Comedy TV: Beverly Hillbillies Season 1 Episode 34 - The Psychiatrist Gets Clampetted

Classic American TV Comedy Show

The show was ranked #1 and attracted as many as 60 million viewers per week. The Clampett Clan included Buddy Ebsen (Jed), Irene Ryan ("Granny"), Max Baer Jr. (Jethro), Donna Douglas (Elly May). Also starred Raymond Bailey (Milburn Drysdale), and Nancy Kulp (Jane Hathaway)

In this episode, Jethro finally gets his bill of health from Dr. Twombly so he can graduate the fifth grade, but Twombly really wants to talk to Grannie again. Drysdale brings him to the Clampetts' just as Grannie showed Pearl how to use a love potion, so everyone thinks Twombly's interest in Grannie is love.

Boston Legal: TV Drama Or Reality Show?

The Website PharmaLot has an item noting the intrusion of recent scandals involving Harvard Psychiatrist Joseph Biederman into primetime TV in the form the TV show Boston Legal

There is little time to watch TV on the Pharmalot corporate campus, but we were directed to a recent episode of ‘Boston Legal,’ that compelling drama about - what else? - a bunch of emotionally challenged lawyers, because there was mention of a recent pharma issue being investigated by the US Senate Finance Committee.

To wit, the committee is looking at alleged instances of undisclosed conflicts of interests involving academics who receive National Institutes of Health grants to research certain drugs and payments from drugmakers for consulting, research or speaking (back story). This is prominently noted by actress Candace Bergen, along with other matters such as pharma ties to the FDA, Congress and doctors, in a speech to a jury about a woman who suffered a heart attack after taking a drug…

[...]

(To watch, please go to this link and click on season 5, episode 6, and skip to about 27 minutes into the program, although it can take awhile to load and you may need to install a plug-in).

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:

TV psychiatrist "unfit to practice"

a followup and conclusion to earlier reports. As reported by Reuters.

Psychiatrist and broadcaster Dr Raj Persaud has been found unfit to practice after he admitted plagiarising other people's work, the medical watchdog said on Friday.

His conduct was "inappropriate, misleading, dishonest and liable to bring the profession into disrepute", a General Medical Council panel found.

He had undermined public confidence in the profession and his conduct had "fallen below the standards of behaviour the public expected from doctors", it added.

Persaud had admitted copying four pieces of work for his 2003 book "From the Edge of the Couch" during a GMC disciplinary hearing in Manchester this week.

The former presenter of the BBC Radio 4 programme "All in the Mind" also admitted copying passages from two other pieces of work in a series of newspaper articles and journals.

He was resident psychiatrist on the daytime TV show "This Morning" and has appeared on the "Richard & Judy" show. He has also written for The Daily Telegraph and The Independent.

Persaud had denied dishonesty, but the GMC said he must have known what he was doing. He had said he was in a confused mental state at the time of writing the work because of the pressure of juggling his work for the media and the National Health Service.

"Your dishonest conduct brings the profession into disrepute and the panel has... concluded that your fitness to practise is impaired by reason of your misconduct," the GMC said in a written judgement.

"The panel has determined that your dishonest conduct in plagiarising other people's work on multiple occasions represents a serious breach of the principles that are central to good medical practice.

"Your conduct has fallen below the standards of behaviour that the public is entitled to expect from doctors and undermines public confidence in the profession."

While the panel said no patients had been injured it still had an obligation to protect the profession's reputation.

"Doctors occupy a position of privilege and trust in society and are expected to act with integrity and to uphold proper standards of conduct," the panel said.

Persaud is a consultant psychiatrist at the Bethlem Royal and Maudsley Hospitals and Gresham professor for Public Understanding of Psychiatry.

In 2002, he was voted one of the top 10 psychiatrists in the UK by a survey of the Institute of Psychiatry and the Royal College of Psychiatrists.

British Celebrity and TV psychiatrist Raj Persaud admits to plagerism, says he copied work from books

This is turning into a major scandal for psychiatry in the UK. As reported in the Times OnlineRaj Persaud, the celebrity psychiatrist, yesterday admitted copying the work of other scholars for publication in his book and in articles that he submitted. appearances on television shows such as This Morning, admitted plagiarising four articles in From The Edge of the Couch, a book published in 2003.

