Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Ontario psychiatrist has license suspended over "management of boundary issues"

It sounds like the misconduct is described with sufficient mumbo jumbo and code words to obscure what really happened with this shrink. "Boundary Issues" seems to be a code that say that the shrink was getting way too friendly with the patient.Report from the Burlington Post

A local psychiatrist recently had his licence temporarily suspended.

On June 24, the discipline committee of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario found that Dr. Howard Douglas Taynen, who has a downtown practice, "committed an act of professional misconduct, in that he failed to maintain the standard of practice of the profession in relation to one patient in a number of respects, (i.e., his treatment selection of psychodynamic psychotherapy; failure to formally consult with an experienced psychotherapist regarding the management of this patient; management of boundary issues; and by assuming all aspects of this patient's care)."

The college's discipline committee ordered a public reprimand including a one-month suspension of Taynen's certificate of registration, starting July 1.

His licence will be further suspended for another month, starting Feb. 1, 2009, if he doesn't comply with orders by the college to successfully complete several professional development courses.

As well, the college ordered that Taynen pay $3,650 in legal costs to the college, that he set up an assessment of his practice, at his own expense, and abide by any recommendations coming from it, and that he not treat any patient identified as or diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder.

Minnesotta Psychiatrist admits having sex with patient and calling it therapy

From a report in the Star Tribune

A New Brighton psychiatrist charged with sexually assaulting one of his patients pleaded guilty to one count of criminal sexual conduct Monday in Hennepin County District Court.

Thomas Folsom, 53, admitted to having sex with the patient and calling it therapy. He had been charged with four counts of criminal sexual conduct in the third degree; three of the charges were dropped.

According to the charges, the patient said Folsom told her that he was doing her a favor by engaging in sex with her and that she gradually became emotionally dependent on him. She also said she was led to believe it would be difficult for her to find someone to marry if she did not engage in sex acts with Folsom.

The patient began seeing Folsom two to three times a week in 1999 for depression and eating disorders. By May 2002, she was seeing him daily. When the patient's father became concerned after she had been charged about $77,000, Folsom said he would continue working with her for free.

Prosecuting attorney Theresa Galatowitsch said she will ask for the maximum sentence of 48 months. Sentencing is scheduled for Sept. 11.

Australian Psychiatrist admits inappropriate sexual relationship with patient

A Report from the Herald Sun in Australia

Dr Jerry Gelb - suspended from treating patients over the gun incident early last year - is facing further sanctions from the Medical Practitioners Board over his relationship with the patient.

The board heard this week that Dr Gelb was a "naive and inexperienced" psychiatrist in his first year of practice when he began a sexual relationship with a woman he was treating for bulimia and emotional problems in the 1980s.

The woman only complained about the relationship in 2005.

Last year the County Court sentenced Dr Gelb to a 12-month intensive corrections order after he walked into the Magistrates' Court with a loaded .22 calibre Ruger pistol and ammunition in his backpack on February 1, 2007.

The Medical Practitioners Board suspended Dr Gelb's medical licence pending its own hearing into the incident later.

This week the board heard Dr Gelb had rejected the initial advances of his patient.

But when she asked the then young doctor to her birthday, Dr Gelb accepted, buying her a drink before they began kissing on the dance floor and later spending the night together.

When the patient's friend died the next day, and she asked Dr Gelb for help, he invited her to his Toorak home and they again ended up kissing and embracing.

At the patient's psychiatric appointment the following day, Dr Gelb instead took her to lunch and insisted the doctor-patient relationship had to end because he had feelings for her.

Counsel assisting the board, Andrew Clements, asked for Dr Gelb's licence to be suspended because he had abused the doctor-patient relationship.

Dr Gelb's lawyer, Bob Galbally, said a reprimand would be an appropriate sanction.

The board has adjourned to make its decision.

Wednesday, July 23, 2008

Karadzic: Psychiatrist-turned 'Butcher of Bosnia'

From the profile on Radovan Karadzic seen on CNN

Radovan Karadzic, whose Interpol charges listed "flamboyant behavior" as a distinguishing characteristic, was a practicing psychiatrist who came to be nicknamed the "Butcher of Bosnia."

Twice indicted in 1995 by the U.N. International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia, Karadzic faces charges of genocide, complicity in genocide, extermination, murder, willful killing, persecutions, deportation, inhumane acts, terror against civilians and hostage-taking.

