Violence

Paul Woodward of Beyond Meds critiques the Washington Post's report on the reduction of gun control, and increase in mental health-care budgets, following Sandy...

Ashley Smith was a very troubled and rebellious teenager. By the time she was 13, she was getting into trouble in school. On one occasion, Ashley was charged with the crime - actually a childish prank - of “throwing crabapples at a postal worker.” Ashley was convicted and sentenced to detention in New Brunswick Youth Centre. Prison psychologists and psychiatrists labeled her defiant behavior a “mental health issue”; a thinly disguised term for “mental illness.” There is no record of any detention or prison staff or health professional trying to understand Ashley’s resistance to authority as youth rebellion.

Force in '‘mental health' care’ has been a popular topic for decades now, yet it’'s scary how similar the conversation remains. Jonathan Keyes'’s recent blog certainly generated quite a bit of commentary caught between conflict and assimilation, and the very mention of the infamous Treatment Advocacy Center gets many of us boiling over. Yet, the conversation has also seemingly lost its way. There’s a vastness between what we think we are demanding and what is actually being conveyed that can sometimes feel impenetrable. Often, I'’m not sure we'’re really even engaged in the same conversation, as much as we superficially may appear to be. I've said many things, but I'll summarize with the following statement: "“If you’'re going to force it, you better make sure that what you'’re forcing works.”" The facts of the matter are that forced treatment - –and particularly forced drugging - –simply doesn’'t work.

Under Canada's Mental Health Act (MHA), police respond to anonymous calls expressing concern about a person's mental health, often leading to that person's detainment...

I do not claim to know how to heal the wounds from the tragedy that occurred in Newtown on December 14th, 2012. Nor do I claim to know how to prevent future tragedies of this sort. The intent of this post is to oppose ineffective and inhumane practices, prompted by reactions to the events in Newtown and other communities, that are falsely thought to be effective.

On October 1st the Connecticut State Legislature’s reactionary response to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary school went into effect. Public Act No. 13-3 requires all people that voluntarily admit to a hospital for mental health reasons (not solely for drug or alcohol treatment) have their names placed in a database administered by the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services - for the purpose of automatic suspension of Second Amendment rights.

Phil Hickey of Behaviorism and Mental Health picks apart 60 Minutes' segment interviewing E. Fuller Torrey (Untreated mental illness an imminent danger?), and APA...

It is no mystery why everyone at the McNair Discovery Learning Center is alive today. Antoinette Tuff was respectful, responsive and kind to a man with a gun. She shared her own difficulties and offered her own humanity. This kind of “Tuff Love” involves real risk, but not more risk. It reaches across vast expanses of human confusion and distress - not to manage, control or subdue - but to attempt connection and offer a lifeline back to humanity. It is the public safety work of the future.

“This case does not make sense in the normal sense,” Assistant Prosecutor Doug Newton told jurors in the trial of Michael Hamilton for murder....

The recent incident in the grounds of Washington Capitol, involving a young educated woman, brought shock to many people. It was another opportunity to blame a victim of mental illness and demand further restraint and medical attention for such individuals. Yes, we are lacking dignified, caring, discerning and attentive treatment for those whose spirits are broken. But we certainly don’t suffer from a lack of medical treatment for such individuals. It is time for policy-holders, and our scientific community to ask the 'heretical' question; “Could the drugs be the culprit behind the violence?”

Miriam Carey, who was shot and killed yesterday by D.C. police after she attempted to drive through a White House barricade with her 1-year-old...

We are seeing an increasing cycle of high-profile media stories linking an act of random multiple shooting to an allegation that the perpetrator is "mentally ill." We have to understand that it is nothing more than a libel. It cannot be debated rationally, and every time we have tried to point out the the absence of evidence for a statistical linkage, these rational arguments have no effect; instead they almost seem to add fuel to the fire. I want to point out something about how profiling works and why it is always wrong.

Representative Jeff Miller, Chairman of the House Committee on Veterans' Affairs, is looking into the role psychiatric medication may have played in the shootings...

In 1995 I had a very frightening experience that I have never discussed publicly before. At that time the main symptoms I was experiencing...

I first learned about the significance of our country’s Bill of Rights around the same time I started on my first doses of SSRIs for depression and suicidal feelings. At the same time I was learning in school about the “inalienable” freedoms to which citizens of the United States are entitled, I was learning in a psychiatrist’s office about how I might be a “danger” to myself and lose some of these freedoms “for my own good.” I don’t claim that I was conscious of the contradictions at the age of 13 or 14, but the significance is not lost on me now.

Based on a psychiatrist's recommendation that the effects of citalopram (Celexa) had contributed to a 61 year-old grandmother's lethal bludgeoning of her friend of...

Dr. Toby Watson, The International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry's former executive director, reports on his expert testimony to the Federal Congress and...

In Michael Moore's movie, "Bowling for Columbine," the question is repeatedly asked; "why are there so many gun murders in the United States compared to other countries?" But no answer is given. However, in Gary Null's recent film, "The Drugging of our Children," Mr. Moore says that it is quite possible Eric Harris & Dylan Klebold shot all of those students at Columbine for no other reason than they were given psychiatric drugs. He called for an investigation into the role of such drugs in the murders at Columbine, but does not appear to be following up. Now, there is an opportunity to ask him about it!!!

Many of us in the consumer/survivor movement have begun to worry that recovery is being co-opted. That it is being used too easily, and has lost its meaning. I think we live in bubble. Outside our world, the larger society has not even heard that recovery is possible. In fact, society hears a constant litany, through major media, that emotional distress is due to chemical imbalance. Today young people are told they will never recover, and should accept that they have a life long illness.

This is a transcript of my keynote speech at Alternatives 2012, which a Madness Radio listener recently transcribed.

A prospective study of 2,422 children from 2004 to 2012 found that children whose parents reported Intimate Partner Violence (IPV) and depressive symptoms were...

Scapegoating is an ancient human practice that probably dates from the time the first human beings decided to circle their huts -- what we fondly term the dawn of civilization. When things got tense in the compound, penalties got handed out to one or more individuals or families, those usually at the low end of the pole, the politically powerless or vulnerable.

I am appalled to read a press release by the National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery that lauds the proposals emerging from the Vice President's Task Force and accepts in principle a national database of individuals with mental health diagnoses that is "limited to those with a known history of violence."

Family therapists view violent young people in the context of the wider social systems of which they are a part. This typically means the youth’s parents, but it can also include grandparents, teachers, or even friends. Framing youth violence in terms of the social context or family system--rather than as a psychological problem of the individual-- is the most effective way of putting an end to the violent behavior.

A google link to a Forbes magazine article titled "Psychiatric Drugs, Not A Lack Of Gun Control, Are The Common Denominator In Murderous Violence"...