in many ways, is what real self-determination is about.
Coming off medications: A harm reduction approach
In 1993 I put locked wards and treatment facilities behind me, and had nowhere to turn. After a year-long stay in the public mental health system, I was left with a diagnosis of schizoaffective disorder schizophrenia but was no better than when I first went for help. Like too many people suffering severe emotional distress, the treatments offered, which included restraints and seclusion, had been traumatizing, not healing.
I was prescribed many different psychiatric drugs during my treatment, but they only made things worse. Prozac helped me for a while, getting me up in the morning and covering my depression with productivity, but then the little green and white pills made me manic and suicidal. I was sick for days after coming off Zoloft, with counselors telling me I was faking it and punishing me for missing group therapy. Nurses who drew blood samples for my lithium levels never explained it was to check for drug toxicity, and I thought that the Navane and other anti-psychotics I took to calm my wild mental states were necessary because of my faulty brain.
The medical professionals who prescribed my medications never made me feel empowered or informed. They didn’t explain how the drugs work, honestly discuss the risks involved, offer alternatives, or help me withdraw when I wanted to stop taking them. Information I needed was missing, incomplete, or inaccurate. When I finally began to learn ways to get better without medication, it wasn’t because of the mental heath system, it was in spite of it. Today I have been medication-free for more than 14 years.
My dissatisfaction with mental health care sparked years of searching for alternatives. In 2001 I co-founded Freedom Center, a peer-run support and activism community. From just one meeting a month and a free email account, Freedom Center quickly grew to become a city-funded volunteer organization that offers a number of different services. Freedom Center has support groups, an acupuncture clinic, advocacy help, writing workshops, and yoga classes. We’ve gained wide recognition for our work, including words of support from the Mayor and a recent profile by Forbes Magazine. We’re a living example of a new way of helping people in need, and we actively call for changes in public policy and traditional care.
Many people in the Freedom Center take medications, many do not, but we all share the need for honest discussion about medication issues and the availability of options and choices, including holistic alternatives. Over the years my Freedom Center colleagues and I have provided counseling to hundreds of people facing difficult medication decisions. Again and again people come to us for help because their medications were not working and they wanted options, but their doctors or therapists were not helpful. We learned that even in liberal Massachusetts, the basic principle of informed consent and education about your treatments is routinely ignored in mental health care. Too often people are left with little real information and few options or choices.
Out of this need we developed a “harm reduction” approach, and recently published the Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs. The 40-page illustrated guide is the information I wish I had had when I was given psychiatric drugs. We’ve made the guide available free on the internet.
International Movement
“Harm reduction” is an international movement in community health education that recognizes there is no single solution to every problem. Abstinence is not necessarily the only way. Applied to sexuality and recreational drug use, instead of pressuring to quit, harm reduction accepts people “where they are at,” and educates them to make informed choices and calculated trade-offs that reduce risk and increase health. People need information, options, resources and support so they can move towards healthier living – at their own pace and on their own terms.
Applying harm reduction philosophy to mental health is a new but growing concept. It means recognizing that people are already taking psychiatric drugs, and already trying to come off them. It encourages examining all the different kinds of risks involved: the potential harm from emotional crisis and psychosis (including losing a job or going to jail), as well as the potential harm from treatments to deal with these experiences, such as psychiatric drugs, diagnostic labels, and hospitalization. Above all it is not either or: it supports continuing to take medication or reducing and going off, depending on the needs of the individual.
Making harm reduction decisions means looking carefully at the risks of all sides of the equation: honesty about what help drugs might offer for a life that feels out of control, honesty about how harmful those same drugs might be, and honesty about options and alternatives. Any decisions may involve a process of experimentation and learning, including learning from your own mistakes. Harm reduction accepts all this, believing that the essence of any healthy life is the capacity to be empowered. Many professionals — including the several forward-thinking psychiatrists and nurses who helped write the Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs — are embracing this view. read more…
Weekend fun.
From one of those emails that tend to be obnoxious:
In a zoo in California, a mother tiger gave birth to a rare set of triplet tiger cubs. Unfortunately, due to complications in the pregnancy, The cubs were born prematurely and due to their tiny size, died shortly after birth. The mother tiger started to decline in health, although physically she was fine. The veterinarians felt that the loss of her litter had caused the tigress to fall into a depression. The doctors decided that if the tigress could surrogate another mother’s cubs, perhaps she would improve. After checking with many other zoos across the country, the depressing news was that there were no tiger cubs of the right age to introduce to the mourning mother. The veterinarians decided to try something that had never been tried in a zoo environment. Sometimes a mother of one species will take on the care of a different species. The only “orphans” that could be found quickly were a litter of wiener pigs. The zoo keepers and vets wrapped the piglets in tiger skin and placed the babies around the mother tiger.
