Psychiatry's Human Rights Violations

STATEMENT PREPARED BY THE OCAP ACCESSIBILITY COMMITTEE:

In the Name of Mental Health - Psychiatry's Human Rights Violations

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is holding its Annual Meeting this year in Toronto on May 20-25. On May 26-27, a "Conference on Ethics in Mental Health:" endorsed by the APA, is also being held Toronto. Since psychiatric survivors have not been invited to speak at these conferences--with 1 exception of an unnamed "client" at the mental health conference--we feel it's appropriate to distribute this document as our contribution to public education about many human rights violations in the psychiatry-dominated "mental health system", This is a short list of many of psychiatry's unethical practices or human rights violations minimized or denied by the APA and the Canadian Psychiatric Association.

1. NO INFORMED CONSENT

The right to voluntary informed consent is enshrined in virtually all mental health laws, it's a key principle of medical ethics. This right means that when prescribing any treatment or procedure, the physician must, a., not use any pressure, threat or coercion to obtain consent; b., tell you the nature of your condition or illness; c., inform you of the immediate risks and other common risks of the treatment ("side effects"); d., inform you of alternatives to the treatment; and e., inform you of your right to refuse. Psychiatrists frequently violate this right - especially when prescribing psychiatric drugs ("medication") and electroshock ("ECT").

2. FORCED DRUGGING

Psychiatrists frequently administer brain-disabling antidepressants and neuroleptics and addictive tranquilizers ("medication") without informed consent of their patients. This is unlawful. Under the Criminal Code of Canada, "unwanted touching" is an assault. Forced drugging is assault. Many psychiatric survivors have been traumatized and disabled (sometimes permanently) by forced drugging (e.g. injections). Many more women than men are drugged; women diagnosed as depressed, "bipolar" or suffering "postpartum depression" are the main targets of this psychiatric assault.

3. ELECTROSHOCK ( "electroconvulsive therapy"/ECT")

As one of the most disabling and inhumane procedures in psychiatry, electroshock is increasingly used in several countries including Canada, United States, and the UK. ECT's immediate effects include seizure, convulsion, coma, severe headache, disorientation, nausea, and physical weakness. Its long-term effects include permanent memory loss, learning and reading disabilities, impaired concentration, and brain damage. "ECT" consent forms are a sham, since patients are misinformed or not informed of most of these serious health risks. Women and the elderly, especially elderly women, are the main targets. Anti-shock campaigns advocating abolition are growing in the United States (Texas, California), the United Kingdom, and New Zealand. "ECT" should be banned

4. INVOLUNTARY COMMITTAL IS PREVENTIVE DETENTION

Involuntary committal is the psychiatric imprisonment of people labeled and believed to be "mentally ill", dangerous to themselves or others, and/or "incapable". Locking up citizens on the belief or opinion they might commit a violent act or criminal offence - without being charged and denied a trial - is preventive detention, which is prohibited in international law. Many involuntary patients are poor or homeless, with little or no community support. Although involuntary committal violates several rights in the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms (sections 7, 9,15), it is legal in all provinces, all states in the United States and many European countries.

5. COMMUNITY TREATMENT ORDERS/OUTPATIENT FORCED DRUGGING -

Under these "leash laws", psychiatrists have the power to force psychiatric patients to be treated in the community - the treatment is usually powerful, brain-damaging antidepressants and/or neuroleptics. If patients refuse to obey community treatment orders (CTOs) or "take their meds" (sometimes ordered by judges in the United States), they can be locked up again for longer periods or indefinitely. These psychiatric orders are enforced by community treatment teams of mental health professionals. In Ontario, patient appeals are rarely successful; CTOs may soon be challenged as Charter violations.

6. CHILD ABUSE -

Child psychiatrists frequently prescribe health-threatening antidepressants and neuroleptics to young children (some as young as 2 or 3 years old) as a treatment for "behavior disorder" or "mental illness". Some researchers have used children as guinea pigs in hi-risk drug experiments. In Canada and the United States, hundreds of thousands of children have been fraudulently diagnosed with the label attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) or oppositional defiant disorder (ODD), and prescribed highly addictive stimulants like Ritalin. The United States government's national "teen screening" program targets and tests youth suspected of being "mentally ill". A similar program is recommended in the current mental health report of the Canadian Senate ("Out of the Shadows - Highlights and Recommendations", 2006, p.19)

7. TORTURE: PHYSICAL RESTRAINTS/"SECLUSION"

Adults and children labeled "non-compliant" or "unmanageable" are frequently subjected to 2-point, 4-point and sometimes 5-point restraints ordered by psychiatrists. Hundreds of patients have been seriously traumatized or died while restrained (see "Deadly Restraint" series in The Hartford Courant). Many have also languished in "seclusion", a form of solitary confinement. "Seclusion rooms" exist on virtually all psychiatric wards and hospitals. Patients experience restraints and seclusion as cruel and degrading punishment or torture. Physically and chemically restraining children is child abuse - a serious violation of the UN Convention Against Torture and the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child.

In April 2005, the Coalition Against Psychiatric Assault (CAPA), sponsored four days of public hearings on the effects of psychiatric drugs and electroshock Approximately 40 psychiatric survivors courageously testified about many of these rights abuses and violations they personally experienced. (see "Inquiry Into Psychiatry": - http://capa.oise.utoronto.ca).

We demand that governments immediately call public hearings into these psychiatric abuses - human rights violations the American Psychiatric Association and Canadian Psychiatric Association minimize or deny - in the name of "mental health".

You May Already Have a Mental Disorder

As Reported here

As many of you may have read in your "news"papers, apparently there is concern that many of our new vets are susceptible to mental disorders. (Note: Entirely possible, and a valid concern, and something we should look out for.)

Now, the solution for this is...

(a) Mental Health Screenings at all bases
OR
(b) Mental Health Screening via website


Yes, all of us can now go to the

You May Already Have a Mental Disorder Website

and see what we qualify for.

One person has already tried several of the screenings, and found she qualifies for all she's tried, including alcoholism. Amazing, I never knew she was such a lush since she doesn't drink.

Nice to see the profit motive hard at work.

We encourage everyone to take the tests, and see how many diseases you qualify for. Take the Tests with your industrial size ten ton grain of Salt.

Problems with Modern Psychiatry

As seen here

Whenever the specific, biological basis of a formerly psychiatric disorder is fully understood, the disorder tends to leave the realm of psychiatry and become the province of neurologists, or possibly some other kind of doctor such as an infectious disease specialist. I mentioned recently that tertiary syphillis used to be conflated with schizophrenia. Now that we know it is an infectious disease, it is no longer considered a psychiatric disorder. Similarly, the dementias associated with aging used to be considered "insanity," but today people with Alzheimer's Disease and vascular dementia see neurologists, not psychiatrists. (The neurologists can't do anything for them either, but we still pay for visits.)

[...]

Psychiatrists want to be credible within the medical profession. In the past, there was little or no demand that psychiatric treatments be proven efficacious by the methods used for medical treatments. For that matter, medical treatments didn't have to be shown to be effective either, but psychiatry came to the evidence-based game comparatively late.

The theories used by psychiatrists were firmly held and passionately defended, but they were largely speculative and often quite fungible and vague. Psychiatrists used to be convinced that schizophrenia was caused by suppressed conflicts and desires, and that autism was caused by emotionally distant mothers. Now they give drugs for schizophrenia and autism has been handed to the neurologists.

Oh yes, drugs. Although psychiatric disorders, almost by definition, are of unknown etiology, in order to be considered "scientific" psychiatry needs randomized controlled trials. It's a lot easier to do one for a drug than it is for talk therapy.

For one thing, drugs are perfectly standardized -- a specific dose of a specific chemical. Counseling is very difficult to package as a standard product in a standard dose.

For another, although psychiatrists nowadays like to talk about "rewiring neural circuits" by talking to people, they don't really have any way of proving that they have done so.

[...]

So it seems that psychistrists are the folks who treat people when doctors do not know what the medical condition is that causes their 'condition'. Not very encouraging, is it?

UMass Boston Study Reveals Financial Links Between Mental Health Guide Advisors and Pharmaceutical Companies

From the University of Massachusett Press Release

Experts on mental disorders who serve on a leading medical manual’s advisory panel have undisclosed financial ties to drug companies, according to a new study written by a team of UMass Boston and Tufts University professors and graduate students.

Lisa Cosgrove of UMass Boston’s Department of Counseling and School Psychology in the Graduate College of Education, Tufts University Professor Sheldon Krimsky, and UMass Boston graduate students Manisha Vijayaraghavan and Lisa Schneider authored the study, which was published April 21 [2006] in Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, a leading medical journal in Europe.

A number of UMass Boston students participated in this first-of-its-kind study, according to Cosgrove. Over a year and a half, the team researched the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) panel members and their financial ties to pharmaceutical companies.

Before this study, no one had looked at the financial ties between the DSM panel members and the drug companies, according to Cosgrove.

But wait, there's more:

The study examined 170 DSM panel members and revealed some startling results. According to the findings, all of the members for panels on mood disorders, schizophrenia, and other psychotic disorders have financial ties to drug companies. Most drugs are prescribed for these two categories of mental illness, the study states.

According to the study, of the 170 panel members, 56 percent had one or more financial ties to companies in the pharmaceutical industry

In 2004, antidepressants and antipsychotics were the fourth- and fifth-leading class of drugs, generating a total of over $34 billion in sales worldwide, according to the findings.

“Nowhere in the DSM is there a conflict-of-interest policy,” Cosgrove said. One hundred percent of the panel experts on mood disorders and schizophrenia had financial ties to drug companies, she said. “It’s so outrageous,” she said of the findings.

“Probably what the general public isn’t aware of is in order for drug to be approved by the FDA, there must be a disorder for it to be approved,” Cosgrove said.

