U.S. Psychology Licensing Boards by State

Here is a list of Psychology Licensing Boards in the USA, given Alphabetically by State,

Please note that while we think this information is correct, that names and Telephone numbers may have changed. This information may be useful if you want to file a complaint against your local psychologist.

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Alabama Board of Examiners in Psychology
660 Adams Avenue, Suite 360
Montgomery, AL 36104
(334) 242-4127
Send Email
Alabama Board Main Page
Alabama Psychology Law
Alabama Psychology Rules/ Regulations
Alabama Application Materials

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Alaska Board of Psychologist and Psychological Associate Examiners
333 Willoughby Avenue, 9th Floor, SOB
PO Box 110806
Juneau, AK 99811-0806
(907) 465-3811
Send Email
Alaska Board Main Page
Alaska Psychology Law Rules and Regulations (.pdf)
Alaska Application Materials for Psychological Associate (.pdf)
Alaska Application Materials for Psychologist (.pdf)

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Arizona Board of Psychologist Examiners
1400 West Washington, Room 235
Phoenix, AZ 85007
(602) 542-8162
Send Email
Arizona Board Main Page
Arizona Psychology Law
Arizona Psychology Application Materials

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Arkansas Board of Examiners in Psychology
101 East Capitol, Suite 415
Little Rock, AR 72201
(501) 682-6167
Send Email
Arkansas Board Main Page
Arkansas Psychology Law
Arkansas Psychology Rules/Regulations (.doc)
Arkansas Application Materials

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California Board of Psychology
1422 Howe Avenue, Suite 22
Sacramento, CA 95825-3200
(916) 263-2699
Send E-mail
California Board Main Page
California Psychology Law and Rules/Regulations
California Application Materials

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Colorado Board of Psychologist Examiners
1560 Broadway, Suite 880
Denver, CO 80202
(303) 894-7770
Send E-mail
Colorado Board Main Page
Colorado Psychology Law
Colorado Psychology Rules/Regulations
Colorado Application Materials

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Connecticut Board of Examiners of Psychologists
Department of Public Health
P.O. Box 340308
410 Capitol Avenue, MS# 12APP
Hartford, CT 06134
(860) 509-8376
Send E-mail
Connecticut Board Main Page
Connecticut Psychology Law (.pdf)
Connecticut Application Materials (.pdf)

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Delaware Board of Examiners of Psychologists
861 Silver Lake Blvd.
Cannon Building, Suite 203
Dover, DE 19904
(302) 744-4534
Send E-mail
Delaware Board Main Page
Delaware Psychology Law
Delaware Psychology Rules/Regulations
Delaware Application Materials

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District of Columbia Board of Psychology
D.C. Department of Health
Health Professional Licensing Administration
717 14th Street, NW, Room 600
Washington, DC  20005
(202) 724-4900
Send E-mail
District of Columbia Home Page
District of Columbia Application Materials

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Florida Board of Psychology
4050 Bald Cypress Way, Bin #C05
Tallahassee, FL 32399-3255
(850) 245-4373
Send E-mail
Florida Board Main Page
Florida Psychology Continuing Education Requirements
Florida Psychology Application Materials
Florida Psychology Law and Rules

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Georgia State Board of Examiners of Psychologists
237 Coliseum Drive
Macon, GA 31217-3858
(478) 207-1670
Send E-mail
Georgia Board Main Page
Georgia Application Materials
Georgia Psychology Law
Georgia Psychology Rules/Regulations (.pdf)

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Hawaii Board of Psychology
Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs
P.O. Box 3469
Honolulu, HI 96801
(808) 586-2693
Send E-mail
Hawaii Board Home Page
Hawaii Psychology Application Materials
Hawaii Psychology Law/Regulations

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Idaho Board of Psychologist Examiners
Bureau of Occupational Licenses
1109 Main Street, Suite 220
Boise, ID 83702
(208) 334-3233
Send E-mail
Idaho Board Main Page
Idaho Psychology Law
Idaho Psychology Rules/Regulations (.pdf)
Idaho Psychology Application Materials

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Illinois Clinical Psychologists Licensing Disciplinary Committee
Department of Professional Regulation
320 West Washington Street, 3rd Floor
Springfield, IL 62786
(217) 782-8556
Illinois Board Main Page
Illinois Psychology Law
Illinois Psychology Rules/Regulations
Illinois Psychology Application Materials

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Indiana State Psychology Board
402 W. Washington Street, Room W066
Indianapolis, IN 46204
(317) 234-2057
Send E-mail
Indiana Board Main Page
Indiana Psychology Law/ Rules
Indiana Psychology Continuing Education Requirements
Indiana Psychology Application Materials (.pdf)

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Iowa Board of Psychology Examiners
Department of Public Health
321 East 12th Street, Lucas State Office Bldg. - 5th Floor
Des Moines, IA 50319-0075
(515) 281-4401
Send E-mail
Iowa Board Main Page
Iowa Psychology Law and Rules
Iowa Psychology Licensure Information
Iowa Psychology Continuing Education Requirements

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Kansas Behavioral Sciences Regulatory Board
712 S. Kansas Avenue
Topeka, KS 66603-3817
(785) 296-3240
Send E-mail
Kansas Board Main Page
Kansas Psychology Law/Rules
Kansas Psychology Application Materials

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Kentucky Board of Examiners of Psychology
P.O. Box 1360
Frankfort, KY 40602-0456
(502) 564-3296, ext. 225
Send E-mail
Kentucky Board Main Page
Kentucky Psychology Law/Rules
Kentucky Psychology Application Materials

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Louisiana State Board of Examiners of Psychologists
8280 YMCA Plaza Drive, Building 8-B
Baton Rouge, LA 70810
(225) 763-3935
Send E-mail
Louisiana Board Main Page
Louisiana Psychology Law
Louisiana Psychology Rules/Regulations
Louisiana Psychology Application Materials

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Maine Board of Examiners of Psychologists
35 State House Station
Augusta, ME 04333-0035
(207) 624-8600
Send E-mail
Maine Board Main Page
Maine Psychology Application Materials (.pdf)
Maine Psychology Law
Maine Psychology Rules/Regulations

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Maryland Board of Examiners of Psychologists
4201 Patterson Avenue
Baltimore, MD 21215-2299
(410) 764-4787
Send E-mail
Maryland Board Main Page
Maryland Psychology Law/Rules
Maryland Psychology Application Materials

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Massachusetts Board of Registration of Psychologists
Division of Registration
239 Causeway Street
Boston, MA 02114
(617) 727-0592
Send E-mail
Massachusetts Board Main Page
Massachusetts Psychology Law/Rules
Massachusetts Psychology Application Materials
Massachusetts Psychology Continuing Education Requirements

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Michigan Board of Psychology
PO Box 30617
Lansing, MI 48909
(517) 335-0918
Send E-mail
Michigan Board Main Page
Michigan Psychology Law
Michigan Psychology Application Materials (.pdf)

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Minnesota Board of Psychology
2829 University Avenue SE, Suite 320
St. Paul, MN 55414-3237
(612) 617-2230
Send E-mail
Minnesota Board Main Page
Minnesota Psychology Law/Rules
Minnesota Psychology Application Materials
Minnesota Psychology Continuing Education Requirements

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Mississippi State Board of Psychology
Box 13769
Jackson, MS 39236
(888) 693-1416
Send E-mail
Mississippi Board Main Page
Mississippi Psychology Law
Mississippi Psychology Rules/Regulations
Mississippi Psychology Application Materials
Mississippi Psychology Continuing Education Requirements

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Missouri State Committee of Psychologists
3605 Missouri Blvd.
P.O. Box 1335
Jefferson City, MO 65102
(573) 751-0099
Send E-mail
Missouri Board Main Page
Missouri Psychology Law/Rules
Missouri Psychology Application Materials

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Montana Board of Psychologists
301 South Park Avenue, 4th Floor
Helena, MT 59620-0513
(406) 841-2394
Send E-mail
Montana Board Main Page
Montana Psychology Law
Montana Psychology Rules/Regulations
Montana Psychology Application Materials

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Nebraska Board of Examiners of Psychologists
301 Centennial Mall South
P.O. Box 94986
Lincoln, NE 68509-4986
(402) 471-2117
Send E-mail
Nebraska Board Main Page
Nebraska Psychology Law/Rules
Nebraska Psychology Application Materials
Nebraska Continuing Education Requirements

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State of Nevada Board of Psychological Examiners
P.O. Box 2286
Reno, NV 89505-2286
(775) 688-1268
Send E-mail
Nevada Board Main Page
Nevada Psychology Law
Nevada Psychology Rules/Regulations
Nevada Psychology Application Materials

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New Hampshire Board of Mental Health Practice
49 Donovan Street
Concord, NH 03301
(603) 271-6762
New Hampshire Board Main Page
New Hampshire Psychology Law
New Hampshire Psychology Rules/Regulations

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New Jersey State Board of Psychological Examiners
P.O. Box 45017
Newark, NJ 07101
(973) 504-6470
Send E-mail
New Jersey Board Main Page
New Jersey Psychology Law/Rules (.pdf)
New Jersey Psychology Application Materials (.pdf)

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New Mexico Board of Psychologist Examiners
P.O. Box 25101
Santa Fe, NM 87504
(505) 476-4607
Send E-mail
New Mexico Board Main Page
New Mexico Psychology Law/Rules
New Mexico Psychology Application Materials
New Mexico Psychology RxP Information

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New York State Board for Psychology
NYS Education Dept.
89 Washington Avenue
2nd Floor
Albany, NY 12234
(518) 474-3817 ext. 150
Send E-mail
New York Board Main Page
New York Psychology Law
New York Psychology Rules/Regulations
New York Psychology Licensure Requirements
New York Psychology Application Materials

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North Carolina Psychology Board
895 State Farm Rd., Suite 101
Boone, NC 28607
(828) 262-2258
Send E-mail
North Carolina Board Main Page
North Carolina Psychology Law (.pdf)
North Carolina Psychology Rules/Regulations
North Carolina Psychology Continuing Education Requirements

