Posts Tagged ‘Brain’

Beware the Psychobabble, it gyres and gimbles!

Monday, September 12th, 2022

We read this quote in a “scholarly” psychiatric article: “Polyvagal theory in psychotherapy offers co-regulation as an interactive process that engages the social nervous systems of both therapist and client.”

We call it “psychobabble”, which means “the language that psychiatrists and psychologists use that sounds very scientific but really has little meaning.”

So not only does it use words that no one else will likely understand, but aside from that it has little or no real meaning. The main point of such tangled terms is that anyone can be said to have some form of insanity just by saying a big word. The psychiatrist is the “authority” who sounds impressive but cannot cure anyone’s emotional turmoil.

Well, let’s look at it more closely.

Polyvagal: relating to a theory that specifies two functionally distinct branches of the vagus, or tenth cranial nerve.
Co-regulation: when two people are interacting they continuously affect each other emotionally.

So somehow, when a psychiatrist or psychologist is conversing with a patient, their vagus nerves interact.

The vagus (Latin for “wandering”) nerve stretches from the head, through the neck and chest, to the abdomen. Besides connecting to the various organs in the body (heart, lungs, stomach, intestines, etc.), it conveys sensory information about the state of the body’s organs to the central nervous system. This means that the vagus nerve is responsible for such varied tasks as heart rate, intestinal contractions, sweating, keeping the larynx open for breathing, and so on.

Psychiatry targets the vagus nerve, as part of an “it’s all in the brain” strategy to make their pseudoscience seem more scientific.

But if you buy in to the cry that “it’s all brain” then you have abandoned your humanity, and your spirit, in favor of chemistry; you have bought into the reductio ad absurdum argument that there is no objective reality, it’s all in your brain. And thus we get one psychiatric brain theory after another, in the futile hope that shocking the brain and the nervous system can put some sense into the mentally disturbed.

Of course, once the psychopharmaceutical industry gives all its attention to the brain, then the brain is miraculously transformed into the seat of consciousness, and altering consciousness with drugs becomes commonplace. And we get the disastrous psychedelic psychiatric movement, where magic mushrooms will lead you to a better life; or we get an antidepressant that makes the bad feelings go away for a time (it makes ALL feelings go away, the good and the bad.)

And you can be sure your psychiatrist isn’t really communicating with you, except to hear for which symptom he can prescribe a drug and bill your insurance.

It isn’t, however, the brain. It’s Life. Don’t fall for the psychobabble!

No one listens to me.

Italian Police Arrested 18 For Allegedly Brainwashing and Selling Children

Monday, September 5th, 2022

It’s old news (27 June 2019), but still shocking nevertheless.

Italian police had arrested 18 people for allegedly brainwashing children into thinking their parents had sexually abused them so they could be sold to foster parents for cash. The accused included psychotherapists working for a social work association.

To brainwash the children, those arrested allegedly forged child-like drawings with sexual connotations and used electroconvulsive shock therapy (ECT) to implant fake abuse memories.

ECT is the barbaric psychiatric practice of sending an electric current searing through the brain to create a severe convulsion or seizure of long duration, called a grand mal convulsion, which is identical to an epileptic fit.

The purpose of psychiatric shock treatment is to create brain damage, in the mistaken theory that this is beneficial to human beings. As one can see in this case, it can be used to make someone believe things that are not true.

While ECT obviously has no therapeutic value, its punishment value causes a person to be hypnotically cooperative. The person is given an electric shock and told while the shock is occurring that they must obey and do certain things. It is actually the violence of the shock which subdues and degrades a person into changing their personality and performing outrageous actions, which brutal method has been used for a long time by various governments to create politically obedient slaves.

For example, for a communistic state to exist, slaves to the state need to exist. The marriage of psychiatry with communist regimes has spanned countries across the globe as an effective means to deal with political dissension by making people into slaves. They have been using psychiatry ever since as a significant part of the plot.

Let’s call out ECT for what it really is: a brutal, brain-destroying criminal act. Contact your local, state and federal officials and tell them to ban ECT.

World Psychiatric Group Must Tell Its Members To Expunge Chemical Imbalance Myth

Monday, August 29th, 2022

CCHR, a global mental health industry watchdog, has demanded the World Psychiatric Association advise its 180 members to remove all references to a chemical imbalance causing mental disorders from their websites and literature.