A hearing at the General Medical Council (GMC) in Manchester was told that Dr Persaud also admitted passing off other scholars’ work as his own in articles published in journals and national newspapers. Dr Persaud, who appeared regularly on the BBC Radio 4 programme All In The Mind, said that his actions were neither dishonest nor liable to bring his profession into disrepute. For some of the duplication Dr Persaud blamed a computer “cutting and pasting” error, the panel was told.

Jeremy Donne, QC, counsel for the GMC, said that Dr Persaud had benefited financially from the “hard work and scholarship” of other people.

“The articles, we say, speak for themselves and they all demonstrate the extent Dr Persaud has appropriated the work of others as his own,” he said. “We further allege that Dr Persaud has been dishonest. Dishonesty can be inferred from his repeated conduct in plagiarising the work of academics . . . thereby enhancing his professional reputation and standing with the public as well as enhancing himself in the press.”

Mr Donne said that Dr Persaud blamed subeditors after an article that he wrote for The Times Educational Supplement (TES) in February 2005 did not acknowledge the scholar whose work he copied. Thomas Blass, a professor at the University of Mary-land in America, complained and was told, in an e-mail by Dr Persaud, that he thought he had given him a mention.The TES acknowledged that Dr Persaud had copied the work of another scholar, Mr Donne said. “It’s quite clear that the TES were not taking responsibility for subbing errors in their apology.”

The GMC panel was told that allegations of plagiarism against Dr Persaud were first made in an article in The Sunday Times in April 2006. At the time Dr Persaud was a consultant psychiatrist for the South London and Maudsley NHS Trust, a position he still holds. He was also a director of the now defunct Centre for Public Engagement in Mental Health Sciences at the Institute of Psychiatry, King’s College, University of London. He withdrew from this honorary position after the allegations emerged.

Mr Donne said that Dr Persaud was being disingenuous by claiming that he had acknowledged the original con-tributors to his book. He revealed that Dr Persaud asked for and received permission to quote an article by a Professor Bentall for his book. “Professor Bentall gave his permission assuming that Dr Persaud . . . would know that quotations would have appeared in parenthesis and be properly attributed.” Having seen the passage Professor Bentall was astonished that a substantial portion of his paper had simply been copied into the book in what he believes was a deliberate act of plagiarism.”

Mr Donne said that the British Medical Journal was forced to issue an “unequivocal retraction” in September 2005 after publishing an article by Dr Persaud in which he failed to attribute his work correctly. The journal subsequently declined to publish another of his articles.The hearing continues.

A Bit of Fry & Laurie - What Psychiatrists Actually Do

A bit of a Satire on Psychiatrist as seen on You Tube:



As someone said, "Ok... for reals... this is what Therapists actually do."

What happens when the Doctors are Crazy

A review of a BBC Documentary raising two points, the exploitation of the film makers, and the apparent incompetence of a shrink in the the British mental health system.

So, how do we all feel, knowing that somewhere in Britain is a junior doctor who has lied both about the extent of her mental illness (she hears a voice that tells her to kill herself and other people) and her refusal to take prescribed medication in order that she might keep her job at an NHS hospital? Not great, in my case.

I reserve my fury, however, not for this vulnerable young woman, but for the man who encouraged her to tell such lies - the clinical psychologist Rufus May - and for the film-maker Leo Regan, who not only brought such activities to our attention in his documentary The Doctor Who Hears Voices (21 April, 10pm), but who seemingly had no compunction about his failure to inform the relevant authorities of what was going on. I would be interested to know what the Bradford District Care Trust, May's part-time employer, makes of this project. As for Channel 4's decision to screen it, complicity in this kind of stuff is extremely serious. The channel says it is in the public interest to expose the lengths to which people will go to disguise their illness, but the time for "debate" when it comes to mental health issues ends when human lives start to be at risk - as the last Tory government found out to its cost when it introduced its "care in the community" policy.