While president of the so-called Serbian Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Karadzic's troops were reported to have massacred over hundreds of thousands of Muslims and Croats during a campaign of "ethnic cleansing." Early estimates of the death toll from the 3-year war ranged up to 300,000, but recent research reduced that to about 100,000.

The U.S. State Department had a $5 million reward for information leading to his capture. His arrest brings an end to more than 10 years as a fugitive.

Monday, July 21, 2008

Psychiatrist Regrets Becoming A Whistle-Blower

A report from the Sunday Mercury; Birmingham (UK)

A doctor turned NHS whistleblower has revealed her regret at going public with claims of patient abuse at Midland hospitals.

Psychiatrist Rita Pal, from Sutton Coldfield, says her career was 'assassinated' after she made allegations that seriously ill elderly patients were being helped to die by NHS staff.

Dr Pal, 36, presented a dossier of evidence to the General Medical Council but it questioned her sanity - and discussed launching an inquiry into whether she was Wt to practise.

She was later awarded a lucrative settlement against the regulatory body and is still pursuing legal action against it.

Yet Dr Pal has now been banned from practising medicine after the GMC ruled she is no longer registered as a medical practitioner 'for administrative reasons'.

The psychiatrist says she regrets ever speaking out.

"Whistleblowing doesn't work," she told the Sunday Mercury.

"It has cost me an awful lot, my career is assassinated but that's the price I paid.

"It is a long and lonely road, and in the end, I'm left wondering if it was worth it."

Dr Pal said she was first branded a troublemaker soon after beginning her career.

"Fresh out of medical school in 1998, I started work at North Staffordshire Hospital as a house officer continuing my training," Dr Pal recalled.

"It was very intense, with 120-hour weeks, but I had no problems for the first three months.

"Then I was moved to a ward for elderly and emergency patients. I faced an emergency with a patient and there wasn't the basic equipment there.

"I was able to stabilise the patient but phoned the nursing director to say more staff and more equipment was needed as basic care wasn't been met.

"This didn't go down well.

"Other doctors had suffered with poor facilities but no-one ever raised concerns. Patients kept dying and no-one was doing anything."

Dr Pal's outspoken concerns brought her further anxiety.

"I then found myself in a complete nightmare," she said.

"Two weeks later I was accused of disposing of a needle on a day when I wasn't even on the ward. It's a criminal offence under health and safety to dispose of a needle.

"I faced a hearing where I represented myself, and the chargeswere dropped. But I'd already got a name for myself as a 'trouble-maker'.

"The pressure on me to leave was awful and I was advised to move into general practice.

"I moved to Birmingham to do surgery but I had no references and 'whistleblowing' follows you around.

"In 2000, I contacted a newspaper about the elderly patients who were being neglected and worse, being given drugs that hasten death.

"I thought if I raised concerns about healthcare, conditions would at least improve.

"I've had 10 years of fighting for accountability - I feel let down by the NHS.

Friday, July 18, 2008

Man sues hospital, mental health nurse

A report from the Toronto Metro News

t started with an innocent game of chess between a patient and his nurse. But it quickly evolved.

Soon, the pair were having sex all over the hospital — in his room, the staff lounge, examination room.

But their clandestine encounters went beyond the walls of the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health on Queen St. W. When permitted to leave the hospital for a few hours on a community pass, the good-looking 6-foot-3 patient met the woman at a nearby hotel.

Although she was married, their relationship lasted about two years and remained intact even after she was fired from CAMH — an incident he blamed himself for and, in an act of penance, jumped into oncoming traffic.

When she became pregnant last fall, he slipped into a depression, which again landed him in hospital.

It’s an unusual tale that has been pieced together from his clinical notes, a CAMH report and an $850,000 lawsuit recently filed in an Ontario Superior Court.

The patient, identified only as John, is suing CAMH and the nurse, identified as Jane. The court has banned publication of their names to protect the identity of the child.

“I just know that she messed my head up pretty good and that I’ve done things to myself that I never did before,” John told Torstar News Service.

According to the statement of claim, John alleges Jane was negligent in her treatment when she failed to discourage a social relationship, refused to respect professional boundaries and neglected to consider the harm that would result from violating them.

The hospital, it alleges, failed to arrange for appropriate supervision, inspection and monitoring of John at his home. Had they checked on him, John says, they would have discovered her lingerie, strewn about his apartment.