From Z Magazine by Bruce E. Levine. (Permission to reprint from the author)
Liberation Psychology for the U.S. Are we too demoralized to protest?
The term “liberation psychology” was popularized by Ignacio Martin-Baró (1942-1989), the psychologist, priest, and activist who was assassinated in El Salvador by government troops. Martin-Baró focused on the oppression of his fellow Salvadorans, Central Americans, and Latin Americans. It is increasingly apparent that U.S. citizens need Martin-Baró’s insights along with their own special kind of liberation psychology.
Why, in the United States, when the majority of people oppose the taxpayer bailout of the financial industry and the military occupation in Iraq, are the streets not regularly occupied with large numbers of protesters? Given 47 million people in the U.S. without health insurance and many millions more who are underinsured or a job layoff away from losing their coverage, and given the current sellout by their elected officials to the insurance industry, why are there not millions, rather than thousands in Washington, DC protesting this betrayal?
In contrast to the hundreds of thousands of Iranians who risked their lives to protest their disputed 2009 presidential election, few in the United States took to the streets to protest their own disputed 2000 presidential election. The U.S. corporate media, which often fails to report many injustices, did not hide the non-democratic nature of the 2000 presidential election. It reported that Al Gore received, undisputedly, 500,000 more votes than George W. Bush. It reported that the Florida Supreme Court’s order for a recount of the disputed Florida vote was overruled by the U.S. Supreme Court in a politicized 5-4 decision, of which dissenting Justice John Paul Stevens remarked: “Although we may never know with complete certainty the identity of the winner of this year’s presidential election, the identity of the loser is perfectly clear. It is the nation’s confidence in the judge as an impartial guardian of the rule of law.”
When people become broken, they cannot act on truths about injustice or about how they have been victimized by the government-corporate partnership that can lead to shame about how they have allowed it. And shame, like fear, is one more psychological way we become even more broken.
U.S. citizens do not actively protest obvious injustices for the same reasons that people cannot leave their abusive spouses. The more we don’t act, the weaker we get. Ultimately, to deal with the painful humiliation over inaction in the face of an oppressor, we move to shutdown and escape with strategies such as depression, substance abuse, television, and other diversions, which further keep us from acting. This is the vicious cycle of all abuse syndromes.
Liberation psychology is quite different than the prevailing psychology that most U.S. mental health professionals practice—which is to modify, manipulate, and medicate “malcontents” so that they are not monkey wrenches for the industrial order. In addition to Martin-Baró’s insights, the U.S. needs its own version of liberation psychology in which we start by recognizing that the U.S. population has been broken, then understand how this has happened, and then find paths to regain morale, healing, wholeness, and strength. read more…
HOW RICH ARE YOU?
Every year we gaze enviously at the lists of the richest people in world. Wondering what it would be like to have that sort of cash. But where would you sit on one of those lists? Here’s your chance to find out.
If you have the means to be reading this on the computer chances are you are among the richest people in the world.
Sometimes we need a reality check.
Printed with permission from John Breeding. See his website here.
My purpose in this short essay is twofold. The first is to describe my understanding of the nature of psychological distress and emotional healing. The second is to expose the truth about our modern mental health system, call it Psychiatry, which diagnoses citizens as “mentally ill” and “treats” them accordingly.
On Human Nature
My view is that in order to have even the slightest hope of a clear understanding of psychological distress and healing, one has to have an accurate view of human nature. A paramount truth about humans is that we tend to see the world not as it is, but as we are. To a large extent, our beliefs and assumptions determine how and what we perceive around us. Until they are consciously challenged, the beliefs we hold are determined by what we experienced and learned as developing young people. School, religion, and family have all played major roles in affecting how we now see the world.