A marketing of disorders and psychiatric disorders exists because the drug companies have a vested interest in them, she said.

To quote a pair of famous lines from a movie:

"I am shocked that there is gambling going on in this establishment."
"Here are your winnings, Inspector"

Discovering a 'poverty gene'

Scottish scientists have discovered a "poverty gene" which causes people from deprived areas to age rapidly, pass on health problems to the next generation and might even explain negative attitudes to employment. Research in Glasgow has established that deprivation can lead to an overactive immune system which quickly uses up the body's supply of spare cells needed to keep ageing at bay. It means a typical 55-year-old from the city's East End might have a "biological age" closer to 70.

Most astonishing of all, it is suspected that a hyperactive immune system floods the brain with a cocktail of chemicals which suppress the natural desire for self-advancement.

Of course, the idea that a depressing enviroment could have a depressing effect on a depressed and repressed population seems to have escaped their "minds", such as they are.

A man went to a psychiatrist and said

A man went to a psychiatrist and said,

"Doc, "I've got trouble. Every time I get into bed I think there is somebody under it. Every time I get under the bed; I think there's somebody on top of it. I think I'm going crazy!"

"Just put yourself in my hands for two years," said the psychiatrist.

"Come to me three times a week and I'll cure you."

"How much do you charge?"

"A hundred dollars per visit."

"I'll think about it."

The man never went back. Some time later he met the doctor on the street.

"Why didn't you ever come to see me again? asked the psychiatrist.

"For a hundred dollars a visit? A bartender cured me for 10 bucks."

"Is that so! How did he do that?"

"He told me to cut the legs off the bed."

Courtesy of Flash 8 Bug

Love Sick

From the halls of the Kangaroo Court weblog

Dr. Frank Tallis, a practicing clinical psychologist in Britain, wants us to take the mentaphor of "love sickness" seriously. He wants it to be considered a mental illness and the people suffering from this terrible malady to be "treated" for their sickness.

Psychiatry is a creation of the modern era, as the practice of mad doctoring is only a few hundred years old. But this fact never stops believers in the psychiatric religion like Tallis from claiming that their beliefs were also held by the ancients. Yes, the ancient Greeks believed that love is a mental illness and they aggressively diagnosed and treated it. To check Tallis' argument out, all you have to do is take in some ancient Greek literature, like the Illiad. There you'll read about characters in love, like Paris, who are quickly carted off by the men in white coats and taken to the local psychiatric hospital once their illness has been discovered.

{...}

Tallis wants all romantic love to be classified as a mental illness so that the last obstacle in the way of his crusade to save people from the plague of love sickness can be removed. Tallis understands that if the people he sees as mentally ill continue to be seen as normal, then his crusade to agressively diagnose and treat them with government sponsored psychiatric violence won't get anywhere. This raises "substantial ethical issues" for Tallis.

Of course, maybe Tallis is suffering from some malady himself. Maybe he wasn't loved enough when he was a child. Maybe he only needs enough electro shock to feel loved. Who knows?

Zyprexa and Quack Psychiatry

Excellent article by Rick Davis. We hope to see more by him.

Since its approval, Zyprexa has been exposed as responsible for a high incidence of stroke, diabetes, endocrine, cardiac problems and movement disorders. And yet, the drug has been routinely prescribed to adults of all ages and to children, despite the fact that the FDA has not approved Zyprexa for pediatric use.

In the July 2002 issue of Pharmacotherapy, P Murali Doraiswamy, the chief of biological psychiatry at Duke University, published a review of adverse events reported to the FDA by Zyprexa patients that found 289 cases of diabetes, 100 patients with ketosis (a serious complication of diabetes), and 22 cases of pancreatitis, a life-threatening condition. The review documented 23 deaths, including a 15-year-old adolescent who died of necrotizing pancreatitis.

[...]

Sales of Zyprexa, dwindled in the last quarter of 2005, as news of the drug's lethal side effects made headlines. In June 2005, word got out that Lilly had agreed to pay $690 million to settle a lawsuit filed on behalf of about 8,000 Zyprexa patients who alleged they had not been warned of the drug's increased risk of diabetes.

[...]

In every state, Zyprexa represents a big line-item expense to Medicaid at a time when most states are facing a budget crisis. US sales of all antipsychotics doubled between 2001 and 2004, largely because of purchases by Medicaid. On September 29, 2005, Bloomberg News reported that Medicaid programs may reduce the $5.5 billion it spends annually on schizophrenia drugs for the poor after a study found a cheaper generic about as effective as nongenerics, including Zyprexa. "The 40-year-old drug perphenazine costs less than $1.50 a day," Bloomberg wrote, "while the newer medicines can cost 10 times as much."

[...]

The state of Georgia has removed Zyprexa from its preferred drug list and any Georgia doctor who wants to start a Medicaid patient on Zyprexa, must now submit a clinical rationale stating why it's the only drug appropriate for the patient, according to the November 28, 2005 Indianapolis Business Journal (IBJ). Illinois, Tennessee, Pennsylvania and Louisiana also require doctors to obtain prior authorization before prescribing Zyprexa, according to the November 2005 Indianapolis Business Journal. Georgia spokeswoman Julie Kerlin told IBJ that removing Zyprexa from the list in 2004 has saved the state nearly $7 million, which means Lilly lost $7 million in one state alone.

FDA Committees Examine Concerns About Psychiatric Drugs Used by Children

The Psychiatric Times takes a look at the continued FDA investigation of Psych drugs used on children. Of course they put up a brave face regarding the possible effectiveness of the treatments.

But on the other hand, they admit that they do not know what they are doing without realizing it. Thomas Laughren, MD, director, division of psychiatry products at the FDA says it is more difficult to conduct reliable clinical trials with antidepressants:

"That is because we don't understand most psychiatric disorders at a biological level," he explained. "All we have is the phenomenology of the disease. It is not like some types of heart disease or cancer where you understand the disease at the pathological level and have a better chance of distinguishing between different subgroups of patients who might respond differently to one drug or another."

The problematic nature of the trials is also discussed, although it sounds like they are definitely getting nervous. Maybe they should take a pill. They certainly have enough of them.

Convicted French psychiatrist asks Russia for political asylum

Only at the hands of a professional....

Remember psychotherapist = Psycho The Rapist

MOSCOW,(RIA Novosti) - A senior European psychiatrist arrested in Moscow by the Interpol on sexual abuse charges has asked for political asylum in Russia, his attorney said Friday.

In May 2005, a French court sentenced Dr. Jean Andres Hoareau, a specialist in forensic psychiatry and sexual disorders and deputy chairman of the Association of European Psychiatrists, to 15 years in jail for raping a client while she was under hypnosis. The verdict was passed in Hoareau's absence.

"My client has been detained by the international department of Interpol, which acted on the decision of French justice," Igor Trunov said, adding that Hoareau was being kept in a detention center for foreigners.

Trunov said the detention of his client in Moscow was a "political decision."

He said Hoareau, also the founder of the European Center for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy in Moscow, had been living in the Russian capital for 15 years. He also said his client was married with three children.

"We are going to appeal the detention decision, most likely with the Moscow City Court," Trunov said.

Now the Russians have him under house arrest and are thinking about what to do with him.

New psycho-diagnostic manual no better than the old

Summarrized from here

A coalition from various psychodynamic associations has produced a new diagnostic manual as an alternative to the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM), the main one currently used by psychiatrists and therapists to give patients a code number for purposes of treatment, research, and prognosis — but mostly health insurance reimbursement.

The new group's manual is the Psychodynamic Diagnostic Manual (PDM), which allegedly “attempts to characterize the whole person — the depth as well as the surface of emotional, cognitive, and social functioning.”

The PDM editors also claim to “require a fuller description of the patient's internal life to do justice to understanding his or her distinctive experience.”

Yeah, well, okay. Beautiful thought. But how it actually executed?

Actually, it seems to be more of the same old thing, with slightly shinier packaging, and an overly complex design philosophy.

How To File A Health Information Privacy Complaint With The Office For Civil Rights

"Hello Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Civil Rights? I'd like to report a violation of confidentiality. Sure, I'll hold."

Yes, You can utter these words, and here's the instruction sheet

If you believe that a person, agency or organization covered under the HIPAA Privacy Rule ("a covered entity") violated your (or someone else's ) health information privacy rights or committed another violation of the Privacy Rule, you may file a complaint with the Office for Civil Rights (OCR). OCR has authority to receive and investigate complaints against covered entities related to the Privacy Rule. A covered entity is a health plan, health care clearinghouse, and any health care provider who conducts certain health care transactions electronically. For more information about the Privacy Rule, please look at our responses to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and our Privacy Guidance. (See the web link near the bottom of this form.)

Complaints to the Office for Civil Rights must: (1) Be filed in writing, either on paper or electronically; (2) name the entity that is the subject of the complaint and describe the acts or omissions believed to be in violation of the applicable requirements of the Privacy Rule; and (3) be filed within 180 days of when you knew that the act or omission complained of occurred. OCR may extend the 180-day period if you can show "good cause." Any alleged violation must have occurred on or after April 14, 2003 (on or after April 14, 2004 for small health plans), for OCR to have authority to investigate.

Anyone can file written complaints with OCR by mail, fax, or email. If you need help filing a complaint or have a question about the complaint form, please call this OCR toll free number: 1-800-368-1019. OCR has ten regional offices, and each regional office covers certain states. You should send your complaint to the appropriate OCR Regional Office, based on the region where the alleged violation took place.

Tots Used as Human Guinea Pigs?

Courtesy of the ABC News Blog, via

ABC News has learned that a Massachusetts hospital is currently recruiting pre-schoolers to test the safety and effectiveness of a powerful antipsychotic drug called Quetiapine.

The study, conducted by the Department of Pediatric Psychopharmacology at Massachusetts General Hospital, is testing subjects from four to six years of age with Bipolar Disorder. An earlier Massachusetts General study of the antipsychotic drugs Risperidone and Olanzapine recruited children as young as three years old.