Thursday, July 17, 2008

Woman files suit against psychiatrist boyfriend after crime spree.

As reported in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

A former Cedarburg woman who along with her psychiatrist boyfriend led police on a cross-country chase has filed a lawsuit against him alleging medical malpractice because the two began a sexual relationship while she was his patient.

Darcy J. Bogenrief, 43, alleges in the lawsuit filed in Ozaukee County Circuit Court that she sought treatment in late 2001 or early 2002 from former Thiensville psychiatrist Lyndon K. Steinhaus, 48, the two began a sexual relationship later in 2002 and he continued to be her doctor and prescribe medication for her until at least December 2006.

Steinhaus’ “conduct was negligent and in violation of the standards of care” prescribed in state law, the lawsuit alleges.

According to the lawsuit, Bogenrief “sustained severe physical, mental and emotional injury” and “loss of earning capacity and has incurred medical and related expenses in the past” and will continue to do so.

Steinhaus’ medical insurer and a state risk-sharing fund for health-care providers also are named in the lawsuit.

Bogenrief, a Marquette University Law School graduate who formerly practiced law in Illinois, and Steinhaus are each charged in Ozaukee County with misappropriating Steinhaus’ ex-wife’s identity.

They used it to open bank accounts, apply for credit cards and buy jewelry as revenge for her seeking child support, according to a criminal complaint.

They were arrested in November 2006 in Gillette, Wyo., where Steinhaus was employed as a child psychiatrist after years of practicing in Ozaukee and Washington counties, and charged with one felony count of identity theft. Steinhaus also was charged in Wyoming with 27 misdemeanor counts of illegally prescribing drugs to Bogenrief.

After posting bail in Wyoming, the pair led police on a two-week cross-country spree that included trashing a South Dakota motel room; crossing into Canada, where Bogenrief was arrested on suspicion of drunken driving; posting bond in Montana by leaving behind a BMW car; and finally being arrested in Brownsville, Tenn., when they stopped at a check cashing store to get an advance on a federal income tax refund, according to authorities and court records.

Steinhaus served nine months in jail in Gillette and then was extradited to Ozaukee County. He was freed after posting $10,000 bail and now lives in Kewaskum while awaiting trial, according to online court records. He is next due in court on July 23.

According to Wyoming court records, Bogenrief was found not guilty by reason of mental disease or defect.

She is free on a signature bond. She lives in Gillette and is under treatment there, according to court records. She is due in court Oct. 7.

Tuesday, July 15, 2008

12 Babies die during GlaxoSmithKline vaccine trials in Argentina

GlaxoSmithKline has long gotten into trouble for drugs (including psych drugs) that have had achieved notoriety for a variety of destructive side effects. Thus this most recent report does not come as a surprise, and is sadly revealing of the broader morals of the company

At least 12 babies who were part of a clinical study to test the effectiveness of a vaccine against pneumonia have died over the past year in Argentina, the local press reported Thursday.

The study was sponsored by global drug giant GlaxoSmithKline and uses children from poor families, who are "pressured and forced into signing consent forms," the Argentine Federation of Health Professionals, or Fesprosa, said.

"This occurs without any type of state control" and "does not comply with minimum ethical requirements," Fesprosa said.

The vaccine trial is still ongoing despite the denunciations, and those in charge of the study were cited by the Critica newspaper as saying that the procedures are being carried out in a lawful manner.

Colombian and Panama were also chosen by GSK as staging grounds for trials of the vaccine against the pneumococcal bacteria.

Since 2007, 15,000 children under the age of one from the Argentine provinces of Mendoza, San Juan and Santiago del Estero have been included in the research protocol, a statement of what the study is trying to achieve.

"Only 12 have died throughout the country, which is a very low figure if we compare it with the deaths produced by respiratory illnesses caused by the pneumococcal bacteria," pediatrician Enrique Smith, one of the lead investigators, said.

In Santiago del Estero, one of the country's poorest provinces, the trials were authorized when Enrique's brother, Juan Carlos Smith, was provincial health minister.

According to pediatrician Ana Maria Marchese, who works at the children's hospital in the provincial capital where the studies are being conducted, "because they can't experiment in Europe or the United States, they come to do it in third-world countries."

"A lot of people want to leave the protocol but aren't allowed; they force them to continue under the threat that if they leave they won't receive any other vaccine," said Julieta Ovejero, great aunt of one of the six babies who died in Santiago del Estero.