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North Dakota State Board of Psychologists Examiners
P.O. Box 7458
Bismarck, ND 58507-7458
(701) 250-8691
Send E-mail
North Dakota Board Main Page

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Ohio State Board of Psychology
77 S. High Street - Suite 1830.
Columbus, OH 43215-6108
(614)466-8808
Send E-mail
Ohio Board Main Page
Ohio Psychology Law/Regulations
Ohio Psychology Application Materials
Ohio Psychology Continuing Education Requirements (.pdf)

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Oklahoma State Board of Examiners of Psychologists
201 NE 38th Terrace, Suite 3
Oklahoma City, OK 73105
(405) 524-9094
Send Email
Oklahoma Board Main Page
Oklahoma Psychology Laws/Rules

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Oregon State Board of Psychologist Examiners
3218 Pringle Rd. SE, Ste. 130
Salem, OR 97302-6309
(503) 378-4154
Send E-mail
Oregon Board Main Page
Oregon Psychology Law/Regulations
Oregon Psychology Application Materials

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Pennsylvania State Board of Psychology
P.O. Box 2649
Harrisburg, PA 17105-2649
(717) 783-7155
Send E-mail
Pennsylvania Board Main Page
Pennsylvania Psychology Regulations
Pennsylvania Psychology Application Materials
Pennsylvania Psychology Continuing Education Requirements (.pdf)

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Puerto Rico Board of Psychologist Examiners
P. O. Box 10200
Santurce, PR 00908-0200
phone: 787-725-5141
fax: 787-725-7903
Send E-mail
Send E-mail

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Rhode Island Board of Psychology
3 Capitol Hill - Room 104
Providence, RI 02908-5097
(401) 222-2827
Send E-mail
Rhode Island Board Main Page
Rhode Island Psychology Law/Regulations (.pdf)
Rhode Island Psychology Application Materials

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South Carolina Board of Examiners in Psychology
P.O. Box 11329
Columbia, SC 29211-1329
(803) 896-4664
Send E-mail
South Carolina Board Main Page
South Carolina Psychology Law/Regulations
South Carolina Psychology Application Materials

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South Dakota Board of Examiners of Psychologists
135 East Illinois, Suite 214
Spearfish, SD 57783
(605) 642-1600
Send E-mail
South Dakota Board Main Page
South Dakota Psychology Law
South Dakota Psychology Application Materials

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Tennessee Board of Examiners in Psychology
425 5th Avenue North
Cordell Hull Building, 1st Floor
Nashville, TN 32747-1010
(615) 532-5127
Tennessee Board Main Page
Tennessee Psychology Law
Tennessee Psychology Rules/Regulations
Tennessee Psychology Application Materials
Tennessee Psychology Continuing Education Requirements

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Texas State Board of Examiners of Psychologists
333 Guadalupe, Suite 2-450
Austin, TX 78701
(512) 305-7700
Texas Board Main Page
Texas Psychology Law/Rules
Texas Psychology Application Materials

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Utah Psychologist Licensing Board
Division of Occupational Professional Licensing
160 E. 300 S, Box 146741
Salt Lake City, UT 84114-6741
(801) 530-6621
Send E-mail
Utah Board  Main Page
Utah Psychology Law/Regulations
Utah Psychology Application Materials

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Vermont Board of Psychological Examiners
Office of Professional Regulation
26 Terrace Street, Drawer 09
Montpelier, VT 05609-1106
(802) 828-2373
Send E-mail
Vermont Board Main Page
Vermont Psychology Law
Vermont Psychology Telepractice Guidelines

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U.S. Virgin Islands Board of Psychology Examiners
Lydia Scott, Executive Secretary to Medical Boards
Office of the Commissioner
Roy L. Schneider Hospital
St. Thomas, VI 00801
(340) 776-8311 ext. 5078

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Virginia Board of Psychology
6603 West Broad Street, 5th Floor
Richmond, VA 23230-1717
(804) 662-9913
Send E-mail
Virginia Board Main Page
Virginia Psychology Law/Rules
Virginia Psychology Application Materials

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Washington State Examining Board of Psychology
Department of Health
P.O. Box 47869
Olympia, WA 98504-7869
(360) 236-4910
Send E-mail
Washington Board Main Page
Washington Psychology Law/Rules
Washington Psychology Continuing Education Requirements
Washington Psychology Application Materials

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West Virginia Board of Examiners of Psychologists
P.O. Box 3955
Charleston, WV 25339-3955
(304) 558-0604
Send E-mail
West Virginia Board Main Page
West Virginia Psychology Continuing Education Requirements
West Virginia Psychology Application Materials

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Wisconsin Psychology Examining Board
Department of Regulation Licensing
Bureau of Health Service Professions
P.O. Box 8935
Madison, WI 53708-8935
(608) 266-2112
Send E-mail
Wisconsin Board Main Page
Wisconsin Psychology Law
Wisconsin Psychology Rules/Regulations

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Wyoming State Board of Psychology
2020 Carey Avenue, Suite 201
Cheyenne, WY 82002
(307) 777-6529
Send E-mail
Wyoming Board Main Page
Wyoming Psychology Law/Rules
Wyoming Psychology Application Materials

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Mind Control Experiments on Children

Sometimes is stumbling around the web you come across the most interesting and alarming stuff. As seen in this report by Jon Rappoport posted on HaMmOuR Blog

Jon Rappoport as a reputation as an investigative reporter, who has gotten more into the fringe areas. However, these items are well documented, and shed some light into a different and bizarre universe of government experimentation during the cold war. The question is now whether these kind of practices are starting back up once again, giving the political climate.

The CIA mind-control apparatus has been well known since 1975, when 10 large boxes of documents were released pursuant to Freedom of Information Act requests.

Several good books were then written on the subject of the CIA program known as MK-ULTRA. Officially spanning ten years from 1952-62, MK-ULTRA involved the use of LSD on unwitting military and civilian subjects in the United States.

But there was a lot more.

None of this prepared people for the explosive testimony made on March 15, 1995, in Washington, D.C., before the President’s Committee on Radiation, however. In unpublicized sessions, New Orleans therapist Valerie Wolf introduced two of her patients who had uncovered memories of being part of extensive CIA brainwashing programs as young children (in one case, starting at age seven). Their brainwashing included torture, rape, electroshock, powerful drugs, hypnosis and death threats. According to their testimony, the CIA then induced amnesia to prevent their recalling these terrifying sessions.

Both Wolf and her patients stated that they recovered the memories of this CIA program without regression or hypnosis techniques. In other words, these patients spontaneously discovered this information about themselves and their pasts.

Although the committee was mainly concerned with radiation, they permitted Valerie and her patients to testify because, astonishingly, several doctors who had administered the mind-control experiments had also been identified by other Americans secretly exposed to radiation. Apparently there was a crossover.

Prominent names surfaced in the March 15 testimony: Richard Helms, former head of the CIA, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, who ran MK-ULTRA and Dr. John Gittinger, Gottlieb’s protege. These men and others were directly accused of participating in grisly mind-control efforts on children.

Predictably, this testimony received no media attention.

I now have it all, including many pages submitted to the committee that will likely never be released as part of their final report. Only a small percentage of the pages were read aloud at the hearing. Included are corroborating statements from other therapists around the country and several of their patients. I have now released all of this testimony as a book, U.S. Government Mind-Control Experiments On Children.

When the sickening shock starts to wear off, deeply disturbing questions flood one’s mind: just what was this CIA program? How extensive was it? What was its purpose?

From what I have been able to discover so far, many American children, as well as children from Mexico and South America, were used over a period of about 40 years, starting around 1948. In fact, the program may still be going on. Doctors and agents who administered it wanted to obtain control over the minds of these children, ostensibly to create superagents who wouldn’t remember even what missions they carried out, because of hypnotically induced amnesia (which could be removed by their controllers and reinstalled at will).1

Children were trained as sex agents, for example, with the job of blackmailing prominent Americans - primarily politicians, businessmen and educators. A great deal of filming was done for this purpose. Eventually, people from the inner core of the CIA program filmed each other, and some of the centres where children were used as sex agents got out of control and turned into CIA-operated sex rings.

Some children were considered expendable and simply murdered.

One person who states that he was in this program as a child said, off the record:

“They tried out their brainwashing techniques on the kids from Mexico and South America. They were considered expendable. But on another echelon of the program, they went after the best and the brightest American kids. Making perfect agents to combat the Soviets wasn’t, I don’t think, their ultimate objective. I can’t remember what that was.”

At this point, I made a suggestion:

“Well, if they were choosing the best and brightest, maybe they figured these kids would one day rise to important positions in the society, and they wanted to gain long-term control over them, so they would be under their thumb, so they could tap them at will - a way of controlling the future society.”

“Maybe,” he said. “The Nazis gained control over the intelligentsia in Germany. That was a very key step in their dominance. That was the first thing they did”.

“This smells very much like a Nazi program in the U.S.,” I said. “I don’t mean all the controllers were German, but the style of it, the insanity.”

He said, “They brought over a lot of Nazi doctors after the war and not just to build rockets - for a lot of projects.”

Other people who said that they had been used as children in the program remember that doctors with German accents were definitely present at the sessions. One therapist, who shared this information informally with colleagues around the country, states that, so far, the oldest person she has heard of who was in the program is now 52; the youngest is now nine.

If this wasn't from government testimony from the height of the CIA scandals of earlier years, it would be quite unbeleivable.

As told in their own words, Shrinks don't have a clue about ADHD

Here is a video where a collection of shrinks discuss the problems with trying to diagnose ADHD. It's about ten minutes long. Commentary by Doctor Frank Baugman. Note how they keep trying to dance around the issue, but how they themselves say that there are no objective tests.