Let me briefly illustrate this with a few prime examples. In the United States, we have grown up in a mostly Christian culture. Though Christianity is certainly evolving, most of us are still affected by a tendency to believe that we are born in sin, somehow unworthy and needing to be saved. Add to this the impact of Darwin’s ideas about natural selection and the survival-of-the-fittest. This has supported the notion that we need to somehow tame and civilize our naturally aggressive children. Psychology’s emphasis on behaviorism, and a school system designed according to these principles, leads us to see humans as born empty, a so-called tabula rasa or “blank slate” waiting to be written upon. Behavior modification (reward and punishment) becomes a primary tool to shape or condition children to be properly socialized. The worst example is that of biological psychiatry, which I will elucidate towards the end of this essay. The bottom line is that we see others and ourselves as inherently sinful, unworthy, aggressive or empty, and we treat each other accordingly. We live in fear and worry, and we lack trust in ourselves.
My own view, and that of many others, is that humans are glorious beings. Our inherent nature is not fundamentally aggressive, unworthy, lazy, irresponsible or dumb. Nor is it empty. The truth is that we are born highly intelligent, zestfully energetic and naturally inclined toward closeness and affection. Just look with fresh eyes at those awesome babies, when their needs are well met, and you will know that.
On Psychological Distress and Emotional Healing
Where does distress come in? Well, take another look at those babies when their needs are not met. The sweet, delightful being disappears and a contorted, crying or screaming creature arrives. We are born with a wonderful true nature, and we are also very very needy and dependent for a long long time. Our development is complex and we need a lot of help.
The process of psychological distress is really quite simple.
1. Our true nature is intelligent, zestful and loving.
2. When we are hurt physically or emotionally, this causes distress (anger, grief, fear, shame, etc.).
3. Distress interferes with true nature. We become less intelligent and less loving.
That covers most of it. Left unresolved, hurts and distress accumulate, distressing behaviors become chronic, and it becomes easy to see why many people think humans are basically dumb, lazy, irresponsible, and violent.
The good news comes from another aspect of our inherent nature.
4. We have a natural, built-in mechanism, call it emotional discharge, for healing from the effects of hurt.
This healing is accomplished by releasing the effects of the hurt. We discharge hurt and loss by crying, frustration and insult by angry storming, fright by shaking, trembling and sweating, etc. By releasing these distressing emotions, we restore ourselves to our natural intelligence, vitality and loving. We are then able to reconsider and stop living from the unresolved past hurts.
Psychological healing, then, is mostly about finding a safe place and safe people to support the natural process of facing hurts, releasing painful emotion, and letting these things go. This allows an individual to have attention in present time, and to live more and more in the presence of one’s own true nature. read more…
I found this outrageously soothing. Give it a chance if you’ve never heard anything like it before.
It seems some people think that pain is special to them. Their pain is worse than anyone else’s. We all fall victim to that kind of thinking sometime, don’t we? But the truth is that pain belongs to all of us equally and it always passes just like joy. It is a teacher as is all our experience on this planet.
Kahlil Gibran from The Prophet once again:
And a woman spoke, saying, “Tell us of Pain.”
And he said:
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your
understanding.
Even as the stone of the fruit must break, that its heart may stand
in the sun, so must you know pain.
And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your
life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy;
And you would accept the seasons of your heart, even as you have
always accepted the seasons that pass over your fields.
And you would watch with serenity through the winters of your grief.
Much of your pain is self-chosen.
It is the bitter potion by which the physician within you heals your
sick self.
Therefore trust the physician, and drink his remedy in silence and
tranquillity:
For his hand, though heavy and hard, is guided by the tender hand of
the Unseen,
And the cup he brings, though it burn your lips, has been fashioned
of the clay which the Potter has moistened with His own sacred tears.
You can’t be free in any way if you are holding the hand of fear.– Ram Dass
Have compassion for everyone you meet,even if they don’t want it.What appears bad manners, an ill temper or cynicismis always a sign of things no ears have heard,no eyes have seen.You do not know what wars are going on down there where the spirit meets the bone.- Miller Williams
Ordinarily we do not discover the wisdom of our feelings because we do not let them complete their work. – Alan Watts
The more efficient a force is, the more silent and the more subtle it is. Love is the subtlest force in the world. – Gandhi
“Be not afraid of growing slowly, be afraid only of standing still.” — Chinese Proverb
“Puritans, ideologues and extremists all share the same blind spot: the inability to experience delight in ambiguity.” Paul Woodward
If I did not dislike fear, it would not be fear. – Alan Watts
- Metabolic Effects Significantly Lower With INVEGA(R) Compared To Olanzapine — This is NON NEWS we already know that Risperdal has less weight gain/metabolic problems than Zyprexa. This does not mean it’s safe. INVEGA is Risperdal’s patent extender so this is just to pump up business on their new EXPENSIVE still dangerous drug. If you’re gonna take one of them choose Risperdal and save yourself some cash.