Rufus May is a psychologist who believes, though he was diagnosed with it himself at 18, that there is no such thing as schizophrenia. He thinks that psychotic experiences are "meaningful", that people can "learn" from manic behaviour, and that the drugs used to treat severe mental illnesses simply "shut patients up". In this film, we saw him treating, in his own time, a junior doctor called Ruth. May was going to help her "recover" without the aid of drugs and thereby survive the panel that would decide if she was fit to work. His view of this panel was that she would have to lie about the voice in her head; he did not think it affected her ability to be a doctor, and believed that if she admitted to it, she would lose her job.

His approach to her care was alarming. When her delusions grew more serious - she believed that the fish in the old people's home where she worked part-time were controlling the residents' heartbeats - he took it as a sign of progress. When the voice in her head grew louder, he simply talked to it using a "radical dialogue technique" to discover its identity, as though it were a real person.

The increasingly distressed Ruth (played by an actress to protect her identity, though other footage was real and her lines came from real transcripts) briefly went missing. Did he think she'd killed herself? Oddly, May was suddenly lost for words. He didn't want to "incriminate" himself, he said. I felt like punching him, and wondered how Leo Regan, sitting there beside him, managed to desist from doing just that.

Ah, yes. Leo Regan. We never saw him, but we heard him. His voice-over made you think that he was treating the whole thing as a huge lark. When May was evasive, which was often, he would say things like "Rufus was pissed off with me" or "I knew he was bullshitting me". He did not push May to justify his regime, nor did he ask him if his work had its roots in any kind of scientific research, preferring simply to titter at his somewhat antic behaviour.

But most appalling of all was the moment when he went to see Trevor Turner, a consultant psychiatrist who disagrees with May's techniques, to talk about Ruth's case. He duly told Turner her symptoms - though he did not explain, at least not on camera, that she was a real person - and asked what he would do with such a patient. Turner said she should be detained under the Mental Health Act for her own and the public's safety. And what did Regan do? Nothing. Meanwhile, May went on "talking" to Ruth's voice. That Ruth is still - or so I read - successfully working as a doctor does not make any of the above behaviour acceptable. May and Regan were lucky, that's all. This time, the experiment didn't blow up in their faces.

The Doctor Who Hears Voices Channel 4

TV Shrink Dr, Phil pays bail for the ringleader of the 8 Florida teens arrested for beating another teenager and videotaping it

This sounds like "Doctor" Phil has gone and got himself involved in another sordid case for fun and profit.

A bondsman says TV's Dr. Phil has posted $30 thousand bond for the ringleader of the eight Lakeland teens accused of kidnapping and beating a girl in front of a video camera.

It's believed Mercades Nichols will be talking about the case on his nationally syndicated show soon.

Some parents had complained earlier this week that they could not afford the high bond set by the judge.

However, six of the eight were out of jail Saturday.

All eight teens face kidnapping and battery charges. Kidnapping carries a penalty of up to life in prison.

UPDATE: A spokesperson for Dr. Phil's show now admits that paying for Nichols bail was a mistake, stating that "certain staff members went beyond show guidelines." While it is not clear as to whether or not those staff members were disciplined, the statement says they've been spoken to.

We of course remember his statement regarding his interaction with Britney Spears

Dr. Phil has nervous breakdown during taping of his show psychoanalyzing reasons for Miley Cyrus's name change

Satire from the Spoof website:

Although Miley Cyrus's name change barely registering on the media's radar as a blip, Dr. Phil may have just finished taping his last show dedicated to examining the tidbits of the fractured life of yet another celebrity. All in a vain attempt to appease his (and our) subconscious fetish with them.

At this last taping, the studio audience must have sensed Dr. Phil's Achilles heal as they sat nervously quiet during the entire three hour marathon taping without being permitted leave their seats even to take a bathroom break behind chain locked studio doors.

"Come on people, if I have been over this once, I have been over this a thousand times today," said Dr. Phil, his wife noticeably missing from the studio and looking disheveled wearing a short sleeved shirt without his customary tie and business suit jacket. "Now I'm not letting you all out of here until you agree with me."

