Speaking out Against Psychiatric Drugs

We came across this letter to the editor from the training of a local health services clinic in Sheboygan. While the letter concerns local matters, the following snippets speak to our broader issues. this also has implications regarding the impact of psychiatric drugs on the rise in School shootings:

If Mental Health America wishes to reduce suicide; they should place their resources at psychological "treatment," not psychiatric control. [...]

It is widely known in the psychiatric research community if you take 1,000 depressed people, split them in two equal groups, equal out the level of sadness and depression in each group, then give one group any of the most widely used SSRI anti-depressants and the other group sugar pills (e.g. placebo), you will find the drug group will have two to seven times more suicides than the sugar pill group.

And, the reduction in sadness or depression by each of the two groups will be clinically unrecognizable.

In a world when one out of every 10 boys going to an doctor for any reason walks out with a psychiatric drug, and nine out of 10 people in general walk out with a psychiatric drug if they go for any mental health concern, do the drug companies really need more help from our own MHA to get people on or to assist people in continuing to take psychiatric drugs?

Based upon peer-reviewed data, taking a drug to fix a psychological problem unquestionably causes more people to suppress their humanity (e.g. control via drugs) and act inhumanely (e.g. committing more suicides and acts of aggression). Taking psychotropic drugs often leads to an exacerbation of the very problem on a neurological level (e.g. down/up regulation leading to supersensitivity), an increase in disability and an increase in hospitalization, all while decreasing one's own self of control and self reliance.

This is good for the counseling and psychiatrist business, but bad for our neighbors.

Speaking against my own field comes with much criticism from my colleges. However, our staff and I have continually extended offers to present this data and educate the non-professional staff that makes up MHA and the suicide walk group.

I welcome any in-service or forum, by professional or lay person, to discuss the numerous problems that plaque our field.