- Grassley Presses Medical Schools On Ghostwriting // Pharmalot
- Use of fetus-harming prescription medications shockingly common, Canadian study finds — Docs routinely push psychiatric drugs on pregnant women, so I’m not sure why this is shocking, or to whom. I was on a cocktail of 6 drugs, several of which were high risk and my doctor used to encourage my getting pregnant pretty much every time I visited him after I was married? What was going on in his head?
- Junk food is addictive as heroin say scientists
- The Relentless War on Drug Users Is Escalating Violence in the US: It’s Time for Harm Reduction | Alternet
- Heart Disease A ‘Silent Killer’ In Patients With Severe Mental Illness — As I’ve pointed out other times these sorts of reports come out — why the glaring omission of the fact that drugs cause conditions that cause heart disease. Until these facts stop being ignored people will continue to take dangerous medications without even knowing that they are doing so.
- Nurses Welcome Government Action On Overuse Of Anti-psychotics, UK My mother-in-law was sedated upon admission to hospital in the UK about a year and a half ago. She entered alert for a fall. About 4 days later the sedation killed her. This can happen to anyone and it happens here in the US routinely as well.
- “If You Want To Be Popular, You Can’t Afford To Be Skinny.” - Wate-on – Jezebel — perceptions change.
Bonkers Institute gets under the skin of the NHS and pharma. Go Dr. Bonkers!
Here is the picture of the brochure on the Bonker’s website.
For OpEdNews: Martha Rosenberg
“Your medicine is called Olanzapine. Pronounced ‘o-lan-za-peen,’” says the lime green kids’ brochure for the antipsychotic Zyprexa, published by Britain’s National Health Service (NHS). “Many children, teenagers and young people need to take medicines prescribed by doctors to help them stay well and healthy,” says the text amid cartoons of happy children skating, roller blading and playing soccer.
Similar brochures educate children about “ris-perry-done” (Risperdal), another antipsychotic and “ato-mox-e-teen” (Strattera), an ADHD drug. But when mental health advocate Ben Hansen tried to “educate” US children further by posting the brochures on his web site bonkersinstitute.org, he got a love letter from the NHS.
“I have been informed that you are using our leaflets on your web-site,” wrote Deputy Chief Pharmacist with the Central and North West London NHS Trust Sue Eccles in an email this month. “Our objective is [sic] provide written materials to support the verbal counselling given by healthcare professionals — they are not meant to stand alone as sources of information,” says Eccles requesting that only the “front page and our contact details,” be shown….
…How does pharma vault a drug only indicated for the one percent of the population with schizophrenia and four percent with bipolar disorder to be the biggest line item in the Medicaid budget? As in your tax dollars? Just good off-label marketing–promoting a drug for a non-FDA approved use which is illegal in the US.
And speaking of non-approved uses, how can Britain’s National Health Service produce a brochure for kids taking Zyprexa when kids are not supposed to take Zyprexa? “ZYPREXA is not for patients who are under 18 years,” says the prescribing information. “Keep out of the reach and sight of children.” read the whole article here
For the cat lovers among us only—of which I know there are many:
Excerpts from a talk by Ajahn Chah. My brother gave me a book written by this Buddhist teacher before he (my brother) died. My brother and I shared an interest in Buddhism and things spiritual. It is what made us close in a way I am not with anyone else in my family. Today I post excerpts from this talk by Ajahn Chah. The whole website is worth looking at and the book is too. I am not a Buddhist, but I have practiced meditation and attended retreats intermittently for years. So in memory of my brother the words of Ajahn Chah for the purposes of contemplation during this time of great dukkha:
Understanding Dukkha
It sticks on the skin and goes into the flesh; from the flesh, it gets into the bones. It’s like an insect on a tree that eats through the bark, into the wood, and then into the core, until finally the tree dies.
We’ve grown up like that. It gets buried deep inside. Our parents taught us grasping and attachment, giving meaning to things, believing firmly that we exist as a self-entity and that things belong to us. From our birth that’s what we are taught. We hear this over and over again, and it penetrates our hearts and stays there as our habitual feeling. We’re taught to get things, to accumulate and hold on to them, to see them as important and as ours. This is what our parents know, and this is what they teach us. So it gets into our minds, into our bones.
When we take an interest in meditation and hear the teaching of a spiritual guide, it’s not easy to understand. It doesn’t really grab us. We’re taught not to see and do things the old way, but when we hear it, it doesn’t penetrate the mind; we only hear it with our ears. People just don’t know themselves.