"Dr. Phil acted like a mad man," said Marie Hernandez, who finally was released from the Dr. Phil studio after the fire department cut the chains from the studio doors, citing the show's producers for a safety code violation. "We were all scared to death. We didn't know what to think or do. So we just sat there the entire time hoping somebody would notice that 100 people were missing for over three hours."

The show's producers attempted to explain that Dr. Phil just could not seem to get over the Britney Spears incident and in recent months had been unsuccessfully treating himself.

"In my experience, as a fully credentialed psychiatrist," said Dr. Phil. "It is not too uncommon of a practice for an individual to change their name to psychologically distance themselves away from their family and so-called friends that stab you in the back on a national morning TV show. That's why I'm taking this opportunity to announce that I have decided to support Miley Cyrus's decision to change her name by joining her in changing my name too. From now on, I'm no longer Dr. Phil. I am Dr. Punxsutawney Phil."

Dr. Phil then existed the studio stage floor as the fire department entered through the doors, but before he disappeared from sight, Dr. Phil turned back glancing over the studio once more and saying to the audience, "You won't be seeing me around here for a while. Not even my shadow."

No one has filed charges against Dr. Phil for false imprisonment; or are any expected ever to be filed because audience members all signed waivers, said the show's producers.

The Century of the Self - A BBC Documentary

A BBC Documentary on Google Video, describing how those in power have used Freud's theories to try and control the dangerous crowd in an age of mass democracy. An interesting view into the minds of folks in government who look to sell us their agenda.

More specifically it is about the rise of the Public Relations industry, and the Role of Edward Bernaise (a nephew of Sigmund Freud) in the creation and development of this field, especially in the realm of politics.

This probably would not air in the USA, for a variety of reasons, including much footage that dates back to the early Clinton and Blair years. Has an odd conservative twist to it.

Each part is about 1 hour long.

Part 1 - Happiness Machines



Part 2 - The Engineering of Consent



Part 3 - There is Policeman Inside all our Heads He Must Be Destroyed



Part 4 - Eight People Sipping Wine in Kettering (Engineering politics)



There is more info here, at the Information Clearing House website.

Sigmund Freud introduced the idea that humans were in a struggle with their animalistic natures and if this goes unchecked then people will run around naked destroying things and society will fall apart. He apparently had very little confidence in humans.

This idea was widely accepted especially in the upper classes thus confirming of the fear that Democracy left unchecked could destroy their society. If the people could not be trusted to control their basic animalistic nature, then how would they know how to vote?

In steps Freud’s nephew Edward Bernaise. Propaganda during war was nothing new, but Bernaise saw an opportunity to use the unconscious desires of humans to manipulate the masses in times of peace also. Bernaise believed that by fulfilling the unconscious desires of people would change a potentially unruly population into a controlled docile one.

Bernaise invented the much used term “public relations,” and used it to turn the population of the United States into consumers. Before Bernaise worked his magic, the American population only bought goods according to their needs. It was practically unheard of to buy something for any other reason.

Bernaise made it acceptable to make a purchase based on desires.

Using Hollywood through product placement, and the media, he changed the population into an easily placated self-absorbed group where before they were actively participating. Over the years, this has changed Democracy from a function of the entire society into less than a passing diversion. It is not by accident that here in the United States we have perhaps a lower voter turnout than anywhere else in the world.

Bernaise put his methodology to the test in many areas. Bernaise, being approached by the tobacco company, effectively double their customers with one wave of his wand. He asked had a few women light up after a march in front of the press and in a movie or two prominent actresses were instructed to smoke and almost overnight erased the stigma of women smoking. After this victory and his ideas tested and proven, Bernaise was ready to move onto bigger things. He was involved in all sorts of advertising and promotion from the automobile industry to governmental agencies that needed public support.

Although there have been many attempts to oppose these methods as unethical, they have gone largely unopposed. As long as industry is making money and politicians are passing the laws they are pushing for the industry, they will continue to go unopposed.