Fesprosa's Juan Carlos Palomares said that "in most cases these are underprivileged individuals, many of them unable to read or write, who are pressured into including their children" in the trials.

According to Fesprosa, "the laboratory pays $8,000 for each child included in the study, but none (of that money) remains in the province that lends the public facilities and the health personnel for the private research."

Monday, July 14, 2008

Lawrenceville psychiatrist indicted for fondling patients

From the Atlanta Journal Constitution

A Gwinnett County grand jury has indicted a psychiatrist for allegedly fondling 14 female patients while working at a Lawrenceville-based mental health clinic.

Mohammad Uzair Qureshi, 45, of Lawrenceville, is charged with 16 counts of sexual assault by a practitioner of psychotherapy against a patient, a felony punishable by up to five years in prison and a $5,000 fine.

His lawyer, Page Pate, said Qureshi intends to plead not guilty.

The incidents allegedly occurred at the Gwinnett-Rockdale-Newton Community Services Board.

Qureshi was first arrested in October after a female patient complained he touched her inappropriately during an appointment.

Since then, 13 more women have come forward to police with similar allegations.

Lawrenceville police detective Brad Daugherty testified a preliminary hearing last year that Qureshi used his position of authority as a doctor to manipulate the women into removing their shirts and bras.

He asked them if they were feeling anxious, Daugherty said, which was a segue into touching their arm for a pulse or having them lift their shirt and bra so he could check their heart rate with a stethoscope.

Qureshi is out of jail on $75,000 bond. He has been fired from the community services board, and his lawyer said Qureshi has consented with the state medical board not to practice medicine while the case is pending.

"He loves psychiatry, and he is hopeful to get right back into it when we resolve this case," Pate said.

Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Prozac Nation No More?

Newsweek has a feel good interview with a psychiatrist who is against the use of Prozac.

In a new book, psychiatrist James Gordon explains why he believes there's a more effective and drug-free way to treat depression and anxiety. James Gordon, founder of the Center for Mind-Body Medicine in Washington, D.C., says there's a better way to treat depression—through diet, exercise and meditation. Roll your eyes all you like. He's used the approach for 35 years with a wide range of patients, from runaway children and middle-class adults in Washington, D.C., to victims of war in Bosnia, Kosovo, Israel and the Gaza Strip.
We remain skeptical about psychiatry in general. But we are pleased that someone did not fall for the marketing madness

Psychiatrist reprimanded for misconduct

A report from the North Bay Nugget out of Ontario, Canada

A North Bay doctor has received a public reprimand for professional misconduct and was ordered to be monitored by a fellow physician for 30 months.

Dr. Darren Saunders was accused of grabbing a registered nurse at the North Bay and District Hospital and causing bruises, and making statements about love bites," says a summary by the Ontario College of Physicians and Surgeons.

The college released the results of its most recent disciplinary hearings Tuesday.

A hearing in May found Saunders must continue being treated by his psychiatrist who will provide quarterly reports to the college until treatment is no longer necessary.

Saunders is allowed to see patients on his own, but was to find a physician in the North Bay hospital who would agree to monitor his behaviour and report back to the college every three months.

Physicians and appointed members of the public make up the five-member panel.

A written decision of the panel's findings is not yet available and usually takes months to prepare, said college spokeswoman Kathryn Clarke.

Monday, July 07, 2008

The suicide rate now is roughly where it was in 1965 despite 20 years of sticking Americans on anti-depressants

Furious season has a quick summary of a long article in the NY Times Sunday Magazine on Suicide. One tidbit of note:

I also admire his pointing out that the suicide rate now is roughly where it was in 1965 despite 20 years of sticking Americans on anti-depressants and the like, and that once some would-be jumpers are stopped, they never again try to kill themselves.
.Here's the quote from the NY times:
Then there is the most disheartening aspect of the riddle. The National Institute of Mental Health says that 90 percent of all suicide “completers” display some form of diagnosable mental disorder. But if so, why have advances in the treatment of mental illness had so little effect? In the past 40 years, whole new generations of antidepressant drugs have been developed; crisis hotline centers have been established in most every American city; and yet today the nation’s suicide rate (11 victims per 100,000 inhabitants) is almost precisely what it was in 1965.
Would it be too much to say that maybe they are not diagnosing the correct problem? That changing and rotating the tires will not fix a blown engine?