By CCHR International Mental Health Industry Watchdog August 9, 2022

Citizens Commission on Human Rights International, a 53-year mental health industry watchdog, has demanded the World Psychiatric Association issue a Positioning Statement urging all of its members to remove any reference or suggestion that a chemical imbalance in the brain causes mental disorders from their websites. In a letter sent to Dr. Afzal Javed, president of the WPA, CCHR called on the organization to condemn the theory and now wants the organization to also send an advisory to national psychiatric associations to inform their members to remove references to the disproved chemical imbalance theory from their websites, literature and any patient informed consent forms.

WPA has 145 member societies, mostly national psychiatric associations, including the American Psychiatric Association, and 36 affiliate member associations, representing some 250,000 psychiatrists worldwide.[1] As the association says it emphasizes the need for “the highest possible standards of clinical practice and ethical behavior in psychiatry,” CCHR says a priority must be that psychiatric groups to stop misleading consumers that a chemical imbalance underlies their mental health issues.[2]

The letter to Dr. Javed at the WPA Congress held in Bangkok, Thailand, pointed out that the chemical imbalance theory was a myth that has been exploited in the mental health field for over 30 years to fuel antidepressant sales, but was recently thoroughly debunked by researchers from University College London (UCL) in a study published in Molecular Psychiatry. The researchers reviewed major studies published over several decades and found no convincing evidence to support the theory that a chemical imbalance causes a mental disorder. The letter said the WPA should formally condemn the debunked theory because to do otherwise constitutes consumer fraud and violates patient informed consent rights.

In 2019, the Royal College of Psychiatrists in the UK had already responded to research that found no proof of low serotonin levels causing depression, and issued a position statement dismissing the idea that antidepressants “correct a chemical imbalance in the brain.”[3] However, the American Psychiatric Association website continued to promote mental health issues as “brain disorders,” without evidence to prove this, and its patient leaflets declared “antidepressants may be prescribed to correct imbalances in the levels of chemicals in the brain.”

As one of the UCL researchers stated, this misleading situation has arisen because it serves the interests of the psychiatric profession and the pharmaceutical industry. “Our view is that patients should not be told that depression is caused by low serotonin or by a chemical imbalance, and they should not be led to believe that antidepressants work by targeting these unproven abnormalities,” the lead researcher said.

CCHR says the WPA must take immediate action to ensure this view is conveyed to its members. Giving patients misinformation prevents their making an informed decision and has already resulted in many millions of people taking antidepressants or other psychotropic drugs with harmful side effects, erroneously believing these would “correct” something that simply never existed, CCHR wrote to Dr. Javed.

In 2020, WPA issued a Position Statement, “Implementing Alternatives to Coercion” which acknowledged that coercion in psychiatry has long been subject to controversy and contravenes patients’ rights, including violation of “rights to liberty; autonomy; freedom from torture, inhuman or degrading treatment….”

The WPA admitted that coercion in psychiatry is “over-used,” contravening patients’ rights—although CCHR says it should never be used.

It pointed out that practices that constitute coercion include, “treatment without consent (or ‘compulsory treatment’), any form of treatment including the use of psychotropic medication; seclusion locking or confining a person to a space or room alone; restraint actions aimed at controlling a person’s physical movement, including prolonged or unsafe holding by other person(s), the use of any physical devices (‘mechanical restraint’, chaining, etc.) and the use of psychotropic drugs for the primary purpose of controlling movement (‘chemical restraint’).”

It warned that the use of coercive practices “carries the risk of harmful consequences, including trauma” and individuals subject to physical coercion are susceptible to harms that include physical pain, injury and death.”

CCHR wants this statement expanded so that WPA tells its members that to purport, in any way, that a chemical imbalance may be a source of people’s mental travails, harms patients, and could constitute consumer fraud. Troubled patients being misled about what causes their problems and being told that they need to take a psychotropic drug to “correct” this, is a form of coercion and contradicts the WPA 2020 Position Statement and the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities that the statement is based upon.