This is pure propaganda and is intended to be a psychological attack at the essence of humanity to evoke a non-response to governmental malfeasance and other societal issues as well as to evoke a gluttonous consumer based society. If that seems to sum up much of how the world seems to consider most Americans, at least we can now tell that it is not by accident.

The methods had been used for years to promote the hard to sell policies of the government, but starting with Clinton and Blair a new use was found. Polls were taken to find out what the voter desired most. These finding were easily turned into speeches and in the cases of Clinton and Blair, won elections.

Blair took it one step farther and used it to set policy while Clinton simply did what he and his advisors thought was best after the election was won. Blair took polls and no one seemed concerned about the rail system in Britain, so little funding was appropriated until trains began derailing and killing people. Politicians soon learned that people’s concerns were not always in line with their needs.

Of course if they had studied Bernaise and the methodology of the polls, they would have known this. Now, politicians use the polls to write their speeches and continue to do what they feel is best regardless of what they say in the speeches.

This is why Bush talks about peace and wages war and all the other double speak that persists, to placate to the desires and not the needs of society which effectively placates the masses.

One would think that the population would eventually catch on to this trick, and perhaps some have, but the public relations business is stronger and more centralized than ever. Just a few short years ago, there were over 50 media stations broadcasting news to Americans. Now there are only five. This number could go lower soon, but at this point the company heads are all of one voice pounding out PR about whatever they want us to think we want.

The journalism schools in the U.S. are very few and most have switched over to public relations. Journalists will soon go the way of the dinosaur if something does not change this horrible trend.

Psychiatrist Accused Of Putting Price On Prayer

Report from News Channel 5 in Nashville, Tennessee

Many people believe in the healing power of prayer. But should that power come at the expense of taxpayers?

NewsChannel 5 Investigates learned one local doctor may have billed Medicare for more than just medicine.

Investigative reporter Ben Hall tracked down the doctor who was apparently taking taxpayer money to pray with patients.

The power of prayer can get people through tough times and people have traditionally given it freely, but investigators said a Midstate psychiatrist and minister paid church members to visit nursing home patients and then charged taxpayers.

When asked if he used unlicensed people to bill Medicare for psychotherapy services, Dr. Cupid Poe said, "No comment."

Poe declined comment, but court documents obtained by NewsChannel 5 indicate that agents raised questions about whether he fraudulently billed Medicare for more than $250,000.

Poe often used well-meaning church members to provide psychotherapy.

"I observed them as a therapist and a counselor, a medical therapist and a medical counselor," said Delano Avent.

Court documents indicate Avent was one of Poe's former patients. Poe invited him to church.

Avent said Poe paid him to meet with nursing home patients.

Investigators said Poe billed Medicare as if the patients received psychotherapy services.

When asked what type of training he had, Avent replied, "I have training with my family."

Despite the lack of training, investigators said he treated six residents at the Briley Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.

"I would ask them how they are doing. ‘How do you feel? Did you like your lunch? Did you like your dinner?'" Avent said.

That, federal agents said, does not constitute psychotherapy.

But Avent was not alone.

"We don't bill nobody. What we do, we just pick and sing and go home," said J.D. Russell, a minister.

Russell and his wife said they didn't know Poe was billing Medicare. They visited nursing home patients and held worship services.

When asked if what they did was considered to be psychotherapy, Russell said

"No picking and singing, I don't think, comes nowhere near it," Russell said.

Court documents showed that Poe told federal investigators he used "extenders" to treat patients - "people operating under his supervision."

Poe used people such as the Russells, Avent as well as his daughter, a licensed cosmetologist. She is not a licensed psychiatrist.

Investigators started looking into Poe when they noticed that he billed Medicare for more than 24 hours of psychotherapy services in a single day 50 times.

There were other concerns as well.

In his own counseling sessions Poe told investigators "he asks if the patient would like to sing a song; reads a verse or two of scripture; and closes with a prayer." He also said he "generally spends 20 minutes" with a patient instead of the required 50.

"I don't believe we are going to find therapy that can substitute for the healing power of God," Poe said during a television interview with Dr. James Haney, who hosts a program on local television.