Sunday, July 06, 2008

How Prozac sent the 'science of depression' in the wrong direction

An Article by Jonah Lehrer, as seen in the Boston Globe (Highlights given below)

Note: Of course, maybe the drugs aren't the cure in the first place, because the actual problem is not being addressed at all.

Given the numerous side effects of drugs like prozac, maybe the best therapy would be a national health and exercise program. Not that anyone would actually want to get this into law.

UpDate: Psych Central has also picked up on this

Although researchers have known for years this not to be the case, some drug companies continue to repeat this simplistic and misleading claim in their marketing and advertising materials. Why the FTC or some other federal agency doesn’t crack down on this intentional misleading information is beyond me.
Here are some original snippets from the original article as seen in the Globe:
Prozac is one of the most successful drugs of all time. Since its introduction as an antidepressant more than 20 years ago, Prozac has been prescribed to more than 54 million people around the world,

[...]

For decades, researchers struggled to identify the underlying cause of depression, and patients were forced to endure a series of ineffective treatments. But then came Prozac. Like many other antidepressants, Prozac increases the brain's supply of serotonin, a neurotransmitter. The drug's effectiveness inspired an elegant theory, known as the chemical hypothesis: Sadness is simply a lack of chemical happiness. The little blue pills cheer us up because they give the brain what it has been missing.

There's only one problem with this theory of depression: it's almost certainly wrong, or at the very least woefully incomplete. Experiments have since shown that lowering people's serotonin levels does not make them depressed, nor does it does not make them depressed, nor does it worsen their symptoms if they are already depressed.

In recent years, scientists have developed a novel theory of what falters in the depressed brain. Instead of seeing the disease as the result of a chemical imbalance, these researchers argue that the brain's cells are shrinking and dying. This theory has gained momentum in the past few months, with the publication of several high profile scientific papers.

[...]

These discoveries are causing scientists to fundamentally re-imagine depression. While the mental illness is often defined in terms of its emotional symptoms - this led a generation of researchers to search for the chemicals, like serotonin, that might trigger such distorted moods - researchers are now focusing on more systematic changes in the depressed brain.

[...]

The progress exemplifies an important feature of modern medicine, which is the transition from a symptom-based understanding of a disease - depression is an illness of unrelenting sadness - to a more detailed biological understanding, in which the disease is categorized and treated based on its specific anatomical underpinnings.

In the 19th century, the "fever" was a common medical illness. Of course, doctors now realize that a fever is merely a common symptom of many different diseases, from the flu to leukemia.

Likewise, when Richard Nixon declared a "War on Cancer" in 1971, scientists largely defined cancer in terms of its most tangible characteristic: uncontrolled growth leading to a tumor. As a result, every cancer was treated with the same blunt tools. Over time, of course, scientists have discovered that cancer is not a single disease with a single biological cause. Breast cancer, for instance, can be triggered by a wide variety of genes and environmental risk factors. Because doctors can look beyond the superficial similarities of the symptoms - all tumors are not created equal - they are able to tailor their treatments to the specific disease.

Neuroscience is only beginning to catch up. Thanks to a variety of new experimental tools, such as brain scanners and DNA microarrays, researchers are now refining their understanding of mental illness. In many instances, this means recategorizing disorders, so that patients are no longer diagnosed solely in terms of their most obvious symptoms.

"We used to think there was only one kind of anemia," says Arturas Petronis, a scientist at the University of Toronto who investigates the underlying causes of schizophrenia. "But now we know there are at least 15 different kinds. We'll likely learn the same thing about many mental illnesses."

[...]

It is jarring to think of depression in terms of atrophied brain cells, rather than an altered emotional state. It is called "depression," after all. Yet these scientists argue that the name conceals the fundamental nature of the illness, in which the building blocks of the brain - neurons - start to crumble. This leads, over time, to the shrinking of certain brain structures, like the hippocampus, which the brain needs to function normally.

In fact, many scientists are now paying increased attention to the frequently neglected symptoms of people suffering from depression, which include problems with learning and memory and sensory deficits for smell and taste.

Other researchers are studying the ways in which depression interferes with basic bodily processes, such as sleeping, sex drive, and weight control. Like the paralyzing sadness, which remains the most obvious manifestation of the mental illness, these symptoms are also byproducts of a brain that's literally withering away.

"Depression is caused by problems with the most fundamental thing the brain does, which is process information," says Eero Castren, a neuroscientist at the University of Helsinki. "It's much more than just an inability to experience pleasure."