These antipsychotic drugs are only approved for use by adults and are so toxic they carry a "black box warning." The drugs have been found to cause diabetes; a life-threatening nervous system problem called Neuroleptic Malignant Syndrome; low blood pressure; and have also led to higher death rates in the elderly. Despite these serious potential side-effects, a patient recruitment video obtained by ABC News contains no mention of any of these risks.

Vera Hassner Sharav of the Alliance for Human Research Protection said, "Antipsychotics were never approved for use in children whose developing brains and central nervous system may be irreversibly harmed. We believe that physicians who subject children to the toxic effects of these drugs...are practicing outside medically accepted standards."

Bigger and Better: How Pfizer Redefined Erectile Dysfunction

In the pursuit of profits, pharmaceutical companies are continuously looking to expand the market for their products. Drug companies have identified lifestyle drugs as a “growth market.”

The problems that they are designed to treat are easily self-diagnosed—we can all see if we are bald or fat—and as the baby boomers age, the population looking to these drugs will continue to grow. Drug companies, driven by profit, go where the money is.

Because of the potential size of the market for Viagra, paying for it in unlimited quantities will be very expensive. Viagra may only be the tip of the iceberg.

This article examines how Pfizer transformed Viagra from an effective product for erectile dysfunction (ED) due to medical problems, such as diabetes and spinal cord damage, into a drug that “normal” men can use to enhance their ability to achieve an erection and to maintain it (in a “harder” state) for a longer period of time.

To make Viagra into a lifestyle drug, Pfizer needs to convince men that it is the first choice for therapy for any degree of ED, whatever the genesis of the problem. However, drug therapy may not always be the most appropriate treatment option.

The National Health and Social Life Survey data indicate that emotional and stress-related problems such as a deteriorating social and economic position generate elevated risk of experiencing sexual difficulties.

In these cases, Viagra may be less important than counseling or help in finding a new job. These possibilities are never mentioned on the Viagra Web site.

The initial television ads in the US for Viagra used an aging Bob Dole (born 1923) as a spokesman, a 1996 Republican presidential candidate. Since then, Pfizer has refocused its advertising campaign to match the lifestyle message on its Web site.

There is now advertising of Viagra at NASCAR races, and Pfizer hired 39-year-old Rafael Palmeiro, a former Texas Ranger baseball player as a spokesman. Pfizer teamed up with Sports Illustrated magazine to create the Sportsman of the Year Trivia Game.

Between 1999 and 2001, Pfizer spent over US$303 million in direct-to-consumer advertising to get its message about Viagra to men. Besides the large promotion budget, Pfizer has also paid a number of doctors to act as “consultants,” delivering public lectures and appearing in the mass media to expound on ED and Viagra

Pfizer denies that it is targeting younger men or that it is positioning Viagra as a lifestyle drug. Mariann Caprino, a spokeswoman for the company, is quoted in the New York Times as saying, “Have we gone out and given our advertising agency instructions to speak to this young population? No, we haven't” . But the message from the pictures on the Web site, in magazine ads, and from people like Rafael Palmiero is that everyone, whatever their age, at one time or another, can use a little enhancement; and any deviation from perfect erectile function means a diagnosis of ED and treatment with Viagra.

Increasingly, the age profile of men using Viagra reflects the younger audience that Pfizer denies it is targeting. Between 1998 and 2002 the group showing the largest increase in Viagra use was men between the ages of 18 and 45, and only one-third of these men had a possible etiologic reason for needing Viagra (i.e., actually based on a legitimate medical diagnosis)

Overdosed America

The conflict of interest inherent in corporate medicine has attracted its critics:

"American health care may not be the best at improving health most effectively and efficiently but it is certainly the best in the world at generating profits for the drug industry"

So says Doctor John Abramson on his OverDosed America Website. As described in his online biography.

After he had been practicing for about 10 years, Dr. Abramson started teaching Harvard Medical School students in his office. As his students became comfortable with the basics of primary care, he helped them to develop their skills in the "art" of medicine - understanding that the person-to-person connection they were making with their patients was not just a pleasant amenity but an integral part of good medical care. He also taught a course for several years at Harvard Medical School with Dr. Herbert Benson of the Mind/Body Medical Institute exploring the importance of the doctor-patient relationship in the healing process.

As the 1990s progressed, Dr. Abramson became aware that patient care was increasingly being compromised by the growing waste and commercialism in American medicine. By "researching the research," he found that the clinical studies presented in even the most respected medical journals were often biased by drug and medical device company sponsorship, and that the medical information available to even the most dedicated doctors often differed from what the scientific evidence really showed about the best way to take care of their patients.

In 2002, Dr. Abramson left practice to devote himself full-time to researching and writing Overdosed America, with the goal of helping patients and doctors to reclaim the basic mission of medicine, optimizing health most effectively and efficiently.

Now when you calculate the cost of this as applied to the field of Mental Health ...

Police investigate child psychiatrist

A lauded child psychiatrist, who settled a lawsuit last summer with a former patient claiming he was molested by the doctor as a teen, is currently the subject of a criminal investigation, San Mateo police confirmed.

A search warrant was served on the home and office of Dr. William Ayres on March 10, according to Capt. Mike Callagy. He declined to comment on the nature of the investigation, and said the affidavit in the case has been sealed.

While police would not discuss the circumstances of the case, four people say they were interviewed for the investigation last fall after coming forward with their own molestation allegations. None of those incidents can be criminally prosecuted because the statute of limitations in each has expired.

A former president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, Ayres, 74, for decades had patients referred to him through local school districts and the county's juvenile court system. He also maintained a private practice.

The police have seized his files. The investigation continues.

Saudi Psychiatrist Sexually Preys Upon Toddler in California

As Reported in AXcessNews
Via Psychiatric News

A 37-year-old Saudi psychiatrist made his initial appearance in federal court in Sacramento, California, on Friday to face charges that he traveled to Vallejo, California, on Thursday to sexually molest a two-and-a-half-year-old girl after exchanging numerous emails with an undercover agent posing as the toddler's father.

Nabil Al Rowais, who entered the United States on a nonimmigrant visa issued in Canada, was arrested Thursday night by agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) as well as with the California Bureau of Investigation at a motel in Vallejo, California.

Rowais is charged with traveling in foreign commerce with the intent to have sex with a minor, a charge that carries a minimum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum penalty of up to 30 years. Magistrate Judge Dale A. Drozd ordered Al Rowais held without bond pending his next court appearance May 12.

According to the affidavit filed in the case, an undercover agent posing as the father of a toddler daughter exchanged numerous emails with Al Rowais in which the suspect expressed a desire to travel to California to sexually molest the child. When the suspect, who claims to be a practicing psychiatrist, arrived at the Vallejo motel for the agreed upon meeting yesterday evening, he was taken into custody. The case is being prosecuted by the United States Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of California.

The initial lead in this case came about as a result of an ICE investigation known as Operation Babynet, a probe targeting an El Dorado Hills man who ultimately pleaded guilty to molesting his infant daughter and distributing the images over the Internet.

After receiving the lead, ICE agents teamed with the California Bureau of Investigation, the Sacramento Sheriff's Department, and the Sacramento Police Department to investigate the allegations. The agencies are members of the Safe Streets Task Force, an ongoing initiative partnering federal, state, and local agencies to target violent street gangs and child sex predators.

"Whether a sexual predator is on the Internet exploiting our virtual borders or is an alien who has preyed on children, ICE is using all of its law enforcement authorities to identify them and bring them to justice," said Rick Eaton, assistant special agent in charge of the ICE office of investigations in Sacramento. "We are working with our law enforcement partners to do everything possible to prevent the exploitation of children both here and abroad."

Al Rowais' arrest is part of Operation Predator, an ongoing ICE enforcement initiative to identify, investigate, arrest and, in the case of foreign nationals, deport child sex predators. Since the initiative began almost two years ago, ICE agents have arrested more than 7,800 individuals nationwide, including almost 2,000 here in California.

Read more about Operation Predator here

How a Massachusetts psychotherapist fell for an e-mail scam

In which a Massachusetts Psychotherapist falls for a Nigerian Email scam:

Every swindle is driven by a desire for easy money; it’s the one thing the swindler and the swindled have in common. Advance-fee fraud is an especially durable con. In an early variation, the Spanish Prisoner Letter, which dates to the sixteenth century, scammers wrote to English gentry and pleaded for help in freeing a fictitious wealthy countryman who was imprisoned in Spain. Today, the con usually relies on e-mail and is often called a 419 scheme, after the anti-fraud section of the criminal code in Nigeria, where it flourishes. [...] The scammers, who often operate in crime rings, are known as “yahoo-yahoo boys,” because they frequently use free Yahoo accounts. Many of them live in a suburb of Lagos called Festac Town. Last year, one scammer in Festac Town told the Associated Press, “Now I have three cars, I have two houses, and I’m not looking for a job anymore.”

[...]

In May, 2005, Worley went on trial in U.S. District Court in Boston on charges of bank fraud, money laundering, and possession of counterfeit checks. Worley’s overseas correspondents, whose real identities he never knew, disappeared, and were never located or charged. With them went more than forty thousand dollars of Worley’s money and nearly six hundred thousand dollars from the checks. Including credit-card interest, money-wiring fees, long-distance telephone charges, and the tax lawyer’s bills, Worley’s losses may have been closer to eighty thousand dollars.