Poe has done many television interviews talking about Christian counseling.

"My job and concern was to observe them and sing hymns with them," Avent said.

He believes anyone was qualified to do it.

But should taxpayers pay for it?

"Do you think taxpayers deserve an explanation?" Hall asked Poe, who did not answer.

His attorney said his client is cooperating with the investigation and he hopes to reach some kind of resolution with the federal government.

Poe billed Medicare between 2004 and 2006.

His attorney said there has been a lot of negotiating back and forth. The federal government wants to send a message that it's cracking down on Medicare fraud.

Medicare fraud by doctors and patients has grown in recent years. Last year, federal officials said investigators discovered more than $3 billion in fraud.

Psychologist's Book Slammed on Amazon After Fox News Debacle

As Reported on Gaming Daily

Syndicated radio talk-show host and psychologist Cooper Lawrence is now getting a taste of the gaming and Internet community following her appearance on Fox News in which she criticized Mass Effect (a game she never played) and appeared to talk in an almost condescending tone to GameTrailers' Geoff Keighley (who was barely given the time of day to defend the game).

In the past few days Lawrence's book The Cult of Perfection: Making Peace with Your Inner Overachiever has been slammed with negative reviews on Amazon.com as backlash for her comments on Mass Effect. As of press time, out of 565 reviews 503 are 1-star and 48 are 2-star. Only 12 people have rated her book with a 5-star review.

Moreover, the tags customers associated with the product were telling: ignorant (350), hypocrisy (286), garbage (284), hypocrite (267), junk (264), hack (254), terrible (231), bigot (217), bigoted (197), bias (168).

Yesterday Electronic Arts (owner of Mass Effect developer BioWare) sent a letter to Fox News requesting a correction.

Oprah’s reportedly furious with Dr. Phil

Report from MSNBC

The fallout from Dr. Phil McGraw’s controversial meeting with pop wreck Britney Spears just keeps on coming. Now it’s not just Brit’s parents and mental health professionals giving the good doc a hard time. Queen of Talk Oprah Winfrey has had it with her tell-it-like-it-is protégé, reports the National Enquirer.

“Oprah is furious,” an insider told the magazine. “She expected Phil to apologize before the situation got out of hand. Instead he used the spotlight to tout his struggling talk show. … Oprah thinks he has completely lost his sense of right and wrong.”

No stranger to her own scandals, Oprah’s upset about how Phil’s handled his public embarrassment. “Oprah has made mistakes but the difference is that she’s known when to step back and apologize,” a friend revealed. “She feels Phil should have done that when he had the chance. … He betrayed her trust.”

A show source told the Enquirer that Oprah warned Phil before, and her angry reaction was “coming for a long time.” Seems the two talk titans clashed over several issues in the past. In 2005, Phil “threw a hissy fit” when Oprah’s close pal Maria Shriver failed to wrangle hubby Arnold Schwarzenegger to introduce him at an obesity conference. He also earned O’s ire after his “Shape Up!” diet products failed to deliver and later led to a $10.5 million settlement.

Phil may have his own show, but getting on Oprah’s bad side caries a hefty price. “Phil got a whopping $75 million deal, but Oprah is still his boss,” another close source explained. “She even has control of what time slots he’s in. If she doesn’t want him around, she can make him disappear.”

The Lobotomist on PBS

American Experience presents The Lobotomist, the gripping and tragic story of an ambitious doctor, the desperate families who sought his help, and the medical establishment that embraced him. From award-winning producers Barak Goodman and John Maggio (The Boy in the Bubble, The Fight), this one-hour film features interviews with Dr. Freeman's former patients and their families, his students, and medical historians, and offers an unprecedented look at one of the darkest chapters in psychiatric history.

Despite mixed results, by the early 1940s, some fifty state asylums were performing lobotomies on their patients. The procedure was hailed as a miracle cure, Freeman himself a visionary who brought hope to the most desolate human beings.

Yet only a decade later, the story would come full-circle again. Freeman would be decried as a moral monster, the lobotomy as one of the most barbaric mistakes ever perpetrated by mainstream medicine. Through interviews with medical historians, psychiatrists who worked with Freeman, and the desperate families who sought his help, this American Experience episode tells a gripping tale of medical intervention gone awry.