References:

[1] https://www.wpanet.org/
https://www.wpanet.org/members-affiliates
[2] https://www.wpanet.org/what-we-do
[3] Royal College of Psychiatrists, “Position statement on antidepressants and depression,” May 2019

The Serotonin Theory Of Depression Is In The News Again

Monday, August 1st, 2022

While the fraudulent psychiatric “brain chemical imbalance” theory has been debunked for many years, it has been held firmly in place by the psycho-pharma public relations machine in order to sell more harmful and addictive psychiatric drugs. These drugs make patients for life since the drugs do not cure anything and have devastating side effects.

We discuss serotonin because many psychiatric drugs deliberately alter the levels of serotonin in the brain, in the mistaken belief that this is the cause of depression.

July 20, 2022 marks the publication of another study debunking the serotonin theory of depression, the so-called brain chemical imbalance theory.

To quote the study, “Our comprehensive review of the major strands of research on serotonin shows there is no convincing evidence that depression is associated with, or caused by, lower serotonin concentrations or activity. … This review suggests that the huge research effort based on the serotonin hypothesis has not produced convincing evidence of a biochemical basis to depression. … We suggest it is time to acknowledge that the serotonin theory of depression is not empirically substantiated.”

Serotonin is a neurotransmitter hormone synthesized in the adrenal glands and elsewhere in the body from the essential amino acid tryptophan, found in the brain, blood, and mostly the digestive tract, which allows nerve cells throughout the body to communicate and interact with each other.

Since serotonin impacts every part of the body, messing with it can cause unwanted and dangerous side effects. Obviously, the body must closely regulate and balance the level of serotonin, since both a deficiency or an excess can be extremely harmful.

Psychiatrists have known since the beginning of psychopharmacology that their drugs do not cure any disease. Further, there is no credible evidence that depression is genetic or linked to serotonin transport; these are just public relations theories to support the marketing and sale of drugs. The manufacturers of every such drug state in the fine print that they don’t really understand how it works. Psychiatric drugs are fraudulently marketed as safe and effective for the sole purpose of earning billions for the psycho-pharmaceutical industry.

Messing with neurotransmitters in the brain without totally understanding how they work is serious business, essentially one is playing Russian Roulette with one’s brain.

These drugs mask the real cause of problems in life and debilitate the individual, so denying him or her the opportunity for real recovery and hope for the future. This is the real reason why psychiatry is a violation of human rights. Psychiatric treatment is not just a failure — it is routinely destructive to the individual and one’s mental health.

Contact your local, state and federal officials and insist they stop funding this insanity.

Bigotry – A Sign of the Times?

Monday, May 23rd, 2022

“You can tell a bigot, but you can’t tell him much.”

Bigot: a person who is obstinately or intolerantly devoted to his or her own opinions and prejudices; one who regards or treats the members of a group (such as a religious, racial or ethnic group) with hatred and intolerance.

[From French bigot, a religiously intolerant person, hypocrite]

Psychiatrists love to debate whether bigotry is a mental illness.

They might qualify the condition as “pathological bigotry” to emphasize that they really mean a medical disease condition, rather than just plain ignorance. Although they’ve got ignorance covered as well, with a diagnosis of “neurocognitive disorder.”

Of course, they need to make it seem to be a medical condition in order to diagnose it as a psychiatric disorder and prescribe harmful and addictive psychiatric drugs for it.

The latest psychiatric “research” demands more funds to investigate how prejudice supposedly is biologically based in the brain.

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) enshrines discrimination as a mental disorder: “Target of (perceived) adverse discrimination or persecution”. But notice that it’s the victim, not the perpetrator, who is labeled with a diagnosis.

To what might we owe the surging prevalence of bigotry and prejudice in modern society? How does an apparently rational person sink to the level of devious writhings of secret hate?

In truth, the hard core bigot is completely terrified of anyone becoming more powerful than them. To such a person, everyone else is an enemy.

When confronted by a bigot, what can you do about this? It is counterproductive to make someone wrong for their attitude. Here is what I do: With a big smile, I tell them exactly what they are doing. For example I might say, “That’s a particularly bigoted attitude.” They’ll usually deny it, because such a person cannot detect this in themselves. End of interaction. You are now forewarned; go cultivate better relationships.

As a way of fighting back, report instances of intolerance, discrimination, bigotry and prejudice by clicking here.