The prosecutor, an Assistant U.S. Attorney named Nadine Pellegrini, urged the jury to reject suggestions that Worley had simply been scammed. At best, she said, Worley “got in over his head.” Pellegrini portrayed Worley as the puppeteer, not the puppet, and said that he knowingly passed bad checks, in the belief that he was entering into a “mutually beneficial arrangement.” She focussed on Worley’s recognition at various points that he was dealing with liars, and said that he displayed “willful blindness” by ignoring the warning signs of their criminality and his own. Pellegrini said that Worley’s claims of innocence were undermined by consistent bad conduct—lying to his wife, borrowing from a patient, plotting to avoid taxes, posing as an aviation contractor, claiming to have cancer, and agreeing to bribe Nigerian bank officials. She was unsparing during her cross-examination. “So you don’t have any integrity either, do you, Dr. Worley?” she asked. He answered, “No, I don’t.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” she told the jury, “it’s clear John Worley understands behavior of people and motivation of people, and he could and he can manipulate both behavior and reaction. . . . There is only one story here, and that’s the story of John Worley’s greed.”

All of which shows that the benefits of psychotherapy do not include increased intelligence or an improved sense of morality.

Denver Psychologist Arrested for Sexual Assault

As reported on CBS4 in Denver, as well in the Loveland Herald Reporter

A psychologist who had been on professional probation for alleged contact with a patient turned himself in Wednesday after being accused of having sex with developmentally disabled women under his care, authorities said.

Donald Ellsworth Fish, 66, faces three felony counts of unlawful sexual contact of an at-risk adult, and three misdemeanor counts of sexual assault on a client by a psychotherapist, Fort Collins police spokeswoman Rita Davis said.

An investigation began Feb. 7 when two 43-year-old women told Loveland police that Fish sexually assaulted them during therapy sessions in their home, Davis said.

A 31-year-old woman made a similar complaint to the Larimer County sheriff's deputies on Feb. 23. Fort Collins police on March 3 received a report about a 57-year-old woman who reported inappropriate touching to the Colorado Department of Human Services.

The phone number for Fish's Fort Collins office had been disconnected and messages left by the Colordoan at his home phone Wednesday were not returned.

Fish was released from the jail after posting a $50,000 property bond. His next court date was not immediately available.

Fish has been a licensed psychologist in Colorado for nearly 30 years. According to records from the State Board of Psychologist Examiners, his license was on probation from July 1995 to April 1999 after a complaint was lodged against him alleging he engaged in sexual conduct with a patient.

Update: This report also has a picture

Kids On ADHD Drugs - Dangerous Path To Addiction

Article by Evelyn Pringle of the Sierra Times

Experts say the stimulant drugs prescribed for the treatment of ADHD are not only dangerous, they are highly addictive. And although no drug has been approved for the treatment of autism, drugs are routinely prescribed off-label to treat autistic children.

According to the National Center for Health Statistics, over the period of 5 years between 1997 and 2002, the number of children between the age of 3 to 17, diagnosed with ADHD went from 3.3 million to 4.4 million.

In direct correlation, the number of children prescribed ADHD drugs also rose steadily. In fact, spending on these types of medications for children is now higher than spending on antibiotics and asthma drugs. In February 2006, the FDA revealed that between 1999 and 2003, seventy-eight million prescriptions for ADHD drugs were written for children between the ages of 1 to 18. Terry Davis, a member of an FDA advisory committee, has said prescriptions for ADHD drugs filled annually have a value of $3.1 billion. [...]

More recent statistics show a 369% increase in spending on ADHD drugs for children under five. From 2000 to 2003, the rise in the use of attention deficit drugs by children under 5 contributed to an overall 23% increase for all children, according to an analysis by the nation's largest prescription benefit manager, Medco Health Solutions. [...]

A report by the FDA released in February 2006, said that between 1999 and 2003, there were 25 deaths in persons using ADHD drugs, including the deaths of 19 children. The FDA also reported receiving more than 50 cases of cardiovascular problems, including stoke, heart attack, hypertension, palpitations and arrhythmia.

An extended article, worth reading

Psychiatrist dumps evidence of sex attacks and child abuse

Former police surgeon Dr Kader was working as a forensic psychiatrist at Strangeways prison in Manchester, England, when he dumped hundreds of confidential statements from victims of sex attacks and child abuse by a public rubbish bin, according to testimony heard by a British medical tribunal.

As reported by the BBC, Dr Kader is accused of breaching his responsibility to the police, failing to secure patient and client confidentiality and failing to maintain the integrity and security of his notes. The documents included personal details of sex abuse victims, a full witness statement from a victim of child abuse and records of patient examinations. He admitted dumping the papers but said he had put them in the bin and denied his fitness to practise was impaired.

Husband sues marriage counsellor for having affair with his wife, then giving him bad advice so that the couple would divorce

As reported in the Chicago Sun-Times

A McHenry County man is suing his marriage counselor, contending the therapist he hired to help improve his marriage instead began an affair with his wife.

That relationship eventually prompted the couple to divorce, according to the breach-of-contract suit filed by 35-year-old Scott Buetow of Lake in the Hills.

His lawsuit seeks more than $200,000 in punitive damages from his former counselor, Dan Blair, and the Arbor Counseling Center where Blair works.

"He [Blair] had an obligation to provide services, and he willfully abused that for his own benefit," said attorney Hans Mast, who represents Buetow.

The lawsuit filed by Buetow in McHenry County also accuses Blair -- a state-licensed clinical professional counselor -- of fraud and professional malpractice.

Buetow and his wife began seeing the counselor in April 2004 to "strengthen and stabilize" their 10-year marriage, the suit contends.

While providing both joint counseling and individual therapy sessions to Buetow and his wife, Blair allegedly started a a romantic -- and secret -- relationship with Buetow's wife.

Despite the alleged relationship, Blair continued counseling Buetow and worked "to undermine the marriage to his benefit by tendering poor advice," the suit contends.

Buetow filed the suit because he believes "he got a raw deal from the person he trusted and confided in," Mast said.

Buetow and his 36-year-old wife, who have four children, were granted a divorce earlier this year, Mast said.

Blair, who has been licensed as a counselor since 1998, didn't return phone calls seeking comment on the suit.

He hasn't been disciplined for any professional complaints since being licensed, according to records from the Illinois Department of Financial and Professional Regulation.

................

Is any body surprised?

Child Abuse for Profit

The Bootcamp style of treatment for troubled kids is running into trouble

Usual definitions of torture include the use of practices such as solitary confinement, non-medical application of psychiatric drugs, unprovoked beatings, starvation, and verbal abuse as means to change a person’s behavior. Many Americans are reluctant to support the use of these techniques even on criminals, much less teenagers with behavioral problems.

Unfortunately, this is exactly what is being done on a large-scale basis as “tough-love” programs have become a booming industry. These programs come in several varieties, including boot camps, “therapeutic” boarding schools or academies, and wilderness programs. At the cost of several thousand dollars per month (up to $40,000/year), these schools supposedly provide a climate where troubled teens can continue their regular education while receiving treatments designed to improve their behavior.

In the philosophy of these schools, reform involves two goals: to break kids down through strict discipline and routine, then to build them back up through self-examination and therapy of various sorts. Usually, only the former is accomplished. So successful is the breaking down process that former inmates of these institutions often suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress syndrome, even years after being freed. Ex-students call themselves, with good cause, “survivors”.

The deeper you dig, the more it becomes a profit center at the expense of the young.

The evil Ulster doctor who destroyed women's lives

An extensive story worth reading

Last month the Belfast Telegraph revealed that Ulster psychiatrist William Kerr - accused of sexually abusing dozens of his patients - had died. Now his first known victim has broken a silence of 42 years to describe her nightmare ordeal to Crime Correspondent Jonathan McCambridge [...]

The Co Antrim teenager met the doctor as an outpatient at Lagan Valley Hospital. What followed was to mark the beginning of a horrific ordeal for her and the biggest sexual abuse scandal ever in the NHS. Now, almost 42 years later, Anne has spoken for the first time publicly about her fate at the hands of the disgraced doctor.

She was the first. Unfortunately, there were many others.

For almost 40 years Anne had no idea what had become of Kerr other than that he had left Northern Ireland "under a cloud". Then one day she read a press report about him standing trial in England on multiple sexual assault charges. The report left her devastated. [...]

After Kerr left Northern Ireland in 1964 his career flourished but Anne was left to pick up the pieces of her broken life. She admits to attempting suicide on one occasion. Her situation was made worse because a series of doctors and pyschiatrists would not believe what she had suffered. [...]

Over the next 30 years, 67 of his patients were to make complaints about his behaviour, including several allegations of rape and sexual assault. The circumstances in many of the cases were startingly similar to the facts outlined by Anne. [...]

Kerr did not have a criminal conviction and did not serve any punishment, but did go on the sex offenders' register for life. Last month the Belfast Telegraph revealed that Kerr had died at his home in Yorkshire at the age of 80 without ever facing justice. [...]

Study Finds a Link of Drug Makers to Psychiatrists

As reported in the NY Times:

More than half the psychiatrists who took part in developing a widely used diagnostic manual for mental disorders had financial ties to drug companies before or after the manual was published, public health researchers reported yesterday.

The researchers found that 95 — or 56 percent — of 170 experts who worked on the 1994 edition of the manual, called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, or D.S.M, had at least one monetary relationship with a drug maker in the years from 1989 to 2004. The most frequent tie involved money for research, according to the study, an analysis of financial records and conflict-of-interest statements.

[...]

In recent years, critics have said that the manual has become too expansive, including diagnoses, like social phobia, that they say appear tailor-made to create a market for antidepressants or other drugs.

The study investigated the financial ties by sifting through legal files, patent records, conflict-of-interest databases and journal articles, among other records.

Twenty-two percent of the experts received consulting income in the years from 1989 to 2004, the study found, and 16 percent served as members of a drug maker's speakers bureau. Such services are typically more lucrative than research support.

Of course there are the obligatory mouthpieces proclaiming complete innocence for all involved.