This new scientific understanding of depression also offers a new way to think about the role of drugs in recovery. While antidepressants help brain cells recover their vigor and form new connections, Castren says that patients must still work to cement these connections in place, perhaps with therapy. He compares antidepressants with anabolic steroids, which increase muscle mass only when subjects also go to the gym.

"If you just sit on your couch, then steroids aren't going to be very effective," he says. "Antidepressants are the same way: if you want the drug to work for you, then you have to work for the drug."

Saturday, July 05, 2008

Psychologists Suffer Head-in-the-Sand Disorder: A Critical Review of Electrosensitivity Research

As seen in the American Chronicle

Psychology and psychiatry are significantly inventive professions in which every human behavior outside expectation is compartmentalized and labeled as abnormal. Compartmentalizing the behavior of others helps clinicians to think they understand behavior that is perceived as unusual or is beyond their own realm of understanding.

For example, a psychologist in New York may observe a trembling man in the park "obsessively" moving from tree to tree and breaking a single flower off of each tree. The psychologist is likely to consider this behavior abnormal. Depending on other factors, a diagnosis such as obsessive compulsive disorder, delusions, psychosis, or something much less specific like generalized anxiety disorder maybe be suspect.

However, if the psychologist were to simply ask the man what he was doing, it may turn out that the man is visiting from Hawaii, suffers from Parkinson´s, and is in New York for his daughters graduation from college. The flowers are for his wife to make their daughter a traditional Hawaiian lei. It is their family custom to select the single best flower from each of dozens of trees to create a perfect lei. The man´s behavior was very normal and quite acceptable in his culture, yet the psychologist´s perception of the man was of someone who is mentally ill simply because the behavior was unfamiliar to him.

This phenomenon is due in large part to the intimidation people feel when faced with someone who looks different, thinks originally, or has unfamiliar or opposing beliefs. Fear is a factor in the face of these uncertainties and someone who acts outside expectations presents a frightening situation for many people, including psychologists. This leads to trying to define the behavior without a full understanding of what the behavior really is.

It is this fear that has lead to the pathologizing of nearly every normal human behavior from grief (depression) to discussing an illness (obsession) to fearing loss of income due to a recession (anxiety) to an asthmatic walking around someone wearing a strong perfume that is triggering an attack (antisocial personality disorder).

Pathologizing people who are dissimilar as mentally ill gives the impression that only those who chose conformity are normal, while at the same time oppressing those who think freely. The majority of so-called mental illnesses in the Diagnostics and Statistics Manual (DSM) are merely figments of clinicians´ vivid imaginations. Labeling choices and behaviors as disorders only brings solace to the clinician frightened by unfamiliar behavior. Choice and behavior are relative to the differences in human beings, their individual and inherent nature, and their personalities.

Behaviors are the result of normal processes. Once considered a mental illness, asthma is an example of a physical disorder that results in certain behaviors that are unexpected by others who do not have asthma. An asthmatic may practice avoidance of fragrances and cigarette smoke which trigger respiratory inflammation. Homosexuality, a mere choice of sexual partners, was also once listed in the DSM as a mental illness.

However, labeling behavior in one of the classifications in the DSM is currently required for insurance billing purposes. Statistics are created from this data. Drugs companies, who often fund clinician´s conferences and provide gifts and promotional freebies, then vie to create drugs to treat these fictitious abnormalities. Hence, financial motives drive the modern profession. Labeling and compartmentalizing scrutinized behavior is, in most cases, merely compartmentalizing normal human behavior, which does, after all, increase business.

There is no confirmation that psychological conditions exist. They are diagnosed based on mere subjective reporting by the patient and subjective observation by the clinician. There are no scientific, clinical tests to determine beyond a reasonable doubt that an abnormality really does exist. The DSM is then a sham and the unsuspecting public is the victim.

The proposal that psychology be considered a science is attributable to Wilhelm Wundt. The profession now turns out many peer-reviewed scientific studies which are leading, but inconclusive. Further, these studies make inaccurate suppositions that fail on their face to take into account all the potential cause and effect scenarios, often placing the cart before the horse.