Is Sneezing Related to Mental Health?

Monday, January 3rd, 2022

Do you sneeze when you emerge into bright sunlight?

Sneezing is a natural response that removes irritants from the nose. But is sunlight a nasal irritant?

Officially known as “photic sneeze reflex” or “photic sneeze syndrome”, sun sneezing is a condition that triggers a sneeze when people are exposed to bright lights. It affects an estimated 18 to 35 percent of the population. Some think it is a genetic condition, as it often occurs within families.

Apparently the reflex isn’t triggered by light itself, but by a change in light intensity.

Sun sneezing has been documented for many centuries. While the exact mechanism of the photic sneeze reflex is not understood, the most common explanation can be traced to psychiatrist Henry Everett whose 1964 theory proposed that the effect resulted from mixed up nerve signals in the brain.

Some psychiatrists and psychologists have jumped on this bandwagon, possibly because the phenomenon can’t yet be explained, so it may be a ripe area for getting government funds for brain research.

One study suggested that individuals who sun sneeze are more likely to suffer from psychological distress.

Another theory says that intractable sneezing is a manifestation of a psychiatric condition called “conversion disorder” [a condition in which the brain and body’s nerves are unable to send and receive signals properly, sometimes thought to occur because of a psychological conflict].

In the psychiatric billing bible the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), there are nine entries with some type of “Conversion disorder,” or “functional neurological symptom disorder.”

So if you sneeze when you walk outside, you can be labeled with a mental disorder and prescribed an antidepressant.

The fifth cranial nerve, called the trigeminal nerve, is thought by some to be related to sneezing. Some psychiatrists speculate that a malformation in this nerve causes it to be overstimulated in bright light. Some psychiatrists have also targeted the trigeminal nerve for harmful therapies.

For example, a prescription-only device, called the Monarch external Trigeminal Nerve Stimulation (eTNS) System from NeuroSigma, sends an electric current into the brains of children diagnosed with so-called ADHD.

Find Out! Fight Back against psychiatric fraud and abuse.

Why does sudden exposure to the sun cause sneezing?

Chantix is in Trouble Again

Wednesday, September 29th, 2021

We’ve been regularly warning about the dangers of Chantix since 2009, and now it’s causing trouble again.

The FDA warned in 2009 that Chantix (generic Varenicline), a psychiatric drug made by Pfizer, can have serious side effects, namely suicide.

Chantix is a benzodiazepine-based anti-anxiety drug promoted for smoking cessation. Benzodiazepines are prescribed to treat anxiety, insomnia or panic attacks, typically for a few weeks to six months; an estimated 50% of patients take them for two months or longer. These drugs have significant risks, because they are highly addictive and can have severe side effects, including heart problems, violence and suicide.

However, in 2016 the FDA removed the Black Box warning, after heavy lobbying from Pfizer claiming that additional data showed that the benefits of Chantix outweighed its adverse side effects (oh, and since its sales had significantly dropped.)

But the adverse side effects did not go away; only the Black Box warning went away.

Chantix Recall

Now (9/17/2021), Pfizer has issued a voluntary recall for all lots of Chantix 0.5mg and 1mg tablets due to the presence of unacceptable N-nitroso-varenicline levels, a suspected cancer-causing agent.

If you smoke, you are susceptible to cancer. If you take anti-smoking drugs, you are susceptible to cancer. But what’s the real danger here?

Chantix was developed to specifically affect nicotinic receptors in the brain, under the unproven theory that this would reduce nicotine craving and block the rewarding effects of smoking. As we’ve warned before, messing with neurotransmitters in the brain is playing Russian Roulette with your mind.

The psychiatric industry considers that smoking cessation therapies are their territory, however this drug masks the real cause of problems in life and debilitates the individual, thus denying one the opportunity for real recovery and hope for the future.

Recognize that the real problem is that psychiatrists fraudulently diagnose life’s problems, apparently such as smoking, as a “mental illness”, and stigmatize this unwanted behavior as a “disease.” Psychiatry’s stigmatizing labels, programs and treatments are harmful junk science; their diagnoses of “mental disorders” are a hoax – unscientific, fraudulent and harmful. All psychiatric treatments, not just psychiatric drugs, are dangerous.