• Summary Description of the Program
  
  
• Program Transcipt here

Be sure to check your local listings

Fox News Big Story with Doug Kennedy on Big Pharma's Lie

A Followup on our report from earlier this past week.

Fox News Big Story with Douglas Kennedy on how Big Pharma leaves out the bad studies and downplays the nasty side effects of their highly addictive drugs. A slam against psychiatric meditations. Via YouTube.



An online transcript can be seen here:

Psychology Board Investigates Dr. Phil

Hollywood Tabloid show TMZ has obtained a copy of a complaint against Dr. Phil which was lodged with the California Board of Psychology, alleging the TV doc was illegally practicing without a license when he paid a visit to one Britney Spears. From their report

We've learned the person who filed the complaint is a psychologist. Dr. Phil has never been licensed to practice in California, and he retired his Texas license in 2006.

The shrink believes when Dr. Phil visited Brit in the hospital earlier this month, he was practicing psychology. A "Dr. Phil" honcho told TMZ the visit was never meant to lure Britney onto the TV show -- and that there were never plans to put her on the air.

A Psychology Board rep told TMZ if the Board finds the complaint credible, it would be referred to the D.A. for review. Practicing without a license is a felony in California.

The psychologist who filed the complaint also alleges Dr. Phil violated HIPAA laws by "discussing or divulging a patient's medical condition ... with the media," in reference to a press release issued by Dr. Phil.

The complaint also says, "A petition is being circulated to remove the "Dr. Phil" show from the air." We're told the shrink is trying to get other psychologists to sign.

As for the Dr. Phil show's response -- no immediate comment.

UPDATE: In light of all of this, apparently Dr. Phil has had the bright idea to issue an apology, which will be broadcast on his show on Monday. While we welcome such an apology, the need for one is indicative of either the character of the man, or of the corrupting influence of Hollywood, and the need for Dr. Phil to take a fresh look at his non-functional moral compass. We suspect that it might have long since lost it's magnetic bearings. MTV has this report:

Dr. Phil is sorry. The TV physician has issued a statement apologizing for his controversial visit with Britney Spears while the singer was in the hospital on January 5, as well as a subsequent press release he issued about the incident.

"Was it helpful to the situation? Regrettably, no. It was not, and I have to acknowledge that, and I do," Phil McGraw told his audience Thursday during an episode of Dr. Phil that will run Monday, according to USA Today. "I definitely think if I had it to do over again, I probably wouldn't make any statement at all. Period."

[...]

A complaint was filed against McGraw earlier this week that accused him of violating the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act. The complaint alleges Dr. Phil practiced clinical psychology without a license and further violated doctor-patient privilege by discussing the pop star's case with the media.

[...]

Spears Family Attacks Dr. Phil: You Totally Betrayed Us!

As seen on the Today show, complete with this video (8+ minutes long, spokesman starts at 2min09sec into the piece)



There is also this extended written news report

TMZ Sums it up this way

Jamie and Lynne Spears slammed -- and we mean slammed -- Dr. Phil this morning, calling the way he handled his contact with Britney a betrayal, inappropriate and a total breach of their trust.

Spears family rep Lou Taylor told Meredith Vieira on the "Today" show that Dr. Phil actually broached the subject of doing a show about Britney, but that they nixed the idea, only to have Phil try to set up the show anyway. Taylor scorched Phil, saying it was even "inappropriate" for Phil to bring up doing a show, and that the family thought it would be detrimental to Britney.

What's more, Taylor said that the family felt "betrayed" that Phil would issue any kind of statement after meeting with Brit, and that nobody had given him any authority to say anything, much less bellow on and on like he did.

It's a total smackdown.

A Transcript From Dr. Phil’s Cancelled ‘Britney’ Episode

In a hopefully final note, we came across this satire of Dr Phil and his handling of the Britney Spears case:

In case you missed the memo, today’s episode of “Dr. Phil,” which was supposed to be a full hour devoted to Britney and her current situation, was yanked from the air and replaced by a repeat at the last minute because Dr. Phil felt the situation was “too intense.”