An example is a study that explores the correlations between stress and cancer and then concludes that stress causes cancer simply because patients with cancer frequently report feeling stressed. It is the professional norm to assume that stress causes cancer, yet cancer is a very stressful disease to have and may indeed be the sole cause of the stress. Chemotherapy is physically stressful and the uncertainly of impending death and/or imminent financial ruin is stressful. Inability to work, lack of family support, worry over the welfare of children, and many other factors are capable of increasing stress post-diagnoses. Yet the profession makes the automatic assumption that stress may cause cancer and fails to so much as even examine the fact that cancer may cause stress. Cancer patients are then advised by journal reading clinicians to avoid stress and relax to improve their condition.

Further thoughtful exploration reveals that stress is a normal human process. Test subjects placed in sensory deprivation chambers where they floated calmly and peacefully for long periods of time have developed psychoses from lack of stress. Everyone has stress, both good stressors (eustress) and bad stressors (distress). Yet everyone with stress does not develop cancer, which is a red flag of contradictory thinking.

The latest example of the profession placing the cart before the horse with leading, but inconclusive, findings was committed by the Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatics, and Psychotherapy at the University of Regensburg, Germany by Landgrebe and colleagues. In their study "Neuronal correlates of symptom formation in functional somatic syndromes", Landgrebe believes that there is increasing evidence for the contribution of emotional and cognitive functions to symptom formation in functional somatic syndromes and symptom manifestation in electrosensitivity and multiple chemical sensitivity.

Functional somatic syndrome is characterized by a constellation of symptoms and suffering that cannot be conclusively traced to a demonstrable abnormality as a result of science repositioning leisurely and having yet to detect a biochemical etiology.

Landgrebe believes sham mobile phone radiation would induce unpleasant "perceptions", as opposed to real physical stimulus, in electrosensitive (ES) patients. The tests subjects were exposed to sham mobile phone radiation and heat, which produced unpleasantness that Landgrebe blames as the trigger which generates functional somatic syndromes. We are lead to believe that this "sham" exposure made the electrosensitive subjects "think" they were being exposed and therefore having a reaction.

The picture is very different when employing free critical thinking. When we ask what generated the "heat" in these so-called "sham" exposures to mobile phone radiation, we find the heat was likely generated by something electric with an electromagnetic frequency (EMF) that would trigger a reaction in an ES individual, suggesting the exposure was far from a "sham" and therefore, the symptoms far from perceived.

Regrettably, research like this does not actually endeavor to understand how such exposures may "cause" an emotional effect. Instead it is automatically assumed that emotions cause the effects without coming full circle to explore the other possibility. This results in frequent unnecessary, and financially lucrative, drugging of patients. Staunchly standing behind their convictions in the name profits and kickbacks, the evidence that these mind numbing drugs don´t work to improve the subjects ES symptoms is disregarded.

Significantly inventive professions, psychology and psychiatry fail to make the grade once again. The victims of electrosensitivity, multiple chemical sensitivity and other ailments that they label as so-called "functional somatic syndromes" are left with unproven and pathetically hopeless ideas which do nothing to alleviate their suffering. The diagnosis given to the profession is "head-in-the-sand" disorder, which seems to be correlated with their research. Therefore, being a psychiatric researcher causes one to develop head-in-the-sand disorder.

Reference


Landgrebe M, Barta W, Rosengarth K, Frick U, Hauser S, Langguth B, Rutschmann R, Greenlee MW, Hajak G, Eichhammer P. Neuronal correlates of symptom formation in functional somatic syndromes: A fMRI study. Neuroimage. 2008 Apr 20. [Epub ahead of print]

Thursday, July 03, 2008

Mental health provider shuts doors after state pulls Medicaid payments

Another Chapter in the Decline of Psychiatry, from a report by the Arkansas News Bureau

A Southeast Arkansas child mental health provider closed its doors Wednesday, a day after a judge cleared the way for the state to terminate Medicaid payments to the facility.

Lawyers for Gilead Family Resource Center, a McGehee-based provider cited by the state for billing irregularities and improper medical practices, had argued in court last week that the facility could not survive without Medicaid payments covering treatment for the bulk of its patients.

Pulaski County Circuit Judge Jay Moody advised lawyers in a brief letter Tuesday he was dissolving a temporary restraining order he issued June 6 that blocked the state Department of Human Services from cutting off payments to Gilead.

DHS moved quickly to terminate the payments to the company, which operated seven facilities in four southeastern Arkansas cities.

[...]

Moody's earlier order allowed Gilead to receive Medicaid reimbursements while appealing DHS' decision to terminate payments. Lawyers for Gilead filed an administrative appeal Wednesday with DHS.