Here is a highlight movie, under 2 minutes long, which is worthy in it's own right (note: wmv format)

More on 'Road Rage Disease'

More on Intermittenet Explosive Disorder, aka Road Rage Disease. as seen here

Road rage isn't an official disease, it's a state of mind
June 8, 2006 By Eric Peters, a columnist for The Army Times, The Navy Times and AOL.online

Road rage" is now an official disease — Intermittent Explosive Disorder, the shrinks call it.

According to a study funded by the National Institutes of Mental Health, something on the order of 16 million Americans suffer from IED. Inadequate production of the brain chemical serotonin leaves victims unable to regulate their moods properly — and thus, their behavior on the nation's crowded highways.

But is IED really a malady? Or just the natural expression of a heavily overtaxed fight-or-flight mechanism that has been intrinsic to human nature since time immemorial?

In other words, is it reasonable to be stressed out and angry as a consequence of having to sit and stew in endless traffic? Is this the proper and normal state of affairs?

Or is it a sign of health that more and more of us chafe at being caught like lab rats in a continent-size Skinner Box — and display our natural frustrations by leaning on our horns, stomping on the gas and doing whatever's in our power to flee?

Think on it for a moment: Modern humans are essentially the same as our ancestors of 100,000 years ago, while widespread and inescapable gridlock is a phenomenon of the last 50 years.

We were not bred for this sort of abuse. We have not had time to evolve new mechanisms — such as an internal morphine release gland, let's say — to cope with an environment our hunter-gatherer systems are completely ill-equipped to deal with.

The chaos, the unremitting noise, the slow boil of constant pressure with no escape valve and the flood of stress hormones that rush into our bloodstream are natural responses a relentless stream of stressful situations.

We respond very much in the way you'd expect a cornered animal to respond. We get angry. Some of us boil over. Our vision narrows to the singular focus of getting through — and getting away.

Forms of civility become a hobble; like passengers on a doomed ocean liner, the situation too often devolves to every man for himself. Sink or swim — even if you have to push someone else under to remain afloat yourself.

It's ugly and unpleasant — but it's the reality. Being quiet and polite is not only increasingly difficult, it's apt to leave one holding the short end of the stick — constantly abused by more aggressive motorists with a passion for self-preservation.

That's not a disease. It's an entirely predictable reaction to an unnatural situation.

Sitting in traffic for a couple of hours every day is madness. Willfully subjecting millions of people to this on a daily basis and not expecting negative consequences is like smokers failing to make the connection between pack-a-day habits and emphysema.

We don't need a pill. We need to recognize a dangerous and unhealthy situation for what it is — and take steps to ameliorate it. That would include encouraging people to live closer to where they work and governments and businesses to expand telecommuting opportunities instead of herding workers into some distant suburbs through shortsighted land policies.

Failing that, subscribe to satellite radio, gets some books on tape — whatever it takes to get your mind and your glands off the galling prospect of another daily grind. Your blood pressure will thank you. And you might just avoid a fender-bender, a fist-fight — or worse.

American motorists don't need a pill or therapy on a psychiatrist's couch. If the federal experts really want to curb road rage they should put policies in place that address the underlying causes rather than label the victims sufferers so-called "Intermittent Explosive Disorder."

Disease-ifying the frustrations of drivers idling their lives away on clogged commuter roads will do nothing to solve the real problems.

Would You Give Your Child Cocaine?

As seen in this OpEd opinion piece, another voice to the chorus of protest:

While unfunded individuals and grass-roots groups are screaming at the top of their lungs about psychiatrists drugging our children based on made-up diseases, drug companies run hourly television ads to spread the false message of chemical imbalances. That no blood is ever drawn to prove this imbalance and that no normal child has Ritalin or Prozac coursing through their veins hasn't stopped this catch-phrase from becoming our version of the flat-earth concept widely accepted 400 years ago.

While teachers and psychiatrists are paired up to push drugs to "help" schoolchildren study, we also have TeenScreen partnering with psychiatrists coming in on the child suicide angle. Behind both groups are money-hungry billion dollar drug companies. It doesn't matter that TeenScreen identifies eighty-four non-suicidal teens for evaluation for every sixteen it correctly identifies (that's just more money for the psychiatric profession when they prescribe the drugs).

For today however, let's not even argue against this fabricated disease (Attention Deficit Disorder) or this sensationalistic worry about suicide (children are six times more likely to die in automobile accidents), but instead let's take a stroll through the KNOWN side-effects of one drug which psychiatrists happily prescribe to millions.

The list of undesired effect of Ritalin are both impressive and scary.

Antipsychotic Drug Prescriptions for Kids Soaring

As seen on EurekAlert, on Healthday, the New York Times, and elsewhere

The use of antipsychotic drugs prescribed for children has soared six-fold since the early 1990s, a new report finds.

The surge appears to be largely due to doctors who prescribe the drugs to treat mental illnesses -- including behavior disorders and mood disorders -- that don't have a psychotic component. In many cases, the U.S. government frowns on such "off-label" treatment, but it is legal.

The report findings are a cause for concern, because it's not clear how the drugs work in children, said study lead author Dr. Mark Olfson, professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons.

EurekAlert has mostly the hard numbers:

A steadily increasing number of patients younger than age 20 received prescriptions for antipsychotic medications between 1993 and

2002, according to a report published in the June issue of Archives of General Psychiatry, one of the JAMA/Archives journals.

The number of outpatient health care visits during which patients between the ages of 0 and 20 years received antipsychotic medications increased six-fold between 1993 and 2002, from a yearly average of 201,000 between 1993 and 1995 to 1,224,000 in 2002. For every 100,000 individuals younger than age 21 in the United States, 274.7 such office visits took place each year from 1993 to 1995, compared with 1,341 each year from 2000 to 2002. Overall, 9.2 percent of mental health visits and 18.3 percent of visits to psychiatrists included antipsychotic treatment. Diagnoses among the patients receiving these medications included disruptive behavior disorder (37.8 percent), mood disorders (31.8 percent), pervasive developmental disorders or mental retardation (17.3 percent) and psychotic disorders (14.2 percent). Male and white youth were most likely to receive such treatments.

Of course, the psychs say this is a good thing:

"In recent years, second-generation antipsychotic medications have become common in the office-based mental health treatment of young people," they conclude. "These medications are used to treat children and adolescents with different mental disorders. Results of clinical trials provide a limited base of support for the short-term safety and efficacy of some second-generation antipsychotic medications for psychosis and disruptive behavior disorders. In light of the widespread and growing use of these medications, there is a pressing need to increase and extend the experimental evaluation of these medications in children and adolescents."

The typical news response seems to rather clueless. Nearly one in five psychiatric visits for young people included a prescription for antipsychotics.

Uppity Cleveland woman carted to psych hospital by police and ordered to a psych unit by judge for slamming Bush

As Reported by Mother Jones

Reported in local news here

For as long as we have had some kind of mental health system, women who "behave incorrectly" have been ordered to undergo its treatments. At one time or another, feminists, suffragists, menopausal women, and women who question authority in any way have been sent to institutions so that they could recieve "help."

The latest woman to get such help is Carol Fisher of Cleveland. Fisher is on the staff of Revolution Books, and on January 28, while she was putting Bush Step Down posters on telephone polls in Cleveland Heights, she was ordered by a police officer to take them down or face a fine. When she complied, she was asked for her ID, which she did not have on her. He then grabbed her by the arm, pushed her against a store window, and knocked her face down onto the sidewalk. He was joined by another officer, and they both pressed their feet against her back until she could not breathe. Her chin was pressed down into the concrete; Fisher has osteoradionecrosis in her jaw from radiation treatments for cancer.

Fisher was handcuffed and shackled. During this time, Fisher yelled out to everyone who passed what the posters were about. One of the police officers then told her, Fisher says, to "Shut up or I will kill you! I am sick of this anti-Bush shit! You are definitely going to the psyche ward."

She was then threatened some more and taken away in an EMS truck. At the hospital, Fisher was asked to undress in front of the police officers, which she refused to do. The officers refused to leave, so a nurse attempted to shield her while she undressed. Fisher says she was then cuffed to the bed, given an IV of some sort, and made to wait hours for a psychiatrist to interview her. By this time, members of her World Can't Wait group were in the emergency room having a confrontation with the police, who refused to let them see Fisher. Someone called the news media, who never made an appearance.

Fisher was eventually released and sent home. On May 2, she went to court and was found guilty of two counts of felonious assault of two police officers. The prosecution's "witnesses" had not seen the alleged assault; rather, they claimed that Fisher lacked respect for authority. It took a jury more than eight hours to find her guilty. According to a letter to the editor of The Free Press, the prosecution misquoted Fisher's testimony and gave the jury incorrect information about the city's arrestable offenses. When asked to clarify the law, the judge refused.

As part of the pre-sentencing procedure, the judge, Timothy McGinty, had Fisher undergo a state psychological exam. He had already surmised publicly that Fisher must be mentally unstable to resist arrest. McGinty then declared her "delusional," and on May 9, ordered her to be incarcerated in a psychiatric unit of the Cuyahoga County Jail in downtown Cleveland, where she now sits and waits; she could face a
three-year prison sentence. According to Mark Crispin Miller, who has spoken with Fisher by telephone, Fisher has also been placed on suicide watch, has had her eyeglasses taken from her, and--if she refuses to take the psych exam -- she will be sent to North Coast Mental Institute for a 20-day evaluation.

Update: Fisher has been sentenced to 60 days in prison, and wore an Anti-Bush T-shirt to the hearing, which she refused to change.

Intermittent Explosive Disorder

Please note, this sounds almost exactly like an Improvised Explosive Device, and must not be confused with it.

Sounds like some shrink decided to be just a little too clever in their naming thier latest fake disease.

Yes if you are good and fed up with with the junk and garbage you see around you, and you can't keep it held inside, you now have a new mental disorder.

Pitiful....

Someone has to be playing a joke.