So we sit and listen to teachings, but it’s just sound entering the ears. It doesn’t get inside and affect us. It’s like we’re boxing, and we keep hitting the other guy but he doesn’t go down. We remain stuck in our self-conceit. The wise have said that moving a mountain from one place to another is easier than moving the self-conceit of people…..
…..There is difficulty in practice, but in anything we undertake, we have to pass through difficulty to reach ease. In Dharma practice, we begin with the truth of dukkha, the pervasive unsatisfactoriness of existence. But as soon as we experience this, we lose heart. We don’t want to look at it. Dukkha is really the truth, but we want to get around it somehow. It’s similar to the way we don’t like to look at old people, but prefer to look at those who are young.
If we don’t want to look at dukkha, we will never understand dukkha, no matter how many births we go through. Dukkha is noble truth. If we allow ourselves to face it, then we will start to seek a way out of it. If we are trying to go somewhere and the road is blocked, we will think about how to make a pathway. Working at it day after day, we can get through. When we encounter problems, we develop wisdom like this. Without seeing dukkha, we don’t really look into and resolve our problems; we just pass them by indifferently.
My way of training people involves some suffering, because suffering is the Buddha’s path to enlightenment. He wanted us to see suffering, and to see origination, cessation, and the path. This is the way out for all the aryas, the awakened ones. If you don’t go this way, there is no way out. The only way is knowing suffering, knowing the cause of suffering, knowing the cessation of suffering, and knowing the path of practice leading to the cessation of suffering. This is the way that the aryas, beginning with stream entry, were able to escape. It’s necessary to know suffering.
If we know, we will see it in everything we experience. Some people feel that they don’t really suffer much. But practice in Buddhism is for the purpose of freeing ourselves from suffering. What should we do not to suffer anymore? When dukkha arises, we should investigate to see the causes of its arising. Then once we know that, we can practice to remove those causes. Suffering, origination, cessation—in order to bring it to cessation, we have to understand the path of practice. Then once we travel the path to fulfillment, dukkha will no longer arise. In Buddhism, this is the way out.
Opposing our habits creates some suffering. But generally we are afraid of suffering, and if something will make us suffer, we don’t want to do it. We are interested in what appears to be good and beautiful, but we feel that anything involving suffering is bad. It’s not like that. Suffering is saccadhamma, truth. If there is suffering in the heart, it becomes the cause that makes you think about escaping. It leads you to contemplate. You won’t sleep so soundly, because you will be intent on investigating to find out what is really going on, trying to see causes and their results.
Happy people don’t develop wisdom. They are asleep. It’s like a dog that eats its fill. After that it doesn’t want to do anything. It can sleep all day. It won’t bark if a burglar comes–it’s too full, too tired. But if you only give it a little food, it will be alert and awake. If someone tries to come sneaking around, it will jump up and start barking. Have you seen that?
We humans are trapped and imprisoned in this world and have troubles in such abundance, and we are always full of doubts, confusion, and worry. This is no game. It’s really something difficult and troublesome. So there’s something we need to get rid of. According to the way of spiritual cultivation, we should give up our bodies, give up ourselves. We have to resolve to give our lives…..
….If we speak the subtle Dharma, most people will be frightened by it. They won’t dare to enter it. Even saying, “Don’t do evil,” most people can’t follow this. That’s how it is. So I’ve sought all kinds of means to get this across, and one thing I often say is, no matter we are delighted or upset, happy or suffering, shedding tears or singing songs, never mind—living in this world, we are living in a cage. We don’t get beyond this condition of being in a cage. Even if you are rich, you are living in a cage. If you are poor, you are living in a cage. If you sing and dance, you’re singing and dancing in a cage. If you watch a movie, you’re watching it in a cage.
What is this cage? It is the cage of birth, the cage of aging, the cage of illness, the cage of death. In this way, we are imprisoned in the world. “This is mine.” “That belongs to me.” We don’t know what we really are or what we’re doing. Actually all we are doing is accumulating suffering for ourselves. It’s not something far away that causes our suffering, but we don’t look at ourselves. However much happiness and comfort we may have, having been born we cannot avoid aging, we must fall ill, and we must die. This is dukkha itself, here and now…..….When the eyes see something displeasing, dukkha is born. The ears hear something that you really like, and dukkha is also born. There is only suffering.
The Buddha summed it up by saying that there is only a mass of suffering. Suffering is born and suffering ceases. That’s all there is. We pounce on and grab at it again and again, pouncing on arising, pouncing on cessation, never really understanding it.
When dukkha arises, we call that suffering. When it ceases, we call that happiness. It’s all old stuff, arising and ceasing. We are taught to watch body and mind arising and ceasing. There’s nothing else outside of this. To sum it up, there is no happiness–there’s only dukkha. We recognize suffering as suffering when it arises. Then when it ceases, we consider that to be happiness. We see it and designate it as such, but it isn’t. It’s just dukkha ceasing. Dukkha arises and ceases, arises and ceases, and we pounce on it and catch hold of it. Happiness appears and we are pleased. Unhappiness appears and we are distraught. It’s really all the same, mere arising and ceasing. When there is arising, there’s something, and when there is ceasing, it’s gone. This is where we doubt. Thus it’s taught that dukkha arises and ceases, and outside of that, there is nothing. When you come down to it, there is only suffering. But we don’t see clearly.
We don’t recognize clearly that there is only suffering because when it stops, we see happiness there. We seize on it and get stuck there. We don’t really know what’s going on, which is just arising and ceasing.
The Buddha summed things up by saying that there are only arising and ceasing, and there’s nothing outside of that. This is difficult to listen to. But one who truly has a feel for the Dharma doesn’t need to take hold of anything and dwells in ease. That’s the truth….
….There is nothing to be anxious about. There’s nothing worth crying over, nothing to laugh at. Nothing is inherently tragic or delightful. But such is what’s ordinary for people.
Our speech can be ordinary, relating to others according to the ordinary way of seeing things. That’s OK. But if we are thinking in the ordinary way, that leads to tears.
In truth, if we really know the Dharma and see it continuously, nothing is anything at all; there are only arising and passing away. There’s no real happiness or suffering. The heart is at peace then, when there is no happiness or suffering. When there is happiness and suffering, there is becoming and birth.
We usually create one kind of karma, which is trying to stop suffering to give rise to happiness. That’s what we want. But what we want is not real peace; it’s happiness and suffering. The aim of the Buddha’s teaching is to practice to create a type of karma that is beyond happiness and suffering and that will bring peace. But we aren’t able to think like that. We can only think that having happiness will bring us peace. If we have happiness, we think that’s good enough.
Thus we humans wish for things in abundance. If we get a lot, that’s good. Generally that’s how we think. Doing good is supposed to bring good results, and if we get that, we’re happy. We think that’s all we need to do, and we stop there. But where does good come to conclusion? It doesn’t remain. We keep going back and forth, experiencing good and bad, trying day and night to seize on what we feel is good.
The truth is that in this world of ours, there is nothing that does anything to anybody. The Buddha’s teaching is that first we should give up evil, and then we practice what is good. Second, he said that we should give up evil and give up the good as well, not having attachment to it, because that is also one kind of fuel. When there is something that is fuel, it will eventually burst into flame. Good is fuel. Bad is fuel.
Speaking on this level kills people. People aren’t able to follow it. So we have to turn back to the beginning and teach morality. Don’t harm each other. Be responsible in your work, and don’t harm or exploit others. The Buddha taught this, but just this much isn’t enough to stop…..
….The Buddha taught about impermanence. What is permanent? Only that this is the way things are; they don’t follow anyone’s wishes. That is noble truth. Impermanence rules the world, and that is something permanent. This is the point we are deluded at, so this is where you should be looking. Whatever occurs, recognize it as right. Everything is right in its own nature, which is ceaseless motion and change. Our bodies exist thus. All sankhara, conditioned phenomena, exist thus. We can’t stop them; they can’t be stilled. Not being stilled means their nature of impermanence. If we don’t struggle with this reality, then wherever we are, we will be happy. Wherever we sit, we are happy. Wherever we sleep, we are happy. Even when we get old, we won’t make a big deal out of it. You stand up and your back hurts, and you think, “Yeah, that’s about right.” It’s right, so don’t fight it. When the pain stops, you might think, “Ah, that’s better.” But it’s not better. You’re not yet dead, so it will hurt again. This is the way it is, so you have to keep turning your mind to this contemplation and not let it back away from the practice. Keep steadily at it, and don’t trust in things too much; trust the Dhamma instead, that life is like this. Don’t believe in happiness. Don’t believe in suffering. Don’t get stuck in following after anything.
First published 2/2008