When Babies see Shrinks

Back on Sept 20 2003, we linked to a satire news item entitled Babies: 100% suffer from depression

Rockville, Mary. -- A study conducted by researchers at the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) reports that an overwhelming majority of 100 percent of all newborn infants display symptoms normally associated with clinical adult depression and in fact suffer from a medical condition known as Infant Depressive Disorder (IDD).

"A baby suffering from Infant Depressive Disorder will exhibit many of the same warning signs as depressed adults: frequent bouts of crying, weight gain, disrupted sleep patterns and so on," said Dr. James Redab, who headed up NICHD's three-year study. "Parents, do not dismiss your infant's behavior and assume that the little one is just tired or fussing. The infant without question requires immediate medication, psychotherapy and quite possibly electroconvulsive therapy. Your baby needs to get well."

Now MSNBC has a news item about When babies see shrinks

Traditionally, young children have rarely crossed paths with psychiatrists or psychologists. Not anymore. With a growing amount of research focusing on early brain development, more youngsters — even infants — are being targeted to receive the services of mental-health professionals.

There are no hard numbers available for just how many pre-kindergarten children are being seen, but experts say infant/toddler mental health is moving into the mainstream. Psychological research on this age group is a hot topic at major universities, and last year the American Academy of Pediatrics launched a task force with at least part of its purpose to push more infant/toddler mental health intervention.

Of course, we can rest assured that the psychiatric industry will take full advantage of this growing market.

Howard Dully Talks about 'My Lobotomy'

An interview on NPR with Howard Dully

If you saw me, you'd never know I had a lobotomy," says Howard Dully. "But I've always felt different, wondered if something's missing from my soul."

Developed by Dr. Walter Freeman, the transorbital lobotomy did not require drilling into the skull, as done in previous lobotomies. Instead Dr. Freeman used a medical instrument, shaped like an ice-pick to push up underneath the bone above the eyeball and sever the brain tissue in the pre-frontal lobes of the brain.

Dully, 56, spent two years searching for the story behind his "ice pick" lobotomy at age 12. He talks about his experience and how the medical community in the U.S. sometimes still uses brain surgery, also called psychosurgery, to treat mental illnesses.

Serotonin and Depression: A Disconnect between the Advertisements and the Scientific Literature

An important scientific paper entitled

Serotonin and Depression: A Disconnect between the Advertisements and the Scientific Literature, available free and in full at the link.

to quote a particular relevant passage:

In short, there exists no rigorous corroboration of the serotonin theory, and a significant body of contradictory evidence. Far from being a radical line of thought, doubts about the serotonin hypothesis are well acknowledged by many researchers, including frank statements from prominent psychiatrists, some of whom are even enthusiastic proponents of SSRI medications (see Table 1).

However, in addition to what these authors say about serotonin, it is also important to look at what is not said in the scientific literature. To our knowledge, there is not a single peer-reviewed article that can be accurately cited to directly support claims of serotonin deficiency in any mental disorder, while there are many articles that present counterevidence.

Furthermore, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), which is published by the American Psychiatric Association and contains the definitions of all psychiatric diagnoses, does not list serotonin as a cause of any mental disorder. The American Psychiatric Press Textbook of Clinical Psychiatry addresses serotonin deficiency as an unconfirmed hypothesis, stating, “Additional experience has not confirmed the monoamine depletion hypothesis”

In short, the marketeers are lying to us for the sake of profits. But the FDA seems to be implicated as well. To quote:

The FDA has sent ten warning letters to antidepressant manufacturers since 1997 [34–43], but has never cited a pharmaceutical company for the issues covered here. The reasons for their inaction are unclear but seem to result from a deliberate decision at some level of the FDA, rather than an oversight.

You can draw your own conclusions

MIT Psychs Sued for Damages in Suicide Case

As Seen in the Worchester Telegram in Massachusetts

A judge has ruled the parents of a Massachusetts Institute of Technology student who committed suicide can continue their $27 million suit against college administrators and staff, a decision higher education officials criticized as unusually broad.

Elizabeth Shin died in 2000 after setting herself on fire in her dorm room.

Non-clinicians aren't usually held responsible for suicides, but Middlesex Superior Court Judge Christine McEvoy said Shin's housemaster and student life dean had a "special relationship" with her. That required them to protect her, McEvoy ruled, because they "could reasonably foresee that Elizabeth would hurt herself without proper supervision."

Sheldon Steinbach, general counsel of the American Council on Education, called the June 27 decision "an extraordinary stretch."

"I'm surprised the judge didn't find the president responsible, too," he told The Boston Globe. "How far are you going to go? Are the board of trustees liable because they should have known?"

McEvoy dismissed the claims against the university itself and dismissed some claims against the MIT employees. The remaining claims against four psychiatrists and two administrators will go to a jury trial. A pretrial conference in scheduled for September.

The lawyer for Shin's parents, Cho Hyun Shin and Kisuk Shin, praised McEvoy's decision.

"We believe it could have and would have turned out much differently for Elizabeth, had they chosen to respond to a known emergency situation," attorney David DeLuca said.

In a statement, MIT said Shin's death was a terrible tragedy, but "it was not the fault of MIT or anyone who works at MIT."

Suicide threats by Elizabeth Shin, of Livingston, N.J., were known to MIT before she killed herself on April 10, 2000. On that day, a group of administrators and psychiatrists discussed her case, including her statements to two students that she intended to commit suicide. One psychiatrist made an appointment for Shin for the next day at a psychiatric facility outside MIT.

McEvoy ruled the Shin family's lawyers had presented enough evidence to show their charges of gross negligence by MIT administrators were a legitimate issue because the administrators didn't enact "an immediate plan to respond to Elizabeth's escalating threats to commit suicide."

McEvoy's ruling is "very new ground," said Gary Pavela, director of judicial programs at the University of Maryland at College Park and the author of a newsletter for college administrators on law in higher education.

Pavela said a federal district court in Virginia found Ferrum College officials had a "special relationship" that gave them a duty to a student who committed suicide. But that case was settled out of court. In contrast, the Iowa Supreme Court in 2000 found no such duty toward a suicidal student, Pavela said.

Pavela said the legal uncertainty is upsetting college officials, and some are forcing students to go on medical leave at the first sign of any suicidal thoughts to avoid legal liability.

But Pavela said that's ethically wrong and illegal. The Americans with Disabilities Act requires schools to carefully consider the facts in an individual case before sending a student home, he said.

"If administrators overreact to these cases by routinely removing students, then they are jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire," he said.

Hypochondria as a Marketing Tactic. You do feel sick, don't you?

Mother Jones has an extended article on the marketing of new diseases.

From a pharmaceutical company's perspective, the big money can be made not only by selling drugs to the sick, but by selling drugs to the healthy, the people who don't even know that they need drugs yet. A recent Reuters Business Insight report, designed for drug company executives, suggested that the drug companies can reap billions by "creat[ing] new disease markets." That involves convincing people that "problems they may previously have accepted as, perhaps, an inconvenience"—such as, for instance, the distress that can accompany PMS—are in fact "worthy of medical intervention." In other words, nothing short of the medicalization of everyday troubles. Cheerfully, the report believes that drug companies are up to the task: "The coming years will bear greater witness to the corporate sponsored creation of disease."

From this we get the marketing of psych drugs for new uses.

Consider this story. In 1998, Lilly, one of the world's largest pharmaceutical companies, was on the verge of losing its patent on fluoxetine (more commonly known as Prozac) worth over $2 billion annually. However, if Lilly could find a new use for the drug, the patent could be extended. That year, Lilly helped fund a "roundtable" of researchers to gather in Washington D.C., along with staff from the Food and Drug Administration to discuss a scientifically controversial condition called "premenstrual dysphoric disorder" (PMDD), which had only recently, and after much controversy, been included in the appendix of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual—the bible of psychiatric disorders—as a disorder "under evaluation." But the Lilly-funded researchers soon published an article in a small medical journal suggesting, falsely, that the debate was over and that PMDD could now be considered a "distinct clinical entity," distinct from the stress and tension that can accompany ordinary PMS.

Lilly has not said what role it played in turning the "roundtable" into a journal article, but by 1999, the article helped convince the FDA to approve the use of fluoxetine to treat PMDD—and extended the patent until 2007. Lilly simply repackaged the drug in lavender pill-form, renamed it Serafem, and began marketing it to women. Never mind that independent researchers questioned whether PMDD even existed as a condition. Never mind that Europe's drug regulators raised serious questions about PMDD and criticized Lilly's clinical trials that purported to show the benefits of Serafem. Never mind that even the industry-friendly FDA was appalled at Lilly's television ads, with their too-vague tagline: "Think it's PMS? It could be PMDD." Undaunted, Lilly continued its advertising barrage, trying to convince women who thought they were experiencing regular PMS-related distress that, actually, they might well have a serious disorder that required heavy medication. Soon thereafter, both Pfizer and GSK got their own anti-depressants approved for treating PMDD. For all intents and purposes, the "debate" over whether PMDD was a disorder—let alone requiring medication with serious side-effects—was over. Industry money had carried the day.

Child psychiatrist settles molestation claim case

A prominent San Mateo child psychiatrist has reached a confidential lawsuit settlement with a former patient who accused Dr. William Ayres of repeatedly molesting him when he was a 13-year-old boy in the late 1970s.

The settlement was submitted to San Mateo County Presiding Judge George Miram on Tuesday, the day after a civil trial was scheduled to begin.

The settlement was confirmed by Robert Tobin, an attorney for the now-40- year-old former patient, and by Ayres' attorney, Donald Putterman. Neither side would reveal the terms.

Putterman said that Ayres "hotly disputed" the allegations against him. "Hotly disputed cases are often settled,'' Putterman said. In reaching the settlement, "nobody conceded anything,'' he added.

Filed in December, the lawsuit cast a cloud over the high-profile career of Ayres, a past president of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry.

The patient, who alleged the molestation incidents occurred in 1977-78, did not come forward to police until decades later. Meanwhile, the San Mateo County court system continued to refer young boys who were either victims of abuse or juvenile offenders to Ayres for treatment.