Two-thirds foster care children in Mass on psych drugs

An older news story that slipped between the cracks here

As seen in this Report

Original Boston Globe News Item here

The Boston Globe reports that 2/3 of children in state care in Massachusetts are being "treated" for mental illness with psychotropic drugs. Marie Parente, a legislator, and parents call for disclosure of "how many children in state care are being given psychotropic drugs, and for government agencies to take a critical look at the procedures for allowing these medicines to be prescribed." Parente suggested that "the state may be motivated to label children as mentally ill because of the reimbursement checks they receive from the federal government, which compensates Massachusetts for half of all Medicaid expenditures.

What are the odds that anything at all has been done about this?

On The Validity of Brain Scans as Proofs of Psychiatric Theories

As seen here

Dr. Grace Jackson, a psychiatrist and an expert on brain imaging, refutes the validity of the attempts by various psychiatrists to defend the "science" of their diagnoses by using comparative brain scans. Her article, which, I've linked below my own write-up, along with her references, is technical enough to leave many readers in the dark, so I've tried to put her main points into simple, non-technical language first, then link the article for those who want all the technical details. This way the data may be more usefully forwarded to others. Dr. Jackson doesn't go into the most basic lies in psychiatry's science, but since many may be impressed when a psychiatrist on TV holds up brain scans, it's useful to know a bit about the science and NON-science behind these scans.

Reference:

A Curious Consensus: "Brain Scans Prove Disease"?
By Grace E. Jackson, MD

http://psychrights.org/Articles/GEJacksonMDBrainScanCuriousConsensus.pdf

Right click here to download a copy of the article as PDF file.

Trial set for social worker

As reported Indiana's Chronicle Tribune

A former social worker accused of having an inappropriate relationship with a minor has been scheduled for a bench trial in front of a special judge next month.

Elizabeth Marshall, who is charged with misdemeanor counts of invasion of privacy and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, will appear before Delaware Circuit Court 5 Judge Wayne Lennington in Grant Circuit Court at 1:30 p.m. June 23.

Local judges were forced to rescue in the case because of Elizabeth Marshall's family connections to the Grant County justice system - her husband, Jack, is a probation officer, and her father, Wayne Ellis, is the coordinator of the county's home detention program. Prosecutor James Luttrull Jr. also left the case, and Howard County Prosecutor Ronal Byal has assumed the prosecutorial duties.

Marshall 36, was pulled over July 24 by a Grant County sheriff's deputy and found to have a 16-year-old boy in her car in violation of a no-contact order, court records said.

Marshall had been a social worker at George Junior Republic, Gas City, but was not employed there at the time of the arrest.

Marshall's clinical social work license was revoked April 24 by the Indiana Social Worker, Marriage and Family Therapist Counselor Board.

She remains free on $4,000 bond.

Family Therapist charged in Sexual Assault

As reported on CBS 5 in San Francisco

Palo Alto police arrested local family and marriage therapist Samuel J. Silva-Roland Tuesday on suspicion he sexually battered one of his female patients in April.

According to the Palo Alto Police Department, Silva-Roland, 47, is charged with one count of sexual battery stemming from the alleged incident, which reportedly took place in late April during a counseling session at his 935 Middlefield Road office.

Silva-Roland is a state licensed marriage and family therapist who specializes in working with adoptive families, couples and cross-cultural couples, the department reported. In addition to working in Palo Alto, Silva-Roland also advertises offices in San Francisco and Burlingame.

Silva-Roland is expected to appear in Santa Clara County Superior Court on July 18.

Anyone with further information about this alleged assault or any others is asked to contact Palo Alto police Detective Zach Perron at (650) 329-2307.

Anti-depressant use in adolescents increases suicidal thoughts

As seen in this report on Science Daily, and as commented on here

The use of anti-depressants in adolescents has kicked up a psychotropic dust-storm of controversy.

In what many consider a vindication of their minority viewpoint, a team from the Stanford University School of Medicine in California has dug up evidence of potential misuse of the medicines in young patients in the years preceding the 2004 federal warning of a doubled risk -- from 2 percent to 4 percent -- of suicidal thinking and behaviors in some medicated adolescents.

Surprised at how little data existed about depression treatments in this age group, the Stanford sleuths began their own investigation.

The probe uncovered a troubling trend of physicians taking liberties with their own clinical guidelines, often bypassing psychotherapy as a component of first-line treatment. Instead, the study shows, in the years 1995 to 2002 they increasingly relied solely on the drugs that were supposed to support, not supplant, counseling.

The Stanford team, led by Dr. Randall Stafford, also found although federal regulators have deemed only one anti-depressant, Prozac, to be sufficiently studied for safety and effectiveness in minors to warrant their seal of approval for such use, doctors were prescribing a variety of other, unsanctioned mood-altering medications.

It should be pointed out some 30 percent to 40 percent of children fail to fully respond to Prozac, so other options may be needed.

Also, the "off-label" doling out of drugs is routine in the underage population so, in that respect at least, anti-depressants are not that different from many other medicines prescribed to minors without benefit of federal authorization.

However, the guidelines of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry call for trying talk treatments first in depressed children and, in the most severe cases, combining pharmaceuticals with psychotherapy. Part of the reason for this recommendation is to increase the odds the physician will monitor the medicines' effects and ensure patients' compliance.

But what the Stanford team found was that while office visits by depressed teens more than doubled over the seven years studied -- soaring from 1.4 million in 1995 to 3.2 million in 2002 -- the use of psychotherapy in that period sank from 83 percent of the visits to 68 percent. At the same time, reliance on drugs increased from 47 percent to 52 percent of the cases.

That may not seem like such a big change -- until you consider the dramatic increases in the diagnosis of depression in children and realize the actual number of youngsters on anti-depressants more than doubled during the period studied, the scientists said.

Antipsychotic Drugs Linked to Pituitary Tumors

More on the recent report.

This time, it isn't just Risperidone, although it was the worst offender by far.

Numbers of Reported "Adverse Events"

Antipsychotic Drug	Pituitary_Tumor	Hyperprolactinemia	Galactorrhea	Amenorrhea	Gynecomastia
Risperidone	54	702	530	445	118
Olanzapine	11	37	17	21	23
Haloperidol	9	32	49	24	28
Ziprasidone	6	12	13	2	4
Clozapine	4	15	16	17	7
Quetiapine	1	13	12	3	5
Aripiprazole	0	5	5	2	4
Total*	77	796	630	503	186

*The total is not the sum of the column because a singlereport may mention more than one event or more than one antipsychoticdrug.

An Interview with Dr. Jullian Whitaker

Pam Killeen Interviews Dr. Julian Whitaker About His Public Support For Tom Cruise Who Spoke Out Against Psychiatric Diagnoses and Psychotropic Medications

While we do not get into religious discussions, this article has much interesting information regarding psychiatry, and the problems created by its practice.

Pharmaceutical companies have gone into high gear in the last few years with their propaganda campaign to promote and sell psychotropic drugs. Masses of the population are now being screened for mental disorders, many against their wishes. If people do not wake up to this insane agenda, billions of people face the risk of being diagnosed with a disorder and prescribed toxic psychotropic drugs. The sad truth is the field of Psychiatry is no longer based on science or truth. It’s been turned into a drug pushing business and it’s an area where pharmaceutical companies are concentrating their efforts because they believe it has the potential to bring them their greatest financial rewards. The problem is psychotropic medications are far more dangerous and damaging to the body on a long term basis than virtually any medication you can put in your body.

The acid test for schizophrenia

A review of the autobiography of Dr Abram Hoffer, Psychiatrist

Research by Dr. Abram Hoffer discovered that Schizoprenia was curable 75% of the time simply by using Vitamin B3 (also known as Niacin). For some reason he met vigorous opposition from the psychiatric establishment, who prefered their own more expensive medications, and other forms of treatment, all of which were far less successful than this simple low cost treatment.

From 1952-60, Hoffer (as chairman), Osmond and four other members of the Committee on Schizophrenic Research (at the University of Saskatchewan) proceeded to perform the world's first double-blind studies in psychiatry -- six in all -- showing that B3, given orally, could "cure" 75 per cent of acute schizophrenics within two years.

The B3 research involved many beneficial offshoots, Hoffer says: epileptics' EEGs returning to normal, alcoholics, including Alcoholics Anonymous founder Bill W., no longer craving drink.

The story of how Hoffer's Saskatchewan research team found a treatment for acute schizophrenia, and the establishment's virulent opposition, which continues to this day, can be found in the 88-year-old's memoir, Adventures in Psychiatry.

Unfotunately, he also researched the similarity of the effects of LSD to schizophrenia, and was raked over the coals, in no small part due to the escapades of Timothy Leary.

Malpractice & Licensing Pitfalls for Therapists: A Defense Attorney's List

Abstract: A question asked of those of us who defend psychotherapists in civil suits and before licensing boards is what are the most common areas where therapists leave themselves vulnerable to attack. The purpose of this article is to identify some of the more common pitfalls that psychotherapists may encounter in hope that they can be avoided in the future.

As seen here, and first seen here

Typical areas of concern include

• Excessive or Inappropriate Self Disclosure
  (I.E. - Sharing personal information WITH the patient)
  
• Business Relationships with Patients
  
• Using Techniques Without Proper Training
  
• Using Incorrect Diagnosis Deliberately
  
• Avoiding the Medical Model
  
• The True Love Exception for Sexual Relationships
  
• Inadequate Notes
  
• Failure to Obtain an Adequate History
  
• Uncritically Accepting What a Patient Says
  
• Use of Inappropriate Syndrome Testimony
  
• Out of the Office Contact
  
• Failure to Obtain Peer Consultation

All of this seems to be in the realm of lack of business and professional ethics. It boggles the mind that professionals in this field could be so clueless.

Risperidone may cause Pituitary Tumors

As seen in this report, a recent study finds that the antipsychotic drug Risperidone may cause benign pituitary tumors. The findings can be a major blow as Risperidone is used extensively in the treatment of schizophrenia.

The study was conducted by researchers from the Duke University Medical Center in collaboration with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA). They scrutinized the FDA database for reports of 40 million combinations of drugs and side effects submitted by doctors and patients. The researchers found that of the seven antipsychotic medications, risperidone (trade name Risperdal) was linked to 70 per cent of pituitary tumours. The study was carried out by Duke’s psychiatrist Dr P Murali Doraiswamy, MD, FDA's Ana Szarfman, MD and their colleagues. The findings were published in the June 2 issue of Pharmacotherapy.

It's another case of those pesky side effects coming home to roost ....

Former Psychology Professor and Wife Accused of Being Cuban Spies

Former Florida International University psychology professor Carlos Alvarez and his wife Elsa Alvarez, also a former university employee, are accused of being unregistered agents.

Specifically, they are accused of being Cuban Spies

The detention of accused Cuban agent Elsa Alvarez was discussed in federal court Wednesday, about five months after she was jailed for allegedly sending information to the Cuban government.

Alvarez, a counselor at Florida International University, and her husband, FIU psychology Professor Carlos Alvarez, were arrested in January. The couple is accused of being unregistered agents for Cuba.

Jane Moscowitz, a lawyer for Elsa Alvarez, said that a federal judge would decide in the next couple of weeks if Alvarez will be released on bond.

Moscowitz said that the court gave a strong indication that it was leaning toward granting Alvarez a bond, subject to certain conditions as she awaits trial.

The court did not indicate the amount of the bond, Moscowitz said.

We’re in the dark ages of Psychiatric Medicine

As interesting post, worth reading.

Of course, my own take is that they are not doing real science in the first place, so this is what you get. (See Richard Feyman's famous essay on Cargo Cult Science).

Even so, here are some tidbits:

In one of my previous posts, I responded to a comment where I say that 100 years from now, we'll look back on these times as the dark ages of psychiatric medicine. When I said this once to a psychiatrist, she was just astounded that I could think such a thing. Her view is that we've learned so much about the science of the brain. And we're running real science in the labs to test these drugs for effectiveness. There's a lot we don't know, but dark ages?

Let me explain what I mean by that.

If you've looked into depression and the science behind anti-depressants, you'll find they talk about three major neurotransmitters in the brain that are chiefly responsible for your mood, and therefore depression. These are serotonin, norepinephrine, and dopamine.

Now, the going theory is that people suffer from clinical depression because of a deficiency of one or more of these three chemicals. The question is, which one? Because the drugs don't work on all three (or if they do, as in Effexor's case, they don't do so in an easily predictable way).

The thing is, the only way to get any idea as to which one is the right one, is to start throwing these drugs at you and seeing what sticks. They haven't invented the machine yet where they just hook up a bunch of probes to your skull and it spits out "BEEP BOOP SEROTONIN SENSITIVE BEEP ALSO PATIENT WASTES TOO MUCH TIME LOOKING AT PORN ON THE INTERNET BOOP." Unfortunately for now, we're stuck with the "throw and see what sticks" method. Science is fun! [...]

The problem is, of course, it's not that simple. A doctor can never say with anything like reasonable certainty which precise neurotransmitter is the one causing you to lay in bed all day in a fetal position. All they have so far is this (rather flimsy) evidence based on watching what happens when they put a couple of different weird chemicals in you.

Not to mention, none of this (flimsy) evidence gives the doctor any sort of clue as to why the Wellbutrin is giving you chronic, daily migraines that can only be kept at bay with constant and dangerously high doses of Immitrex.

The dirty little secret is that even with SSRIs (which, remember, are purported to selectively target serotonin) these drugs have far-reaching implications on your brain chemistry beyond the neurotransmitters listed here. And it is these implications that are impossible to measure, or even understand what it is we should be trying to measure.

Keep in mind that, just because we can't measure these changes to the brain chemistry, it doesn't then follow that the effects of these changes will be minimal. They can have major implications to your mood and to your body. Welcome to the happy world of side-effects!

That's why when you take a drug for ADHD which is supposed to selectively target norepinephrine (Straterra), and then a month later, you have a prostate the size of a croquet ball; the doctor just shrugs his shoulders and says, "yeah, isn't that a weird side-effect? No idea what that's all about."

This is what I mean when I say we're in the dark ages of psychiatric medication. We just don't know diddly squat yet about our own heads--and if we don't know how the brain works, then we can't really know how these drugs work either. [...]

He does hold out some some hope for the boys, and he seems quite smart. But he might not have fully digested all of the data we have collected here.

Bad diagnosis led to navy officer's dismissal

As reported here and also here

The [Australian] Navy sought a psychiatric assessment for Lieutenant-Commander Robyn Fahy from a doctor previously fined for "gross carelessness", it was revealed to a Senate committee yesterday.

Commander Fahy, who is seeking compensation for alleged abuse in the navy, was dismissed on the basis of an assessment by Dr Zdenek Srna, who was fined $10,000 by the West Australian Medical Board for carelessness in assessing a patient in 1998.

Dr Srna incorrectly diagnosed Commander Fahy, the first female graduate of the Australian Defence Force Academy, as suffering bipolar disorder in 2000, an assessment dismissed by other doctors. Navy chief Vice-Admiral Russ Shalders said he was not aware of Dr Srna's history when questioned by Labor's defence personnel spokesman, Mark Bishop.

"Dr Srna was a practising, qualified, certified psychiatrist at the time," he told the Senate Estimates Committee.

The head of Defence Legal, Mark Cunliffe, said his department had not made the navy doctor, who went before the WA Medical Board after referring Commander Fahy to Dr Srna, pay any part of $444,000 in his legal costs that Defence covered.

The WA board recommended Dr Douglas McKenzie take on 75 per cent of the costs after finding him guilty of 22 counts of misbehaviour in his handling of Commander Fahy, whom he described as "manipulative" and having a "personality disorder" in a letter to Dr Srna.

Defence head Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston admitted it had taken too long to settle Commander Fahy's complaint, first raised officially in 2001. It has since been dismissed at the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission and is the subject of a federal police investigation.

The case has moved to mediation before a retired Federal Court judge. "It's quite astounding that these allegations haven't been investigated and put to rest one way or the other," Senator Bishop said outside the committee.

Incompetence at more than one level, no?

Who created the USA Drug Problem?

Conspiracy theories abound, and while many can be dismissed with the wave of a hand, sometimes you need to check things out. Bring along your grains of salt, and check out this detailed and well documented essay first seen on LewRockwell.com

Eighteenth-century German philosopher Georg Friedrich Hegel long ago developed, among other things, what he called the principle of "thesis, antithesis, synthesis" to explain the process of deliberately enacted social disorder and change as a road to power.

To achieve a desired result, one deliberately creates a situation ("thesis,") devises a "solution," to solve the "problems" created by that situation ("antithesis,") with the final result being the ultimate goal of more power and control ("synthesis.") It is unsurprising Karl Marx and his disciples like Lenin and Trotsky, as well as the US government in its so-called War On Drugs, made this process a keystone of their drive for total control of all individual actions that, in their views, were not, in Mussolini s terms, "inside the state" and thus controllable by the same.

In September 1942, OSS director and Army Maj. Gen. William "Wild Bill" Donovan began his search for an effective "truth serum" to be used on POWs and captured spies. Beginning with a budget of $5,000 and the blessing of President Franklin Roosevelt, he enlisted the aid of a few prominent physicians and psychiatrists like George Estabrooks and Harry Murray as well as former Prohibition agent and notorious Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN) director Harry Anslinger. [...]

It is fairly long, but an interesting read. Readers are on their own as far as deciding what to think of it.

Here is a Short Bibliography

• Bowart, Walter; Operation Mind Control, Dell Publishing, 1978.


• Delgado, Jose, Physical Control of the Mind, Harper, NYC, 1969.


• Huxley, Aldous, The Doors of Perception, Harper, NYC, 1954.


• Lee, Martin; Shalin, Bruce, Acid Dreams, 1986.


• Marchetti, Victor, The CIA and the Cult of Intelligence, New York, 1974.


• Marks, John, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, New York, 1975.


• Masters, Robert & Houston, Jean, The Varieties of Psychedelic Experience: The Classic Guide to the Effects of LSD on the Human Psyche, 2000.


• McCoy, Alfred, The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade, Lawrence Hill, 1972, rev. 1991.


• Meerloo, Joost, The Rape of the Mind, Crowell, NYC, 1956.


• Skinner, B.F., Beyond Freedom and Dignity," Knopf, NYC, 1971


• Smith, Harris R. OSS: The Secret History of America’s First Central Intelligence Agency, Berkeley, 1972.


• Stevens, Jay, Storming Heaven – LSD and the American Dream, 1998.

Originally published in April 2001 by Michael E. Kreca. Mr. Kreca lives in San Diego and has been a financial reporter for Knight-Ridder, Business Week and the Financial Times of London.

Yet another death linked by 'coincidence' to antidepressants

As reported in the Chicago Tribune, and reported here, here is another anecdotal story of yet another death linked by 'coincidence' to antidepressants. Oh wait, there are black box labels now, aren't there?

A Kane County woman charged last month with fatally stabbing her disabled adult daughter with a kitchen knife sought medical treatment for depression just days before being arrested for murder, according to police.

A police detective who testified Wednesday at a Kane County coroner's inquest into the death of 34-year-old Nyakiambi Whitten said Betty Whitten, the dead woman's mother, had complained of depression to her physician two or three days before the April 3 fatal stabbing in the family's home in the 42W500 block of Hawk Circle in unincorporated Campton Township.

According to St. Charles Police Detective Robert Bobinski, who interviewed the physician, the 58-year-old Whitten, whom he said the doctor had described as usually bright and happy and easygoing, reportedly told him she was "feeling like she can't get out of a hole."

In addition to prescribing an antidepressant, the doctor recommended that Whitten seek help from her church community, Bobinski testified.

St. Charles police became involved with the case, along with the Kane County sheriff's office, after city police saw Whitten drive her car off a bridge in downtown St. Charles with her daughter's body inside the vehicle.

According to forensic evidence presented at the inquest, the physically and mentally disabled woman was stabbed three times with a kitchen knife. One of the wounds penetrated her heart, said Bobinski.

The coroner's jury ruled the death a homicide.

Sheriff's investigator Craig Campbell said the stabbing appears to have taken place in foyer of the family home. After putting her daughter into her car, Whitten drove east into St. Charles where "she had indicated it was her intention to drive into the Fox River," said Campbell.

Bobinski said the dead woman's bloodied T-shirt had no puncture wounds, indicating the shirt was moved out of the way before the stabbing. "I don't think [the daughter] had the mental capacity to defend herself,"
said Bobinski said.

Fearing that she might be harmed, Whitten's other daughter called police to the home.

Whitten, who has been on a suicide watch since her arrest, has been transferred to a state facility for psychological treatment after being declared mentally unfit to stand trial on the murder charge.

A court filing by Kane County Diagnostic Center psychologist Alexandra Tsang indicated Whitten could become mentally fit for trial with treatment.

Glad to see the labels worked

Psychiatrist Accused Of Soliciting Sex From Undercover Detective

As reported here:

Followup link, with Picture

Update: We now have a Local TV Video Report

Police have arrested a psychiatrist who they said was sending illicit pictures over the Internet to a detective posing as a 14-year-old Tequesta girl.

Miami police arrested Dr. Jose Gustavo Valladares at his apartment Tuesday morning. Authorities said he had been the target of a two-month-long online predator investigation.

Investigators said that during that time, Valladares, 38, was communicating with an undercover Tequesta Police Department detective who was pretending to be a 14-year-old girl.

Valladares, who is employed by Jackson Memorial Hospital, allegedly used a Web camera to masturbate and send pictures of his penis. Police said he also discussed traveling to Palm Beach County to meet the girl.

"A psychiatrist certainly knows the emotional sequela that comes from this type of abuse to a victim -- a child," said Miami police spokesman Bill Schwartz. "It's a lifelong emotional problem, but clearly this guy doesn't care."

Valladares is charged with distribution of harmful material to a minor and online solicitation of a minor for sex. A charge of lewd and lascivious exhibition is pending.

He has been suspended from JMH without pay.

Thumbs up to the Miami Police for their excellent work.

Recovering from Psychiatric colonialism

As seen here, with an online audio of an extended interview

When it comes right down to it, the Jamaican psychiatrist doesn't like too much about psychiatry as it is practised in the West. As far as he is concerned, the psychiatric textbooks were written by colonizers. And he goes even further, arguing that the mental illnesses those texbooks define have nothing to do with the reality of a black person's life. In fact, he says, those so-called illnesses are just an extension of colonial control. In short, Dr. Hickling doesn't think psychiatry, as it is traditionally practiced, works for black people.

Psychiatrist tries to buy a victim's silence

As described here

Psychiatrist John Owen Honey from Footscray in Victoria, Australia is being investigated by the Medical Practitioners Board of Victoria for sexually taking advantage of one of his femal patients, and then buying her silence with $100,000. Apparently the price for a gross abuse of trust is a bit higher.

Austalian news item here

Parexel back in hot water over drug trial errors

Although clearing Parexel from contributing to the recent drug trial disaster, a final UK Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) report slammed the US firm for making a number of basic errors during the trial process.

As reported here, the MHRA has accused global contract research firm Parexel of breaking a number of safety rules during the trial by failing to follow correct procedures and of making errors over contracts and patient records.

According to the report, Parexel did not adhere to documentation procedures during the trial.

Alarmingly, there was also no contract in existence for the bank-screening physician at the time they were employed (although one was subsequently issued). Parexel's principal investigator failed to authorise in their log the full work remit for the bank-screening physician at the start of their employment, the investigation found.

At the time of the drama, the MHRA also found that Parexel was non-compliant with the unblinding procedure, meaning that the placebo volunteers were allowed to leave the trial before appropriate checks were taken to confirm that they were the two subjects that had received the placebo.

Surprisingly, prior to beginning the trial there was also no contract in place between TeGenero and Parexel, although again, one was subsequently issued, and there was only a draft contract in existence between Parexel and the private laboratory they had engaged.

In addition, Parexel had failed to review TeGenero's insurance policy to ensure that one was in place and that there were no exclusion categories within it that might impact upon their volunteers. There was also no formal system in place to provide 24-hour medical cover, the report stated.

The proper colloquial term for a mess like this is "it's a dog's breakfast"

'Punitive Psychiatry' Alive and Well in the 'New' Russia

As noted here

If you're incensed by corruption in Russian life and politics and you're bold enough to try to do something about it, you must be crazy. No, this is not Solzhenitsyn's Soviet Union in 1976 -- this is Vladimir Putin's Russia in 2006.

There's a difference. It's not the all-powerful KGB or its successor, the Federal Security Service, locking brave dissidents away for months or years, "drugged into tranquillity and prevented from talking to lawyers or family." (At least, not yet.) It's a patchwork of "regional authorities in localized disputes" and "private antagonists who have the means [ . . . ] to bribe their way through the courts."

And as reported in the LA Times (registration may be required)

Albert Imendayev collected the signatures he needed to run for the legislature last fall in this city on the banks of the Volga River. He met with supporters, prepared his campaign material. [ . . . ]

Only days before he was required to appear at the local election commission to finalize his candidacy, an investigator from the prosecutor's office met Imendayev at the courthouse with three police officers. They kept him locked up until a judge could be found to sign the order committing him for a psychiatric evaluation.

"The hearing took place, and I was taken straight off to the asylum," said the businessman and human rights activist. By the time he was released nine days later, the election filing deadline had passed and he was out of the race.

Imendayev's act of insanity was filing a series of legal complaints against local officials, police, prosecutors and judges, alleging corruption, violation of court procedures and cronyism — charges that are far from rare in today's Russia. The prosecutor, a frequent target of Imendayev's darts, called his behavior "paranoia." [ . . . ]

"This has only just resurfaced in recent years, and for a time we couldn't even believe it was happening. But now it seems quite clear that such abuses are on the rise, and that this is a trend," said Yury Savenko, president of the Independent Psychiatric Assn., an advocacy group of professional psychiatrists that has pushed for mental health reforms in Russia.

The ranks of the "insane" over the last three years have included women divorcing powerful husbands, people locked in business disputes and citizens, like Imendayev, who have become a nuisance by filing numerous legal challenges against local politicians and judges or lodging appeals against government agencies to uphold their rights.

And there is so much more to it all.

Therapists Just Don't Get It!

It is always interesting to consider the ethical responsibilities of therapists for the larger world around us. Yes, folks need to deal with their personal problems. But there are other issues that put some personal issues into some sort of perspective.

With that, As seen on this blog

As you probably know from bitter experience, therapists get endless brochures advertising workshops, seminars, continuing education events, conferences on psychology and psychotherapy.

Almost all of them focus exclusively on the human-human relationship and nature is never mentioned.

Take the latest brochure I’ve received. It’s touting the upcoming Psychotherapy Networker conference on “The Creative Leap.” [...] The conference will offer everything from “Creativity Day” to the latest on ADHD, couples counseling etc. etc. plus words of wisdom from various gurus but only one workshop that acknowledges maybe our world and planet are in a BIG mess.

And nothing on the importance of healing the human-nature relationship before we extinguish ourselves and take that big creative leap into dodo-land!

Al Gore gets it. Even George W. Bush gets it (he admits we’re addicted to oil). But what about the experts in the dysfunction of the human psyche?

THEY STILL DON’T GET IT!! Talk about fiddling while Rome burns…

Anatomy of media hype

As seen here, by Chris Rangel.

When the media begin operating with a mob mentality it's easy to understand how this skews the public's perceptions of the reality of these stories.

Media swarms or clustering and over-reporting on stories is one side of the problem. On the other side is selective reporting that is a hugely practiced but little known phenomenon.

For example, in the late 80's and early 90's the media was swarming over reports that silicone breast implants were being linked to autoimmune diseases but when several epidemiological studies were published that found no links what-so-ever, hardly anyone in the media noticed.

But what about media hype contained within a specific article? Jack Shafer from Slate takes a look at the latest media swarm; the "epidemic" in methamphetamine abuse and picks apart the "reporting" by the Washington Post.

Apparently poor reporting tends to cherry pick from the statistics buffet, use broad terms that are open to interpretation like "epidemic" without being more specific, and avoids details and exact information.

"Health officials say 75 percent of patients in some clinics have abused the drug, a big increase from a few years ago"

Which health officials?
How many clinics?
What clinics?
An increase of how much?
How many years ago?

Best of all is the use of sources who at first glance should be "experts" on this topic but at best have only anecdotal data and at worst have a conflict of interest in saying something that contradicts the slant of the story!

The use of law enforcement personnel as sources for stories on drug abuse trends is about a useful as a sports announcer who informs us that the team that scores the most points is going to win. Have you ever met a police officer who actually knows national or regional crime rates (or a doctor who knows national shifts in HMO enrollment rates)?

And what department spokesperson is going to admit to a trend that would result in lower funding for their department?

Best of all is the habit of "reporters" in assuming that their "expert" sources are actually experts who get their ideas and opinions strictly from data, independent of previous media hype! All of this likely results in the following;

1. Law enforcement official reads about the latest "epidemic" in drug abuse
   
2. this article focuses his/her attention on relevant cases in the department
   
3. reporter interviews official about these cases and asks opinion on trends
   
4. official confirms that these cases are increasing without providing hard data or only partial statistics or anecdotal data
   
5. reporter reports that official confirms that these cases are on the increase
6. official reads this story that confirms the latest "epidemic" in drug abuse.
   

And so on and so forth.

Chicken or egg? Are they creating the news or just reporting it?

Is Drugging Grandma Forever better than Psychotherapy?

When the press trumpet, "Drugs trounce psychotherapy", it's probably wise to find out what the leader of the study says, instead of a headline hunting sub-editor. Apparently, there recent was a story promoting the drug angle over a talking therapy, and even this psych has issues with the news item:

Found vis the blog BoBo Hits Back

The headlines below demonstrate the profound limitations of getting reliable information from the news. Certainly if it involves any sort of complexity. The links to the four newspaper articles purport to give details of a study on the treatment of elderly people with depression, comparing prolonged drug treatments to a course of Interpersonal Psychotherapy (IPT).

Drugs trounce psychotherapy for blocking depression's return: Gives it you straight and lightweight. It's pretty much worthless in telling you what when on, but conveys a strong and simplistic message.

Elderly with depression benefit from continuing drugs and psychotherapy: This is a better article, but still doesn't really give you a clear sense of what actually happened.

Drugs better for depression: This article mentioned that the psychotherapy treatment was for only 45 minutes, once a month. What sort of therapeutic relationship - the key to all forms of psychotherapy - can be built up which such a fractured
therapy experience. I doubt that I could maintain much therapeutic continuity if I only saw a therapist once a month, and I'm not over 70
(nor depressed).

Maintenance meds cut depression relapse: This articles was the best. It did at least mention the form of psychotherapy being compared - IPT (Interpersonal Therapy) see UK Interpersonal Psychotherapy. Though it didn't mention the monthly timescale.

But there's more: You might expect that if you stuff someone full of antidepressants every day, that they wouldn't get depressed again.

Yet - not really highlighted by any of the articles - 37% of patients who were continually being given anti-depressants over a two year period actually did have another depression. What's going on with that?

[...]

Of course, pushing pills is quick and easy. Being elderly and depressed: facing the breakdown of your bodies functions, facing the isolation that comes with burying your own friends and family, facing the end of your own life narrative and that it's too late to undo the past or live a new better life, facing the scrap-heap of old age in a youth obsessed culture, and facing death. They all seem like perfectly sound reasons for experiencing depression in old age. Thank goodness we have some pills to take the existential pain of it all away!

Sarcasm noted

A Collection of Articles on Disease Mongering in PLoS Medicine

The International Conference on Disease-Mongering was held in Newcastle New South Wales, Australia on April 11th to 13th 2006. Highlights included a 'mockumentary' on 'motivational deficiency disorder', which was highly entertaining and very funny.

A large number of the papers presented at the conference are now freely available online, thanks to the online journal PLoS Medicine. PLoS Medicine is an open-access journal published by the nonprofit organization Public Library of Science.

You can even download the entire collection as a PDF.

Conferance DVDs will be available shortly, including one with the entire mockumentary.

Psych Professor in drug study fraud claim, potential charges of unethical studies in the wings

As reported in the Guardian, with a lot more information

A professor who taught at one of Britain's most prestigious medical institutes while appearing regularly as an expert on the BBC online, has been accused of being a fraud and has a warrant out for his arrest. Tonmoy Sharma, who was a senior lecturer at the Institute of Psychiatry in London, is accused of deceiving the NHS and some of the world's largest drug firms, and lying about his academic credentials.

Sharma, who denies all the claims, is being accused by the pharmaceutical companies' trade body of taking part in wide-ranging research fraud involving tests of powerful drugs on schizophrenic patients.

He says the firms have targeted him as 'a scapegoat' to cover their own failures and protect people in the industry. He also believes he is the victim of academic rivals jealous of his success.

The high-profile dispute is to come before the General Medical Council (GMC) in September. It will be embarrassing for the medical and academic establishments and raise questions about how UK drug trials are conducted.

At one stage Sharma was offered the chair of psychiatry at University College London, and over a period of years from 1996 he was paid hundreds of thousands of pounds by drugs giants such as Novartis and Sanofi to conduct trials of anti-psychotic drugs on patients with schizophrenia and Alzheimer's disease.

The firms belong to the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry (ABPI), which will ask the GMC to find him guilty of professional misconduct. The association is expected to allege that he failed to obtain proper approval from ethical committees to conduct a number of major studies. These approvals are a vital component in any trial to protect the patients taking part.

Therapist closes Atascadero practice amid sex allegation

[We just came across this story, but it is worth posting all the same]

Michael Cooksey, charged with sexually exploiting a female patient, ‘took advantage of her emotional state,’ says deputy district attorney.

An Atascadero family therapist arrested last week and charged with sexually exploiting a female former patient has closed down his practice and faces arraignment April 28, authorities said Monday.

Michael Cooksey was arrested Friday afternoon by Atascadero police and posted $5,000 bail later that day.

Investigator Frank Root of the state Department of Consumer Affairs said the woman, 46, sought out Cooksey as a therapist in September 2003 after enduring an abusive marriage for years. After three months, Cooksey told her he could no longer be her therapist, Root said.

The following month they began an affair, Root said, which lasted a year. She filed a complaint against Cooksey in September 2005.

Root says that under state guidelines, therapists cannot get intimately involved with their clients until at least two years after they last saw them professionally. Therapists taking advantage of their patients is "something we don’t see that much of," he said. But, he added, it is a "predator-type activity."

Cooksey could not be reached. No one answered the phone at the number listed for his professional office on El Camino Real. His criminal attorney, Jeffrey Stein, said he needs more time to look into the case before commenting.

Mark Connely, an attorney representing Cooksey before the state board, said the therapist has turned in his license.

Paul Riches, executive officer of the state Board of Behavioral Sciences, said he could not comment on the Cooksey case. But he said his board investigates 10 to 15 cases a year involving inappropriate behavior between therapists and patients. Most of those involve alleged sexual misconduct, ranging from inappropriate touching to sexual interaction. If a therapist is convicted of sexual contact, the department will revoke his or her license, Riches said.

County Deputy District Attorney Jerret Gran said Cooksey violated a provision of the state business and professions code.

"He took advantage of her emotional state," he said.

While one case of sexual exploitation is a misdemeanor, two or more is a felony, said Root, the state investigator.

Eduardo Bernabe Ordaz, a psych turned torturer, dead in Cuba.

As reported on Medicina Cubana

Dr. Ordaz was a close friend and collaborator of Fidel Castro and was named by him director for life of Cuba's psychiatric hospital known as Mazorra.

Many Cuban dissidents were sent to Mazorra to be tortured and several of them received electroshocks while lying on bare floors that were wet from their own urine. Dr. Armando M. Lago and Charles J. Brown wrote a book in 1991 titled "The politics of psychiatry in revolutionary Cuba" describing many of the abuses that occurred at Mazorra while Ordaz was Director.

"In the former Soviet Union, with a population of three hundred million, there were 300 well documented cases of psychiatric abuse against political dissidents (1 per million). However, Cuba's eleven million inhabitants, with 371 cases is a shocking contrast (1 per 30,000)," said Dr. Lagos, one of the authors of the book.

One of those torturers who used to work at Mazorra, Eriberto Mederos, later came to Miami in 1984 and became a US citizen in 1993. Mederos was identified by one of his victims while working as a nurse at a local hospital and was arrested, brought to trial and convicted of crimes against humanity.

Among those who testified against Mederos was Belkis Ferro, who was only 15 years old when he tortured her with electroshock treatments and insulin shots. Belkis was deemed a “rebellious teenager” an was punished for denouncing Castro’s oppressive regime at school.

Ex-Lake Alice Psych boss in Australian sex inquiry

As reported in the Manawatu Standard of New Zealand, and elsewhere.

Lake Alice's former head psychiatrist, who's facing charges in Australia on the use of electric-shock treatment and pain-inducing injections on children at the hospital, has also been accused of sexual misconduct by a Melbourne patient.

Selwyn Leeks, who was in charge of Lake Alice's child and adolescent unit between 1972 and 1977, is being investigated by the Victorian Medical Practioners' Board over what happened in New Zealand.

The adolescent unit closed in 1978.

In 2001, Prime Minister Helen Clark apologised to 100 former patients for their treatment at Lake Alice, including the use of electric-shock treatment and pain-inducing injections. The government paid $10.7 million in compensation.

Since leaving Lake Alice, Dr Leeks has been practising in Australia and Canada.

He has been under investigation by the Victorian Medical Practioners' Board since July 2003.

The board has yet to set a date for a hearing, but it is understood a preliminary hearing was held this week.

Board spokeswoman Nicole Newton verified the investigation and told the Manawatu Standard no formal hearing date has been set, but proceedings may begin this year.

"I certainly hope so."

Melbourne journalist Bill Birnbauer, of The Age and The Sunday Age, has been following the case for five years.

He said the other charges have been laid by a female former patient and relate to when Dr Leeks treated her for anxiety in 1979 and 1980.

He said the board is also reviewing another 50 former patients' complaints of misconduct against Dr Leeks.

Mr Birnbauer said the practitioners' board is taking a considerable time to investigate the matter and set a hearing for both the Lake Alice claims and the other complaints.

"But at least it's doing something. The New Zealand medical authorities chose not to."

In a story in The Sunday Age, he said the woman bringing the complaint told the paper Dr Leeks told her he was hounded by authorities in New Zealand.

"He said the children he had treated were feral and psychotic and were future murderers and thieves. Society would realise one day that he was ahead of his time," the paper reported her as saying.

The investigation before the practitioners' board is being conducted by Melbourne law firm Minter Ellison, but it referred inquiries by the Manawatu Standard back to the board.

A criminal inquiry by the New Zealand police into what went on at Lake Alice is ongoing.

Psychologist surrenders licenses

As reported in the Traverse City Record Eagle of Traverse City, Minnesota

A Traverse City psychologist surrendered his practice licenses after pleading no contest to allegations he had a decade-long sexual relationship with a patient as he treated her.

Dr. David Halsted was ordered to surrender his psychologist and a marriage therapist licenses in March, following an administrative complaint that alleged he had sex with a Kingsley woman who became his patient in 1990.

State assistant attorney general Paul Jones filed complaints last October against Halsted with the state boards of psychology and marriage-and-family therapy (MTS) on behalf of the state Department of Community Health.

The woman filed a civil suit last year against Halsted, his wife, Judith Halsted, and her counseling business, Halsted Academic Advisors, seeking damages for alleged "negligent professional psychotherapeutic care" provided by David Halsted.

The license complaints alleged Halsted started the sexual relationship although he "knew" the woman was "psychologically fragile," to the point of being suicidal. The relationship apparently ended in September 2003.

In a March 17 memo signed by Jones, both boards ordered Halsted's licenses — both of which had lapsed — to be surrendered and Halsted "permanently" banned from practicing as a psychologist or a therapist.

Halsted could not be reached for comment. He did not contest the allegations, according to state documents.

The civil lawsuit alleged that the sexual relationship went on for 10 years and was dismissed by 13th Circuit Court Judge Philip Rodgers after the plaintiff's counsel failed to appear for a March 22 hearing.

Attorney Linda Atkinson, who represents the woman, would not comment on the status of the lawsuit or whether it would be refiled.

See also these related stories:

• 'Love therapy' threatens licenses - December 3, 2005


• Psychologist sued by former patient - October 21, 2005


• Woman alleges she was billed for sex sessions - June 15, 2005

Justifying Electroshock

I came across this special quote:

"Thus a patient who chose to undergo some mild brain damage, which would result in mild persistent memory deficits, in order to escape from severe psychic pain that could not be relieved in any other way would not be making an inherently irrational decision."

(‘ECT and Special Problems of Informed Consent,’ Culver, Ferrell & Green,
American Journal of Psychiatry, 137: 1980)

ECT - the therapy of releiving pain through Brain damage

ADHD drugs send thousands to the ER

As reported on MSNBC

Accidental overdoses and side effects from attention deficit drugs likely send thousands of children and adults to emergency rooms, according to the first national estimates of the problem.

Scientists at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated problems with the stimulant drugs drive nearly 3,100 people to ERs each year. Nearly two-thirds — overdoses and accidental use — could be prevented by parents locking the pills away, the researchers say.

Other patients had side effects, including potential cardiac problems such as chest pain, stroke, high blood pressure and fast heart rate.

Concerns over those effects have led some doctors to urge the Food and Drug Administration to require a "black box," its most serious warning, on package inserts for drugs such as Ritalin, Concerta and Adderall. Yet even doctors advising the FDA don't agree on whether that's warranted.

The issue was discussed in a series of letters in Thursday's New England Journal of Medicine, including some from doctors worried about the dangers of not treating attention deficit hyperactivity disorder.

"The numbers (of side effects) are puny compared to the numbers of stimulant prescriptions per year," said Dr. Tolga Taneli, a child and adolescent psychiatrist at University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey in Newark. "I'm not alarmed."

An estimated 3.3 million Americans who are 19 or younger and nearly 1.5 million ages 20 and older are taking ADHD medicines. Ritalin is made by Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. of East Hanover, N.J.; Concerta by Johnson & Johnson of New Brunswick, N.J., and Adderall by Shire US Inc. of Newport, Ky.

Twenty-five deaths linked to ADHD drugs, 19 involving children, were reported to FDA from 1999 through 2003. Fifty-four other cases of serious heart problems, including heart attacks and strokes, were also reported. Some of the patients had prior heart problems.

Still, there hasn't been a clear estimate of the scope of side effects. The CDC report, while not a rigorous scientific study, attempts to provide that by using a new hospital surveillance network.

Another psychiatrist sentenced in drug and fraud case

As reported in the Charlotte Observer

Former Charlotte psychiatrist Warren H. Williams was sentenced this week to a year and a day in federal prison after pleading guilty to health care fraud and illegal distribution of a controlled substance without a medical purpose.

U.S. District Judge Robert Conrad Jr. ordered Williams to be placed in a substance abuse program and to surrender his license to practice medicine and dispense medicines, according to the U.S. Attorney's Office.

He will not be allowed to reapply for his medical license until after completion of three years of supervised release after prison.

Williams was also ordered to pay restitution of $59,885.64 to insurance companies that were victims of his fraud and was barred from being a Medicare or Medicaid provider, the U.S. Attorney's Office said.

Williams, 55, pleaded guilty to the charges in July and remains free on bond. He'll report to prison once the Bureau of Prisons designates the location.

According to the indictment, Williams billed insurance companies for patient visits that did not occur, billed for higher levels of services than he provided and illegally distributed the anti-anxiety drug alprazolam.

Williams began practicing in Charlotte in 1994. He surrendered his N.C. medical license in October 2004.

He got off lighter than the first guy.

Psychiatrist gets 3½-year term in drug and fraud case

As reported in the Virginia Pilot

A former Virginia Beach psychiatrist was sentenced Wednesday to 3½ years in federal prison for unlawfully distributing prescription narcotics and improperly billing Medicaid.

Jeremy A. Stowell, 64, had pleaded guilty to illegally prescribing OxyContin, methadone and vicoprofen and to charging Medicaid, including for some patient visits that never occurred.

District Judge Raymond A. Jackson ordered Stowell to pay a $20,000 fine and $32,929 restitution to the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services. The judge also barred Stowell from employment in any medical profession.

“The court would probably consider you a blue-chip drug dealer,” Jackson said. “No sound physician would do what you did.”

In April 2004, Stowell distributed 10 tablets of vicoprofen to a person “not having legitimate medical need,” according to court papers, and in January 2005, the physician prescribed 60 OxyContin tablets and 150 methadone tablets for a patient who was purportedly out of state rather than at an appointment. That patient was an undercover officer.

In the health care fraud charge, Stowell billed Medicaid for an appointment that a patient already had paid for, appointments the patient did not attend and appointments in which the patient sent someone else on their behalf. In those cases, too, the patient was an undercover officer.

Stowell also charged Medicaid after he was barred from participating in federal health care programs after a mail fraud conviction in 1994.

Stowell, who acquired a Virginia medical license in 1970, surrendered it last summer at the behest of the state Board of Medicine.

According to reports from the board, Stowell had prescribed drugs to patients with histories of narcotics abuse without properly monitoring them and to patients who he knew were sharing the drugs with others. In some cases, he didn’t document the reason the drugs were needed, according to the report.

After the hearing, Stowell’s attorney, Franklin A. Swartz, said his client was relieved. “He wants to get his sentence over with and get on with his life.”

Political Diagnosis by Conservative Psych labels Liberal Al Gore Insane

While I try to maintain a politically nuetral stance, I am sometime reminded of the old soviet practice of labelling critics of the State as crazy. With that, we get this column by Henry I. Miller, a physician and fellow at the Hoover Institution, as seen in the Investor's Business Daily:

I don't know of a prominent politician less suited psychologically than Mr. Gore to be the leader of the free world. [...] Mr. Gore is disturbed, and on the basis of his actions and writings over many years my guess is that he suffers from Narcissistic Personality Disorder, which is not treatable with medications.

The criteria for this diagnosis, as described in the psychiatrist's bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, include a "pervasive pattern of grandiosity (in fantasy or behavior), need for admiration, and lack of empathy, beginning by early adulthood and present in a variety of contexts," as indicated by the following:

He goes for quite a bit, and in an interesting fashion, seems to display precisely the conditions and symptoms that he is diagnosising Mr. Gore with.

It is up to your own sense of politics to determine for yourself if this is a case of the Pot calling the Kettle Black. I know many Americans who would think that other famous politicians would be better candidates for this diagnosis.

In any case, this political diagnosis of insanity is quite dangerous.

A slightly abridged version of the column is seen here on the National Review Online

Psychiatric drugs fare favorably when companies pay for studies

As Reported in USA Today

Drug companies fund a growing number of the studies in leading psychiatric journals, and drugs fare much better in these company-funded studies than in trials done independently or by competitors, researchers reported Wednesday.

About 57% of published studies were paid for by drug companies in 2002, compared with 25% in 1992, says psychiatrist Igor Galynker of Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City.

His team looked at clinical research in four influential journals: American Journal of Psychiatry, Archives of General Psychiatry, Journal of Clinical Psychiatry and Journal of Clinical Psychopharmacology.

In the report, released at the American Psychiatric Association meeting in Toronto, reviewers did not know who paid for the studies they evaluated, Galynker says. There were favorable outcomes for a medication in about:

• Eight out of 10 studies paid for by the company that makes the drug.

• Five out of 10 studies done with no industry support.

• Three out of 10 studies done by competitors of the firm making the drug.

Is anybody surprised? Really?

Psychiatric Labels Plague Women’s Mental Health

May is mental-health awareness month, but sadly, much of the publicity and public “education” connected with it consists of trying to persuade people they are mentally ill and need medication and psychotherapy. What is little known but frightening is the damage often done to many women simply by giving them psychiatric diagnoses. [...]

Because they received psychiatric diagnoses, women have lost health insurance or had skyrocketing premiums, lost jobs, lost the right to make decisions about their medical and legal affairs and lost, or nearly lost, their lives. Last month, a woman on the West Coast went to court after losing child custody on the basis of having been psychiatrically labeled. [...]

It should not be surprising, then, that the psychiatric field is riddled with diagnoses that are used to demean and pathologize women.

Read the full OpEd piece on Women's News here

Seen via

Psychotherapy for Infants

From My Button Down Mind

Now researchers have concluded that there could be long-term benefits of providing psychotherapy to patients in infancy. (Yeah, the long-term benefits could include a country club estate and a sports car in the psychiatrist's future.......wink, wink).

Here's a link to the entire article on MSN's website. Meanwhile, I'm including some "choice" quotes from the article.

"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."

"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."

"This may cause some readers to roll their eyes — especially those who believe Americans have a tendency to pathologize and treat the slightest blip of a bad mood. "

I confess....I'm one of those "eye-rolling American readers."

It's another attempt to expand the market.

Please give extra special attention to this MSNBC site on Children and Learning