In a June 2007 audit, just weeks before Gibson and others bought Gilead, the state questioned the appropriateness of some clients' diagnoses and medications and found billing problems that included multiple charges for services to the same client.

Auditors also found the facility used uncertified staff for counseling and therapy services, and said there appeared to be no oversight of services by a child psychiatrist.

[...]

DHS spokeswoman Julie Munsell said Gilead was reimbursed about $80,000 a week for providing mental health services to about 430 clients, mostly preschool children. DHS may try to recover the $160,000 or so the center received after Moody's initial order, along with the more than $800,000 the agency contends it is due from alleged billing irregularities, she said.

Gilead operated two facilities in both Hamburg and McGehee, and one each in Dumas, Lake Village and Monticello.

[...]

Prior to state sanctions, Gilead provided treatment for nine children in state custody. After those children were moved and re-evaluated, just two were deemed to need any sort of continued treatment, Munsell said.

Wednesday, July 02, 2008

Psychiatrist accused of sexually assaulting patient

As reported by the Post Crescent, out of Appleton, Wisconsin.

An Affinity Behavioral Health psychiatrist has been suspended from his position after he was charged this week with sexual exploitation by a therapist.
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Charles D. Morgan, 62, of Neenah, charged Monday in Winnebago County Circuit Court, faces a maximum penalty of 12½ years in prison and a $25,000 fine if convicted.

Morgan is due back in court July 10 for a preliminary hearing to determine if there is sufficient evidence to send the case to trial.

He sexually assaulted a 27-year-old woman, whom he had been treating for bipolar disorder the past two years, according to a criminal complaint.

The woman told police she was admitted to Mercy Medical Center on June 17 to receive electronic convulsive therapy. Morgan came into her room June 18 and gave her hug.

She said he came into her room again on June 19, kissed her and told her he did it "because I like you." Morgan kissed the woman again on June 20 and told her she needed to keep it confidential, the complaint said.

The woman told Morgan she wanted a different psychiatrist on June 21. Morgan arranged to meet the woman at his Oshkosh office once she was discharged from the hospital.

At the office, the woman and Morgan were sitting on a couch when he began kissing her and having inappropriate sexual contact with her, the complaint said.

Tuesday, July 01, 2008

Psychiatric Ward video shows no one helped dying woman

A report out of Brooklyn from the NY Daily News, we also have the video in question at the bottom of this report

A shocking video shows a woman dying on the floor in the psych ward at Kings County Hospital, while people around her, including a security guard, did nothing to help.

After an hour, another mental patient finally got the attention of the indifferent hospital workers, according to the tape, obtained by the Daily News.

Worse still, the surveillance tape suggests hospital staff may have falsified medical charts to cover the utter lack of treatment provided Esmin Green before she died.

"Thank God for the videotape because no one would have believed this could have happened," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union.

"There's a clear possibility of criminal wrongdoing with regard to recordkeeping, and that has to be investigated."

The city Department of Investigation is part of a sweeping probe that has brought some changes to the ward known as G Building.

A federal suit filed last year in Brooklyn alleged neglect and abuse of mental patients at the hospital. The suit sparked an investigation by the Brooklyn U.S. attorney's civil rights unit before the June 19 death.

Two different security guards spotted Green, a native of the island of Jamaica, prone on the floor and did nothing, the tape shows. They have been fired, along with four other staffers.

Green, 49, taken to the unit for "agitation," keels over out of her chair at 5:32a.m., according to the time stamp on the video. She had been sitting about 3feet from an observation window. Two other patients were in the room.

Green is lying facedown on the floor, her legs splayed, when a security guard strolls by at 5:53 a.m., looks at her for about 20 seconds and then walks away.

She is writhing on the floor, thrashing her legs, about 6 a.m., when her medical chart contends she was "awake, up and about, went to the bathroom."

Green rolls on her back at 6:04a.m. She stops moving at 6:08 a.m., but two minutes later a security guard pushed his chair into camera view.

He never gets out of the chair, but looks at Green and scoots away. A female patient who was in and out of the room finally brings a clinic staffer to check the woman and a crash cart is summoned.

The medical chart claims she was "sitting quietly in [the] waiting room" at 6:20 a.m., although she was already dead. The cause of death is still under investigation.

"We are shocked and distressed by this situation," the Health and Hospitals Corp. said in a statement.


and of course we have the video: