Breggin devotes a chapter in this book to drug free living and his other works such as, "Your Drug May Be Your Problem" give the basic principles for helping yourself and others without resorting to psychiatric medications.However, you may also find other resources of interest.

Terry Lynch is an Irish GP and psychotherapist whose book Beyond Prozac, is in my opinion far and away the best of its kind so far. An unflagging and remorseless critic of drug- and biology-based psychiatry, Terry Lynch uses his extensive experience as a doctor and therapist to demonstrate how a balanced approach to emotional distress of all kinds - including the most severe - should look.

This book cannot in my view be recommended too highly; every GP in the land should read it, and many sufferers and survivors in and of the psychiatric system will draw comfort from it.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Beyond-Prozac-Healing-Mental-Distress/dp/1898059632/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255982177&sr=1-1

Depression can be a killer and it almost killed the Welsh author and poet Gwyneth Lewis.
Gwyneth did use medication as part of her recovery and went on to write about her personal experience of depression in a book called, Sunbathing in the Rain: A Cheerful Book about Depression.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sunbathing-Rain-Cheerful-About-Depression/dp/0007232802/ref=sr_1_14?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1255983068&sr=1-14

David

PCCS Books publish a series of works under the heading of Critical Psychology. You may find this a useful resource:

 http://www.pccs-books.co.uk/section.php?xSec=14&jssCart=7f6186c7112ce748c9297faad697e31e

David

http://www.tanadineen.com/

David 

Review
"Peter Breggin has written the definitive text for professionals and the public alike who really want to know the hazards, inadequacies and illusions of psychopharmacology. This book will be a foundation for those who specialize in medication-free treatment." -Kevin F. McCready, PhD Clinical Director, San Joaquin Psychotherapy Center "This book proves once again that Peter Breggin truly is the 'conscience of American psychiatry.' Breggin shows that the brain-disabling hypothesis of organic psychiatric treatments is overwhelmingly confirmed by clinical experience and the scientific literature. With astounding numbers of elderly, adults, and children on prescribed psychoactive drugs, Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry should be required reading for all medical interns, practicing physicians, and mental health professionals." -David Cohen, PhD Professor of Social Services, University of Montreal"

Product Description
Renowned psychologist Peter Breggin documents how psychiatric drugs and electroshock disable the brain. He presents the latest scientific information on potential brain dysfunction and dangerous behavioral abnormalities produced by the most widely used drugs including Prozac, Xanax, Halcion, Ritalin, and lithium.For this edition of the book, the concept of brain-disabling treatment has been updated and expanded with the additional concept of medication spellbinding (intoxication anosognosia). The neuroleptic chapters have been updated to include much more material on the newer, atypical drugs, and well as new information on the neurotoxicity and cytotoxicity of all antipsychotic drugs. A massive amount of new information about antidepressant drugs and the stimulant drugs has resulted in an additional chapter on each drug.

 How would we have known worldtodd even existed without this thread, and okay, for him to post his personal indepth issues, no, this public forum is not the place, but I for one am a silent supporter of this person, because clearly there are things going on for real or in the minds of others that we cannot possibly understand unless they are bought out in the open.

So on that note it seems there is a fine line for awareness of issues concerning someone like worldtodd to be brought out into the open and quite another for the nitty gritty to be discussed here.

My best wishes go to WT to find all the help and support needed and all that interacted with this thread are all a few more sending good vibes to someone who desperately needs them.   Bon courage !

Ok, if everyone is done explaining why they posted what they posted, and why they were right to post what they posted, I'd like to close this thread.

Worldtodd - no one said you were wrong to tell us about your experience.
You told us, we learned something new, and now its time to move on.

Thanks

Oded

Dorothy Rowe's website provides a lot of hope for depressed people. See her website at: http://dorothyrowe.com.au/index.php?u=cover.htm

Rowe makes the point, that even those suffering from severe forms of mental distress such as schizophrenia do not necessarily have to resort to psychiatric medication. She makes direct reference to this in her review the film, "A Beautiful Mind", where Russell Crowe (representing the real John Nash) is suffering from Paranoid Schizophrenia.

Rowe makes reference to a self-help community called, the Hearing Voices Community who normalize hallucinations and delusions as phenonmenon of everyday experience.

http://hearingvoicesmovement.blogspot.com/

David

Rowe on the lies in "A Beautiful Mind":

"To placate the powerful drug companies the film makes out that John Nash was cured by taking the newer psychiatric drugs, which is untrue, and it fails to explain the origin of the figures which he saw as clearly as he saw the people around him. Psychiatrists have always regarded visual and auditory hallucinations (seeing people and hearing voices) as merely symptoms of a disease, schizophrenia, in the way that red spots are a symptom of measles. However, in recent years the Hearing Voices Movement, which is made up of people who have had such experiences, has shown that these hallucinations are memories differing only in intensity from the memories we all have.

In one scene in the film a friend questions whether John Nash is ready to return to teaching. He asks whether the persecutory figures were still there. John Nash replies that they are and perhaps they always will be but that he’s got used to ignoring them and they’ve got used to being ignored. John Nash then wonders whether all our dreams and nightmares are like this and says, ‘They’re my past. Everybody is haunted by their past.’ "

An intersting series of comments and a number of references I will consult.  Regarding the Psychiatric diagnostic manual and its history and the influence drug manufacturers and psychiatrists have had on it can be found in this article by a PhD student studying Medical Anthropology at the University of Toronto: http://www.counterpunch.org/tsao08202009.html While at CounterPunch search for the author Pringle who has anumber of articles on the flagrant mismarketing and misuse by the psychiatric profession of antipsychotics in children as young as three resulting in death and morbidity.  Finally one can consult UoC SF for court documents on some cases against pharmaceutical companies: http://dida.library.ucsf.edu/

Ivan Illich's Medical Nemesis is also a good read about the medicalisation of life.

what is this all about? interesting as this topic may be, the glocals website is NOT the forum of chice for such discussions especially after arriving at the level and depth these postings have attained. there are dedicated forums for these topics. you should go there. i doubt that on those forums you'll find discussions about weekend salsa lessons or musical chairs dinners :-)

IMHO these forums are for general interest and not specialised subject matter of this nature. just my 2 cents.

IMHO glocals is a privileged spot to meet and confront on one's personal interests.

If that had to be only about Salsa lessons, I wouldn't have stayed that long.

Please let people choose what are they interested to discuss about, within the due respect of the rules, of education and over all of each other.

The richness of this place is the diversity of its members and of its activities (from the musical chairs dinners to the meditation workshops, from the sky weekends to the book clubs...).

I'm frankly disappointed when I see people inviting others to go discuss this or that somewhere else.

I more than once thanked David for his interesting input and the unconventional themes he proposes for discussion. That recently inspired some of the most interesting and rich debates in a long time.

Oded and Nir make a great work in monitoring and moderating this place to avoid misplaced behaviours while letting the debate develop. 

Please let them do it.

The Granny

(and no: I'm not a webmaster) :P

@Lahna and Stef_Granny

I couldn't agree more, I think that to limit  Glocals' forums to "light" subjects that may (or may not) appeal to a range of glocals members is to limit the scope of exchange and healthy debate that has always been a feature of Glocals' forums.

Some subjects are bound to cause controversy but that means they touched a nerve and I think that can be a good thing as long as there's respect and fairplay in the discussion.

Unfortunately psychiatric problems concern many people directly or indirectly and I for one found a lot of interesting information in this forum that I wouldn't otherwise have loooked for.

If members chose to disclose their personal experiences and it caused distress to some is something that I can't comment on as I've just read this thread today and the aforementioned posting is not avaiable anymore.

But I trust the moderators to use their common sense and fairness, as it's always been the case, to judge if the material posted is inappropriate.

Thank you David and Marina for the interesting links and info you posted.

As the great TV psychistrist Frasier Crane used to say "Good mental health"

I thought Alcohol was pretty much the most effective "brain disabling" product out there on the shelf these days, and you don't even need a prescription order to get a "dose" of it.

The book looks good tho'.

Does anyone have a copy of this book floating around, can read and return in 2 days probably........please drop me a line if you have one, looks very interesting, thanks.

Hi bookworm,

Google Books have the entire book online at the following link:

http://books.google.ch/books?id=hBd0V7Ex8PUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=brain+disabling+psychiatry&hl=en&cd=1#v=onepage&q=&f=false

Best wishes,

David