The awkward chuckling of shrinks put on the spot speaks volumes…

P$ychiatry: No Science, No Cure

that food and good nutrition heal is enough to demonstrate that as well…

as far as familial connections…my ideas are controversial but if you read all my blog you’ll see that I think family dysfunction, not just outright abuse can play a role in mental illness…which translate into much of our issues being of the psyche and spirit…

but again…I believe it’s body/mind/spirit and our chemistry plays a part in that, just not the way big pharma would like us to believe.

thanks for hanging out and sharing and being willing to take a look at stuff that might make you uncomfortable…

I certainly don’t have all the answers either so we’re in the same boat there.

I’ve been thinking about this since you posted this piece, read all the hyperlinks, and pondered. And pondered….

I don’t know what the answer is. Both sides must have a bit of validity or they wouldn’t be out there. I know that personally in my case my biological mother came from a family of alcoholics and I was told that the majority of her family were labeled as schizophrenic, and there were several lobotomies and way too many suicides to talk about.

So did I not only get her genes for blonde hair and blue eyes, did I get her genes for alcoholism and a predisposition for schizophrenia and bipolar?

Or could it be that, like a false positive pregnancy test, too many people today are given false positives as bipolar and never were in the first place?

Somehow I think the truth must lie between the two. Bur then, I am just learning and honestly don’t know. But I am grateful for your blog and the comments for making me think about something I never pondered before.

My information comes from the National Library of Medicine. You can do a search to find it. The location is set up with a search function. So, you type in a few words and you will get maybe hundreds of references in the form of abstracts. I will give a few quotes:

PL Delgtado in the Journal of Cinical Psychiatry in 2000 states, “…intensive investigation has failed to find convincing evidence of primary dysfunction of a specific monoamine system in patients with major depressive disorders.” Monoames include dopamine and serotonin. “Monoamine depletion does not worsen symptoms in depressed patients not taking medications, nor does it cause depression in healthy volunteers with no depressive illness.” In other words, if you lower someone’s serotonin levels depression does not result.

P Delgado and F Moreno of the University of Arizona College of Medicine in 1999 in Int Clin Psychopharmacol begin their abstract with “The pathophysiology and effects of antidepressants in the brain are still poorly understood”

R M Hirschfeld in an article written in 2000 in the Journal of Psychiatry discusses the monoamine hypothesis of depression (chemical imbalance) with “…in its original form it is clearly inadequate, as it does not provide a complete explanation for the actions of antidepressants, and the pathophysiology of depression itself remains unknown.”

E Richelson of the Department of Psychiatry of the Mayo Clinic in Jacksonville wrote in the Journal of Psychiatry in June of 1991: “although most antidepressant drugs in use today have been available for decades their mechanism of action in treating depression has not been established. In addition, theories about the biological causes of depression have not been proven.”

I’m grateful, we all have a place to post this information.

Jim S

Jim,
welcome back, we’ve missed you! I hope your trip went well.

You really are organized. I have detailed biochemistry articles about the myth of a chemical imbalance, but they are buried in my files along with thousands of other things. I hope to give you a few more references. I have not been able to check your blog for a while, I was in Boulder to present a paper.

Jim S

In other words: they buy into it bc of mere profit?!

“A scary bunch.”

You can say that again!!

1) If you have a good acupuncturist in your area, consider seeing him or her for detox in conjuction with getting off the meds. I have recommended this to several people who found it hugely helpful. Even if you cut down little by little, the jump-off point when you’re completely “off” can be very difficult if your system is sensitive.

1a) The acupuncturist I saw to do this detox, which I did every other day for six months because I was so debilitated by withdrawal effects, told me that it is easier to detox a heroin addict than to detox someone who has been on high doses of SSRI antidepressants.

2) While I was on SSRI antidepressants, I began to have symptoms indistinguishable from early-onset multiple sclerosis. My doctor and psychiatrist denied that the drugs could possibly cause this. Remarkably, the symptoms vanished once I was clean. Subsequent research has proven to me that many people suffer paresthesia with these drugs, particularly as a withdrawal side effect, which is one reason why people so seldom get off them … the withdrawal effects, both physically and emotionally, can be horrifying.

The psychiatrists I’m talking about are people who buy into pharma while knowing, at the same time, that pharma is completely clueless…

A scary bunch.

http://psychrights.org/Drugs/DrJacksonUCELecture(UK)09.06.04.pdf

A perfect hatched-job.

I’ve also met others who have done it other ways, as you indicate.

For me meditation works better than any therapy I’ve tried.

I’m not personally familiar with NLP though I’ve heard of it…

I have used neurofeedback successfully though, and that certainly rewires the brain as well.

Yes, although for those who are already “close to the edge,” and aren’t really able to place themselves in a state of mind where they can think through whatever issues are affecting them, something a bit more proactive is required, I think. It’s a funny thing, but people are never taught how to think efficiently.

I went on a NLP course, once, and it was really interesting seeing how people took to thinking about their “stuff” in different ways – ie, a whole bunch of different techniques were taught, the basic purpose of which was to have the “client” see their stuff in a different, more positive light. And the thing is, when one has been considering a particular event or series of events in one’s life for many years in the same, negative way, the ability to address it from a positive perspective becomes next to impossible without some assistance – one needs somebody to step in and interrupt the pattern, or fire off a different set of neuroconnections, perhaps!

Anyway, it was interesting. Practitoners know that NLP works, but they don’t know why, and regrettably, they don’t appear to have a marketing department capable of dreaming up something along the lines of the chemical imbalance theory!

Matt

Yes, I forget who it was that I was reading, but he did an absolute hatchet job on the theory. I can’t remember everything he said, but some prize comments were:

a) for every part of the brain the size of a pinhead, there are billions of neuroconnections. Is it really very likely that blunt administrations of 10+ mg of SSRIs are going to be able to accurately deal with any imbalance, on that scale, even supposing the notion of serotonin deficit is correct?
b) There’s no way of checking brain chemistry, other than post mortem, and even that would only tell one what brain chemistry was at the point of death. As such, there’s no way of knowing that a depressed mind is consequent to serotonin deficiency (and how does one know what a “normal” level of serotonin in the brain is, anyway?).

In other words, the CI theory doesn’t even deserve the title of “theory”. It’s conjecture on a massive level, with absolutely nothing to support it.

Matt

One can do a search at the top of the page or go to “categories” and click on the word. It is key to our healing process indeed.

Meditation has been proven to rewire the brain and that is why along with diet and nutrition I talk about meditation and mindfulness being so important to our recovery…

Our bodies, minds and spirits are all wondrously made to heal. We only need know how to care for them all.

Well, I love the theory that “it’s all in the mind”! Where the fuck else is it going to be!!!!!!!!!!!!?

The mind, if we assume that it’s seated in/is synonymous with the brain, runs on electricity – it’s a bunch of electrochemical signals. That’s all: every thought, dream, idea, impulse, everything, is just a series of electrical signals, which we present to ourselves, usually in the form of pictures, if we choose to become “conscious” of them.

How on earth do we change that, if things appear to be going wrong, as manifested by our own discomfort? I don’t know, but I do know that the brain is capable of rewiring itself, as I think I’ve mentioned before (although perhaps not on here), via a process known as neuroplasticity. The concept that our brains, at the age of 18, are more or less the ones we’ll die with, 50 odd years hence, is falling out of favour.

Indeed, this phenomenon is presumably what underpins NLP, CBT and other talk therapies. That is, if one chooses to adopt ideas other than one’s own, uncomfortable ones, things start to change, it seems. Like when you’ve been struggling with something practical, and suddenly somebody shows you the correct methodology, which is at once obvious, and a million times easier than what one has been doing. The same thing applies to behaviour.

Matt

You know I felt like I was on heavy duty drugs while withdrawing from Lamictal too…horrible horrible fatigue…

Keep eating real well. Do you supplement?

From what I understand sugar is like alcohol for some people….they literally can’t have any at all because it will trigger a binge.

I wish you the best. You’ve taken on a very important project with your quest to eat well…you’ll find once it becomes habit you won’t have an appetite for crap anymore.

Same as with Bruce Lipton’s findings about genes. If it aren’t CIs and genes, but the environment, then pills definitely are nothing but a short-term, emergency solution. Not much profit in that.

Yes, I’d say most if not all emotional distress is a call to our spirit to heal and accept…

As far as the Klonopin withdrawal I’m not doing a crossover…I figured a long time ago I’d stick with the poison my body was already familiar with…

I’ve already cut down by .7 mg of the 3 mg I’m doing.

I’m actually sleeping, but I’m grumpy as hell and not very good company…

just want to be alone….