The Ritalin Cancer Link

Almost 30 million prescriptions for Ritalin and similar drugs to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) were written last year in the United States; 23 million were for children. While these drugs are among the most widely prescribed medicines in the world, they also remain one of the most controversial.

The latest chapter in the debate over the safety of ADHD drugs: The Food and Drug Administration's (FDA) investigation regarding a link between Ritalin and cancer -- based on a small University of Texas study.

The findings showed damage to the chromosomes of 12 children who had taken Ritalin for three months. A grant proposal is in the works at the NIH to fund a much larger probe in 2006, involving many more patients and a variety of drugs.

See the story as reported in Forbes Magazine. There obviously some people in a major panic over this

Nazi Shrinks invented the Sex Doll

As seen on BlogCritic,

The Nazis invented the worst thing ever: the assembly-line death factory. But they also invented something else, perhaps the only legacy of theirs that endures to this very day. During World War II, Hitler's war machine created the world's first sex doll: Borghild.

Psychiatrist Dr. Rudolf Chargeheimer wrote the following note as the project went forward:

”The sure thing, purpose and goal of the dolls is to relieve our soldiers. They have to fight and not be on the browl or mingle with 'foreign womenfolk.' However: no real men will prefer a doll to a real woman, until our technicians meet the following quality standards:

The synthetic flesh has to feel the same as real flesh;
The doll’s body should be as agile and moveable as the real body;
The doll’s organ should feel absolutely realistic.”

Between June 1940 – 1941, IG Farben had already developed a number of ”skin-friendly polymers” for the SS. Their special characteristics: high-tensile strength and elasticity.

The cast of a suitable model proved to be more difficult. Borghild was meant to reflect the beauty-ideal of the Nazis: white skin, fair hair and blue eyes. Although the team considered a doll with brown hair, the SS Hygiene Institute insisted on manufacturing a ”Nordish doll.” Tschakert hoped to plaster-cast from a living model. A number of famous female athletes were invited to come to his studios.

But in a letter to Mrurgowsky, Tschakert came to this conclusion: ”Sometimes the legs are too short and look deformed, or the lady has a hollow back and arms, like a wrestler. The overall appearance is always dreadful and I fear there is no other way than to combine.” While Mrurgowsky still favoured a ”whole imprint” of prevailing diva Kristina Söderbaum, the Borghild-designer decided to build the doll’s mold in a ”modular way,” taking bits and pieces from different women. In Tschakert's view, the doll should be nothing less than a ”female best-form,” a ”perfect automaton of lust,” that would combine ”the best of all possible bodies.” The team agreed on a cheeky and naughty face, a look-a-like of actress Käthe von Nagy, but she politely declined to lend her face to Tschakert’s doll.

After Mrurgowsky’s exit, Dr. Hannussen took over, and rejected the idea to cast a face from a living person. He believed in an ”artificial face of lust,” which would be more attractive to soldiers. ”The doll has only one purpose and she should never become a substitute for the honourable mother at home ... When the soldier makes love to Borghild, it has nothing to do with love. Therefore the face of our anthropomorphic sex machine should be exactly like the common wanton’s face.”

Something strangely twisted, another fine legacy of modern psychiatry

Mental home worker used wild dogs to terrorize patients

A care worker from a notorious mental home here used to unleash feral dogs in the facility so that he could terrorize patients and ease his workload, sources told the Mainichi newspaper in Japan.

Shigemi Sudo, the care worker who has already been arrested for assaulting patients at the infamous Caritas no Ie mental home, is also accused of allowing the feral dogs to bite some patients' legs and buttocks.

Home officials are alleged to have been informed of Sudo's purported activities, but refused to take action against him.

Several sources have attested to the claims.

"It causes a lot of work for officials if patients get out of their rooms and start to panic, so Sudo seems to have used the dogs like watchdogs that would keep the patients from leaving their rooms," a former Caritas no Ie official told the Mainichi on condition of anonymity.

Several sources said that starting about five years ago, three feral dogs roamed around outside the grounds of the mental home. Sudo, 54, befriended the dogs, feeding them and giving them attention.

About three years ago, the sources allege, Sudo started bringing the dogs into the home when he was on duty.

Sudo did not keep the wild dogs on a leash. There were several reported instances from January to March last year when the feral dogs bit patients.

Patients were terrified of Sudo and his dogs, the sources said. When Sudo was on duty, patients would typically shut themselves up in their rooms and not come out.

Sudo knew which patients were most frightened by the feral dogs. When he approached these patients, there were times when he would deliberately make the dogs go closer to the terrified patient, the sources said.

When a patient was late at mealtime, Sudo would confiscate their meal and feed it to his dogs, the sources said.

Guardians of some patients learned of what Sudo had allegedly been doing and complained to Caritas no Ie operators. Operators did not deny the allegations, but said they could not punish Sudo because if he were fired they would not be able to find anybody else to perform his duties. (Mainichi)

Interview with a Psychiatrist

As seen on www.nomorefakenews.com , by JON RAPPOPORT

For the past year, I've been receiving communications from a practicing American psychiatrist, who has an office in the southeastern US. He sees patients privately and also works at a large hospital. Increasingly, this man has been expressing doubts about the drugs he has been prescribing.

Now, he has blown the lid off his own profession, and it appears he is ready to switch careers or become an alternative practitioner.

Here is an excerpt from our recent conversation:

Q: Why do you doubt the drugs?

A: They're toxic and injurious.

Q: Which ones?

A: All of them.

Q: And in particular?

A: The antidepressants. Paxil, Prozac, Zoloft, and so on. They are not showing, on balance, good results, and patients have been experiencing adverse effects.

Q: Such as?

A: Sleeplessness, nightmares, erratic behavior, highs and lows, crashes, attempts to commit suicide, exacerbated depression, violence, dramatic personality changes.

Q: Why do you think this is happening?

A: To be honest, I don't know. But my sense is, in general, that the drugs interfere in unpredictable ways with various neurotransmitter systems. I also believe they can work extreme changes in blood sugar levels and electrolyte levels. You know, it's not hard to create these effects with chemicals. The body is not able to integrate them in its normal functioning. I would compare it to suddenly setting up all sorts of roadblocks and detours and forced lane changes on a busy highway. You will get big trouble.

Q: Have you tried to communicate your concerns to colleagues and medical groups?

A: For a short time, I did. But I was given the cold shoulder. I got the distinct feeling I was being treated like some wayward child who had his facts all wrong.

Q: Who do you blame for this drugging catastrophe?

A: At the moment, everybody. The doctors, the drug companies, the FDA, the psychiatric teaching institutions, even the press. And at some point, patients are going to have to take responsibility and not follow the orders of their doctors.

Q: Do you believe that doctors should cut back and give the drugs to some people and not others?

A: That sounds good, but there is no way to know what effects the drugs will cause in any given individual, especially as time passes. Even in the short term, I have seen some frightening things.

Q: Do you believe the profession of psychiatry has made some kind of overarching deal with the drug companies?

A: Yes. The drug companies are everywhere. They stick their noses into everyone's business.

Q: What lies about the drugs have you had to purge from your own mind?

A: The main one is that they're some kind of miracle breakthrough. Another one is that I can rely on the judgments and certifications of the FDA. We're playing Russian Roulette out here. It's a very dangerous situation.

Q: Do you believe that some of the school shootings have resulted from children being on the antidepressants?

A: I didn't, until one day a sixteen-year-old patient of mine showed up for his appointment with a 9mm hand gun. Then I began to comb back through reports on a bunch of those shootings. I can tell you, it focuses the mind to see a young patient sitting across from you---you've put him on an antidepressant and now he's talking about "a new day" and he takes the gun out of his pocket and lays it on a table next to him by the Kleenex. You think to yourself, "I may have created a killer and his first victim could be me." People want to outlaw all guns. I'd start with the drugs.

Q: How about the diagnosis of depression itself?

A: I've come to realize that you can't do an interview with a patient and then come out with a shorthand assessment. It's wrong. It reduces all sorts of problems down to a label, and then you have your official gateway into the drugs.

Q: Your colleagues think you're over-reacting?

A: I think I'm under-reacting. I think we have an epidemic on our hands, but it has nothing to do with mental disorders. It has to do with the chemicals we're facilitating.

Q: This boy with the gun---were you able to talk him down?

A: I spent two hours with him that day. I told him he was having a reaction to the drug. At first, it made no sense to him. He was on a manic sort of ride. That really scared me---that I couldn't make him see what was happening to him. He was in the middle of an episode and he couldn't stand outside it. Finally, he eased up a little. He began to weep in my office. It wasn't really crying. Tears just ran down his cheeks while he was talking. He didn't seem to notice them. He had almost stopped being human. He was a...creature. He was on a mission of some kind. His view of the world had totally changed. In his mind set, destruction was the only course of action.

Q: And then?

A: He calmed down a little. I was afraid to ask him for the gun. He just picked it up and put it back in his pocket. After he left, I called his mother. She went home from her job and met him. I had asked her to call the police but she wouldn't. Later, she told me she sat and talked with him for a long time and then he handed over the gun. It was a very tense situation. I had her remove the bottle of pills from her medicine cabinet. Then I had to follow up. I weaned him slowly from the drug. It took two months. He finally sort of returned to being the person he was. Even then I wasn't sure he'd be okay. He was definitely addicted to the drug. Luckily, I didn't cut him off suddenly. He might have killed people during the withdrawal cycle.

Q: Did you continue to see this boy as a patient?

A: I did a nutritional assessment with the help of a doctor who is very good with that. We found the boy was having strange reactions to certain soft drinks that have speed-type boosters in them. We gradually weaned him off them. Then we discovered he was reacting to dyes and other chemicals in junk food. So we had to change his diet. That wasn't easy.