Just so we don’t go home completely empty-handed, here’s an artist’s conception of what we missed.

DR. PHIL: Welcome to the show. Today, we’re spending the entire hour talking about Britney Spears with those who know her best — these random tv psychologists who we managed to book at the last minute.

PSYCHOLOGIST GUY WHO LOOKS A LITTLE LIKE THE BRITISH JUDGE ON “DANCING WITH THE STARS”: Glad to be here, Dr. Phil.

DR. PHIL: Let’s talk about Britney. I mean, what is her deal, yo? [AUDIENCE CHUCKLES AT COMFORTABLE, GOOD-NATURED UNPROFESSIONALISM] I mean, what the hell, dammit?

PSYCHOLOGIST: Let me start by saying that numerous layers of psychological, emotional, spiritual, and even frenological factors come into play when you’re dealing with a celebrity of this magnitude.

[CHYRON APPEARS - “Dr. James R. Stephenson, Blazer-Wearing Man Who Has Heard Of Britney]

DR. PHIL: But damnit, at what point is enough enough??

[AUDIENCE APPLAUDS AFTER 1.5 SECONDS OF APPLAUSE-MILKING SILENCE]

PSYCHOLOGIST: We see this all the time in celebrities. I spent two years reading about Loni Anderson back when that whole thing was going on, so I know how tough it can be, there simply is no quick fix.

DR. PHIL: We all know Britney has a terrific, supportive family, but at some point you have to say, you know, “What the hell am I doin’? I need to knock it off!”

[ONE PERSON IMMEDIATELY STARTS APPLAUDING REALLY LOUDLY, REST OF AUDIENCE FOLLOWS SUIT]

DR. PHIL: We’ll be right back.

[LAME ACOUSTIC GUITAR OUTRO. THE OPTIMUM ONLINE TRIPLE PLAY COMMERCIAL PLAYS SEVEN TIMES. LAME ACOUSTIC GUITAR INTRO]

DR. PHIL: We learned a lot today about Britney’s situation — probably 10, 15 percent of this we didn’t even cover the last time we devoted an entire hour-long episode to Britney.

The point is, the harder I try to draw psychological paralells between Britney’s craziness and general, everyday advice for our viewers, the more clear it becomes that these Britney episodes are completely irredeemable ratings ploys. Not that that’s a secret or anything, but damnit, why the hell does it have to be so obvious??

[AUDIENCE APPLAUDS]

Dr. Phil: Tomorrow, we’ll bring Dick Masterson and that black woman who hates blacks into the studio to discuss the psychology of lesbian threesomes, and whether or not troubled pop star Britney Spears would go for one. The episode will be so technological and informative, simply watching it qualifies your for 9 Psych credits at any state university. So stay tuned.

[LAME ACOUSTIC GUITAR OUTRO LONG VERSION PLAYS, TURNS INTO ROCKIN’ ELECTRIC GUITAR OVERTOP APPLAUSE AND THE CREDITS. NINETY MINTUES OF THE OPTIMUM ONLINE TRIPLE PLAY AD PLAYS ON A LOOP.]

The tragic psychiatric misdiagnosis of Sopis Mirza led to her death

Someone sent in this link to another tragic case where a valid medical condition was misdiagnosed, and the woman involved was committed to a psychiatric hospital for treatment of her non-existent mental disease. Unfortunately, the woman died a few short days after returning home of the very real disease she had contracted.

The woman's name is Sophia Mirza, and her full story can be read online here The medical condition is Myalgic Encephalomyelitis, and you can read more about this condition here.

The World Health Organisation has classified Myalgic Encephalomyelitis as a neurological illness, as defined by ICD-10-G93.3, separate from the psychological illnesses classified under ICD-10-F48

ME/CFS - Doctors disbelief kills young woman



ME/CFS - A Hidden National Scandal Exposed

ABC News Report on Paxil Addiction

As Broadcast on December 9th, 2004. Here is a clip from that episode