Q: He was addicted in several ways to chemicals.

A: That's right. There was peer pressure for him to keep eating junk. All his friends did. They called him weird for going off the food they were eating every day. Finally, I discovered that, five years before I saw him, he'd been on Ritalin for a year. You know, for ADHD. He'd been driven into depression by that. He basically felt, at eleven, that his life was over. All paths and interests were closed to him.

Q: How is he now?

A: Much better. But he's not all the way back.

Q: Do you think there is permanent brain damage?

A: I don't know. He's now living outside the US with his father. I get reports once in awhile.

Q: How does he feel about his own experience?

A: He wants it to be an example to other families.

Q: You didn't go into medicine to deal with this.

A: No. In school, my ideals were high. But I allowed myself to be led down the garden path. I fell for the sales pitch. I'm telling you, this is not a good situation. We are a society on the brink. Something has to be done.

Q: How do you feel about Bush's mental health screening program for all children?

A: All in all, it may turn out to be the worst thing he's done as president. It's just a tip of his hat to his pharmaceutical supporters. But the consequences---if this plan gets rolling---will be devastating.

Q: Is there some underlying principle at work here? Some paradigm that everyone is accepting that is putting us into a bad situation?

A: You know the answer to that. It's the combination of easy diagnosis plus the drug fix. The pill craze for everything. Take a drug and everything will work out. I see it as the classic street-drug promotion. Feel good. Take this drug and you'll feel different and better. Combine that with the basic immaturity of most people and you have the interlock. Why work out your problems and strive to have the life you want when you can arrive at the best destination with a pill? I'd take this a step further. If you stacked up all the tranquilizers and antidepressants, for adults, next to, say, marijuana, as a way of dealing with stress, I'd say that a very modest amount of a mild marijuana would be more successful than all those other drugs at the levels they're normally prescribed. If I were forced to recommend one or the other, I'd go with the marijuana. And I'd say the drug companies know this. Which is one reason why, in the US, the enforcement on marijuana has been stepping up. But again, you're always dealing with an individual. Each person is different. I've seen people who react very badly to pot. It affects them like a psychedelic.

Q: You're saying the science behind the antidepressants is false.

A: Absolutely. Judging by the effects of the drugs, it has to be. It may sound good and proper. All the right words are used. But I don't care about that anymore. I go by results. My eyes have been opened.

Q: Then why are the drug companies pushing these drugs?

A: I'm not an expert to speak to about that. Certainly there is the profit motive. But I think there is also the myth of progress.

Q: What do you mean?

A: That myth states that technology must keep making advances. It's the legend of forward motion. If technology is to be seen as good, it has to keep turning out better advances---otherwise something is wrong. And there can't be anything wrong.

Q: It's like a hectic race.

A: Yes. If you stop, you might fall down. Secrets might be exposed. Shortcomings might show up. So you have to keep pushing. You have to keep saying you're doing better and better. I'm sure you can see where this gets you. You make new mistakes to cover up old mistakes. You become careless. You lie. You hire promotion people to tout your work. You keep the whole thing rolling forward, no matter what. That's where we are.

Q: And you were carried on that wave.

A: For many years. But now I've stopped.

Q: Is it uncomfortable?

A: Not so much anymore. But at first I was very upset and angry. I was blaming everyone but myself. I felt like I was in chains, that my whole education and career were at stake. And I was my career. What else did I have? Getting off the boat was quite difficult. I had every advantage this society has to offer. I was---

Q: The expert.

A: Yes. That's a powerful feeling. People come to you with questions and you have the answers. If you don't, then you're thrown down in the pit with everyone else. Part of being a doctor is being above the pit, out of the problem. You're the solution. You don't want to fall. And the only thing that keeps you from falling is what you've learned. Your knowledge. When you see that that's based on lies, you don't know what to do. It's like being a priest and realizing that everyone gets to the far shore by his own means. You don't want to let go of the doctrine that put you on the pulpit.

Q: So what would a new paradigm look like?

A: For mental health? We have to get rid of all the old classsifications and disorders. We have to let all that sink into oblivion. That was wrong. That was largely fantasy.

Q: It was a story.

A: We told it, and now we have to stop telling it. Because we've ended up intervening in people's lives in a very pernicious way.

Q: Part of the story necessitated that kind of intervention.

A: Yes. And, not to take myself off the hook, but people want that kind of story, as you say. They want that "expert story." They want someone else to come in and tell them what to do and what to think and what drug to take.

Q: Why do you think that is?

A: Because people have taken the easy path. They have opted for what I would call a flat version of reality. If they started adding dimensions on their own---

Q: They would be forced to tell their own story.

A: In the terms you're using, yes. That's what would happen.

Q: And how would society look then?

A: Much different. Much more risky, perhaps, but much more alive. Psychology and psychiatry don't allow for that kind of outcome. All mental disorders are constructs. They're named by committees, as I'm sure you know. They're a form of centralized pattern. In this context, the word "shrink" is very appropriate. That's what we've been doing. Shrinking down the perception of what reality and the mind are all about.

Q: Can you imagine what would happen if the lid were taken off?

A: I work with that idea every day now.

Q: And how does it look?

A: More and more appealing.

Medical Journals Are an Extension of the Marketing Arm of Pharmaceutical Companies

“Journals have devolved into information laundering operations for the pharmaceutical industry”, wrote Richard Horton, editor of the Lancet, in March 2004 [1]. In the same year, Marcia Angell, former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, lambasted the industry for becoming “primarily a marketing machine” and co-opting “every institution that might stand in its way” [2]. Medical journals were conspicuously absent from her list of co-opted institutions, but she and Horton are not the only editors who have become increasingly queasy about the power and influence of the industry. Jerry Kassirer, another former editor of the New England Journal of Medicine, argues that the industry has deflected the moral compasses of many physicians [3], and the editors of PLoS Medicine have declared that they will not become “part of the cycle of dependency…between journals and the pharmaceutical industry” [4]. Something is clearly up.

As published in the PLOS Journal of Medicine

Desperate plight of Russia's mentally ill

Even Russia seems to be reformimg their mental health institutions, as seen in this BBC report

In Russia's psychiatric institutions known as "internats", there is not much in the way of facilities or medical care, and as Oleg Boldyrev has discovered, most of the inmates will never be able to leave. On the edge of Pervouralsk, a small town in the Urals, past the brick-making plant, the streets get smaller, the tarmac turns to dirt and the wooden houses give way to tall spruce trees.

Then, all of a sudden, you are confronted by a long grey building, four storeys high. It is an "internat", a final destination for thousands of people who are mentally ill, have learning difficulties or who simply have nowhere else to go. Once you are here, it is almost invariably forever.

Internats are supposed to offer psycho-neurological treatment, but that is not really the case. They do not come under a medical authority and so are chronically short of nurses and doctors. There is little treatment on offer.

Reform is coming. The article mentions one bright spot, but it is still just a drop in the bucket.

Government Backed Drug Marketing Schemes

As seen in an Introduction to a Commentary published on Yuba Net

At an FDA hearing on the safety of psychotropic drugs on Feb 2, 2004, dozens of tortured parents testified that their children had committed suicide or other violent acts after being prescribed the same drugs that are being marketed in the Bush-backed pharmaceutical industry schemes aimed at recruiting the nations 52 million school children as customers.

In July 2003, the Bush appointed New Freedoms Commission on Mental Health (NFC) recommended screening all children for mental illness and designated TeenScreen as a model program to ensure that every student receives a mental health check-up before finishing high school.

The NFC also has a preferred drug program in place modeled after the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP), that lists what drugs are to be used on children found to be mentally ill.

The list contains every drug that people complained about at the FDA hearing, including Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa, Wellbutron, Zyban, Remeron, Serzone, Effexor, Buspar, Risperdal, Zyprexa, Seroqual, Geodone, Depakote, Adderall, and Prozac.

There is little if any evidence that these drugs work on children but nevertheless, an estimated 10 million children in the US are now taking these mind-altering drugs even though they have documented side-effects including suicidal ideation, mania, psychosis, and future drug dependence.

FDA Seeks Suicide Data for Epilepsy Drugs

In addition to use by millions of people with epilepsy, anti-seizure drugs are becoming widely used to treat psychiatric illnesses such as bipolar disorder -- also called manic depression -- as well as pain and other conditions. Some epilepsy drugs have FDA approval for various other uses, while others are prescribed "off-label."

Prompted in part by an attorney's claims against the leading anticonvulsant, Neurontin, the FDA last month asked makers of all epilepsy medicines to reanalyze research studies done with the drugs to see if there is any evidence of increased suicide risk, particularly those who use them for psychiatric illnesses instead of seizure prevention.

It's the same type of analysis that the FDA last year ordered for antidepressants amid controversy over their use by children and teenagers -- and ultimately those drugs were linked to an increase in suicidal thoughts and actions in young patients.

Women Allege Witchcraft Used As Psych Treatment, Damages Sought

Two women have filed lawsuits claiming a psychologist at an Illinois hospital used witchcraft during treatments and threatened patients. The lawsuits allege Delnor-Community Hospital did not stop the unorthodox treatments. One seeks more than $50,000 and the other more than $1 million.

Neither is seeking damages from the psychologist, who has not worked at the hospital since January, because of a fear of retribution from the woman, the plaintiffs' attorney told the Arlington Heights (Ill.) Daily Herald. One suit was filed in Kane County, Ill., court and the other in federal court.

One of the plaintiffs alleges while undergoing treatment for a neurological syndrome, she was taught spells and told to divorce her husband. She moved in with the psychologist and allegedly was forced to take care of the house and take nude pictures of the psychologist.

The other suit alleges the psychologist told the patients to strip and commit acts of self-mutilation and join a Wicca coven, the newspaper said.

The newspaper said the accused psychologist did not respond to calls for comment. The hospital said the complaints have been reported to police and state health regulators.

The full report from the Daily Herald follows:

St. Charles woman files suit in hospital witchcraft case

By Tona Kunz
Daily Herald Staff Writer
Posted Tuesday, April 12, 2005

A third person has claimed that a former St. Charles psychologist used witchcraft on her and shared private medical details between patients.

Kathleen Carlson of St. Charles filed a lawsuit late Friday against Delnor-Community Hospital in Geneva, claiming that the hospital failed to monitor Leitita Libman, a psychologist working at the hospital from 1994 until January 2005.

The lawsuit is the third in as many weeks filed against the hospital claiming Libman used witchcraft under the guise of therapy.

None of the suits have been filed against Libman because of fear of retribution, said Richard Stavins, a Chicago attorney representing the women in two Kane County lawsuits and one federal lawsuit.

Libman is accused of threatening family members of the women, bragging about being an expert in poison and pulling a gun on one of the women.

Libman could not be reached for comment Monday, but previously in a published report denied the allegations or bringing religion of any type into therapy.

“Libman’s statement that it never happened is just absolute nonsense,” Stavins said. “I can understand her arguing that one person made it up, but three? No way.”

Delnor officials declined to comment on the specifics of the lawsuits because of employee and patient privacy laws, but said that Libman stopped working at the hospital in January 2005 shortly after the hospital investigated a patient complaint against her.

“We take complaints of this nature extremely seriously,” said hospital spokesman Brian Griffin.

Delnor reported Libman to the Geneva police and the Illinois Department of Professional Regulations. State officials would not confirm if an investigation into Libman is ongoing.

The lawsuits claim that Libman tried to treat the women’s depression and chronic pain with spells, pentagrams and the freeing of sexual inhibitions.

In the previous two suits from a former Woodstock native and another woman from Kane County, who asked to have her hometown anonymous, Libman is accused of trying to get the women to join her Wiccan coven.

That has angered area Wiccan practitioners who say that the accusations leveled at Libman do not meet the guidelines of the God and Goddess-based pagan religion. The religion has a harm-none tenet at odds with claims of orgies, threats and violent spells.

The newest lawsuit claims Libman used what she called witchcraft, but does not mention Wiccan connections.

The new lawsuit also stands out for its allegations that Libman said she was a superior being brought to Earth in a spaceship and that she tried to have Carlson falsely committed when Carlson disagreed with her.

Carlson is asking for more than $50,000 in damages for her care under Libman at the hospital’s St. Charles campus between September 2002 and January 2005 when her depression and arthritis worsened.

“This kind of outrageous care makes everything worse,” Stavins said.

If it weren't for the outrageous nature of the offenses, there are any number of Witty remarks that could be made.

The Myth Of Attention Deficit Disorder

As seen in the Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter # 184 By Thomas Armstrong 4-7-05

Over the past ten years, attention deficit disorder (ADD) or attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) has emerged from the relative obscurity of cognitive psychologists, research laboratories to become the "disease du jour" of America's schoolchildren. Accompanying this popularity has been a virtually complete acceptance of the validity of this "disorder" by scientists, physicians, psychologists, educators, parents, and others. Upon closer critical scrutiny, however, there is much to be troubled about concerning ADD/ADHD as a real medical diagnosis.

There is no definitive objective set of criteria to determine who has ADD/ADHD and who does not. Rather, instead, there are a loose set of behaviors (hyperactivity, distractibility, and impulsivity) that combine in different ways to give rise to the "disorder." These behaviors are highly context-dependent. A child may be hyperactive while seated at a desk doing a boring worksheet, but not necessarily while singing in a school musical. These behaviors are also very general in nature and give no clue as to their real origins. A child can be hyperactive because he's bored, depressed, anxious, allergic to milk, creative, a hands-on learner, has a difficult temperament, is stressed out, is driven by a media-mad culture, or any number of other possible causes. The tests that have been used to determine if someone has ADD/ADHD are either artificially objective and remote from the lives of real children (in one test, a child is asked to press a button every time he sees a 1 followed by a 9 on a computer screen) , or hopelessly subjective (many rating scales ask parents and teachers to score a child's behavior on a scale from 1 to 5: these scores depend upon the subjective attitudes more than the actual behaviors of the children involved).

The treatments used for this supposed disorder are also problematic. Ritalin use is up 500% over the past six years, yet it does not cure the problem, it only masks symptoms, and there are several disadvantages: children don,t like taking it, children use it as an "excuse" for their behavior ("I hit Ed because I forgot to take my pill."), and there are some indications it may be related to later substance abuse of drugs like cocaine. Behavior modification programs used for kids labeled ADD/ADHD work, but they don,t help kids become better learners. In fact, they may interfere with the development of a child's intrinsic love of learning (kids behave simply to get more rewards), they may frustrate some kids (when they don,t get expected rewards), and they can also impair creativity and stifle cooperation.

ADD/ADHD is a popular diagnosis in the 1990's because it serves as a neat way to explain away the complexities of turn-of-the-millenium life in America. Over the past few decades, our families have broken up, respect for authority has eroded, mass media has created a "short-attention-span culture," and stress levels have skyrocketed.

When our children start to act out under the strain, it's convenient to create a scientific-sounding term to label them with, an effective drug to stifle their "symptoms," and a whole program of ADD/ADHD workbooks, videos, and instructional materials to use to fit them in a box that relieves parents and teachers of any worry that it might be due to their own failure (or the failure of the broader culture) to nurture or teach effectively.

Mainly, the ADD/ADHD label is a tragic decoy that takes the focus off of where it's needed most: the real life of each unique child. Instead of seeing each child for who he or she is (strengths, limitations, interests, temperaments, learning styles etc.) and addressing his or her specific needs, the child is reduced to an "ADD child," where the potential to see the best in him or her is severely eroded (since ADD/ADHD puts all the emphasis on the deficits, not the strengths), and where the number of potential solutions to help them is highly limited to a few child-controlling interventions.

Instead of this deficit-based ADD/ADH paradigm, I,d like to suggest a wellness-based holistic paradigm that sees each child in terms of his or her ultimate worth, and addresses each child's unique needs. To do this, we need to provide a wide range of options for parents or teachers.

50 Ways to Improve Your Child's Behavior and Attention Span without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion (for detailed information about each way, see The Myth of the A.D.D. Child


Order book by calling: 1-800-247-6553.

1. Provide a balanced breakfast.
2. Consider the Feingold diet
3. Limit television and video games
4. Teach self-talk skills.
5. Find out what interests your child.
6. Promote a strong physical education program in your child's school.
7. Enroll your child in a martial arts program.
8. Discover your child's multiple intelligences (link)
9. Use background music to focus and calm.
10. Use color to highlight information.
11. Teach your child to visualize.
12. Remove allergens from the diet.
13. Provide opportunities for physical movement.
14. Enhance your child's self-esteem.
15. Find your child's best times of alertness.
16. Give instructions in attention-grabbing ways.
17. Provide a variety of stimulating learning activities.
18. Consider biofeedback training.
19. Activate positive career aspirations.
20. Teach your child physical-relaxation techniques.
21. Use incidental learning to teach.
22. Support full inclusion of your child in a regular classroom.
23. Provide positive role models.
24. Consider alternative schooling options.
25. Channel creative energy into the arts.
26. Provide hands-on activities
27. Spend positive times together.
28. Provide appropriate spaces for learning.
29. Consider individual psychotherapy.
30. Use touch to soothe and calm.
31. Help your child with organizational skills.
32. Help your child appreciate the value of personal effort.
33. Take care of yourself.
34. Teach your child focusing techniques.
35. Provide immediate feedback.
36. Provide your child with access to a computer.
37. Consider family therapy.
38. Teach problem-solving skills.
39. Offer your child real-life tasks to do.
40. Use "time-out" in a positive way.
41. Help your child develop social skills.
42. Contract with your child.
43. Use effective communication skills.
44. Give your child choices.
45. Discover the treat the four types of misbehavior.
46. Establish consistent rules, routines, and transitions.
47. Hold family meetings.
48. Have your child teach a younger child.
49. Use natural and logical consequences.
50. Hold a positive image of your child.

---

Resources

Armstrong, Thomas.
The Myth of the ADD Child: 50 Ways to Improve Your Child's Behavior and Attention Span without Drugs, Labels, or Coercion. New York: Plume, 1997.

To Empower, Not Control!: A Holistic Approach to ADD/ADHD, Reaching Today's Youth, Winter, 1998.

ADD as a Social Invention," Education Week, October 18, 1995.

Labels Can Last a Lifetime," Learning, May/June, 1996.

Why I Believe Attention Deficit Disorder is a Myth," Sydney's Child [Australia], September, 1996.


Divoky, Diane and Peter Schrag. The Myth of the Hyperactive Child. New York: Pantheon, 1975.

Goodman, Gay, and Mary Jo Poillon. "ADD: Acronym for Any Dysfunction or Difficulty,"

Journal of Special Education, Vol. 26, No. 1, 1992.

Griss, Susan. Minds in Motion: A Kinesthetic Approach to Teaching Elementary Curriculum.Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1998.

Kohn, Alfie. "Suffer the Restless Children," Atlantic Monthly, November, 1989, pp. 90-100.

McGuinness, Diane. When Children Don't Learn. New York: Basic, 1985.

Merrow, John. " Attention Deficit Disorder: A Dubious Diagnosis," (Video). The Merrow Report, 588 Broadway, Suite 510, New York, NY 10012,212-941-8060; 212-941-8068 (fax).

Patterson, Marilyn Nikimaa. Every Body Can Learn: Engaging the Bodily-Kinesthetic Intelligence in the Everyday Classroom. Tucson, AZ: Zephyr Press, 1997.

Reid, Robert, John W. Maag, and Stanley F. Vasa, "Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder as a Disability Category: A Critique," Exceptional Children, Vol. 60, No. 3, pp. 198-214.