Logic, Superstition, and Psychiatry

Monday, February 15th, 2021

Effective Definitions
Logic — the subject of reasoning; the ability to think clearly and reach correct conclusions. [ultimately from Greek logos “speech, reason, word”]
Superstition — an irrational attitude or notion maintained despite evidence to the contrary. [ultimately from Latin super- “over” + stare “to stand”]

What Is Logic?

Logic is a process of observation and thought that leads to correct conclusions. This process is called “reasoning.” Reason depends upon data. When data is faulty or unobserved the conclusions are unreasonable (i.e. illogical.)

What Is Superstition?

Superstition is the substitution of false or faulty data for correctly observed data leading to incorrect, unreasonable or illogical conclusions.

One of the primary ways superstition takes hold is by having fixed ideas. A fixed idea is something accepted without personal inspection or agreement. It may appear normal or reasonable, but on close observation and inspection can be shown to be faulty.

Sanity and Insanity

It can be seen that sanity is one’s reasoning toward optimum survival. Specifically it is one’s ability to recognize differences, similarities and identities. This is a necessary ability one must have to be logical.
[Sanity: Soundness of judgment or reason; derives ultimately from Latin sanus “healthy”.]

The opposite of sanity is insanity, which can be seen to be faulty reasoning leading toward nonsurvival, or the inability to recognize differences, similarities and identities. The result of this is to be illogical.

Cause and Effect

No amount of logic can replace some good, solid, imaginative superstition, which is the assignment of cause to something or someone other than the person themself.

By this we mean that in the absence of a person’s ability to be responsible and cause things to happen — that is, the person is only being the effect of others — logic is ineffective and superstition will take its place.

Notice that one of the main uses of both logic and superstition in this case is to covertly justify how one is not responsible and has not caused anything. It’s always something or someone else — i.e. “The Why Is God!” syndrome.
Thus, someone will say “It’s only logical” when on close inspection it isn’t logical at all. This red herring leads to no end of superstition and failures.

Psychiatry Is Superstition

In the case of psychiatry, the Why is the Brain. Insanity is all the brain’s fault; and they justify this with both (faulty) logic and (imaginative) superstition. They’ve got it covered.

In the case of psychiatry, neither logic nor superstition is sanity. In fact, psychiatrists do not know what sanity or insanity is, since it is clear that psychiatry cannot distinguish the sane from the insane. This, psychiatrists when pressed about it, readily admit.

We do not know the causes [of any mental illness]. We don’t have the methods of ‘curing’ these illnesses yet.” —Dr. Rex Cowdry, psychiatrist and director of National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), 1995

As a result, all psychiatric diagnoses and treatments are based on superstition, which is called a “pseudoscience.”

The only thing the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) is good for is to bill insurance for bogus treatments.

In short, the whole business of creating psychiatric categories of ‘disease,’ formalizing them with consensus, and subsequently ascribing diagnostic codes to them, which in turn leads to their use for insurance billing, is nothing but an extended racket furnishing psychiatry a pseudo-scientific aura. The perpetrators are, of course, feeding at the public trough.” [Dr. Thomas Dorman, Member of the Royal College of Physicians of the United Kingdom and Canada]

Recommendations

Government, criminal, educational, judicial and other social agencies should not rely on the DSM and no legislation should use this as a basis for determining the mental state, competency, educational standard or rights of any individual.

The Missouri Revised Statutes (RSMo) contains several explicit mentions of the DSM in Chapter 376 on Life, Health and Accident Insurance. Contact your Missouri State legislators and ask them to remove all references to the DSM from Missouri State Law.

Brain [Scans] Scams

Monday, February 8th, 2021

Brain Scan: Also called neuroimaging or brain imaging. The use of various techniques to produce an image of the structure, function or other aspects of the brain.

Many different electrical, magnetic, chemical, x-ray, optical, ultrasound, and radioactive techniques can be used to visualize different brain features. As scientific endeavors to find out more about how the brain works, these are certainly interesting; perhaps even medically useful.

What isn’t so useful is the psychiatric obsession with the brain as the source of mental disorders; or worse yet, as a target for surgical, electrical, magnetic, or chemical manipulation based on the flimsiest of guesses about how the brain actually works.

Knowing nothing about the underlying causes of serious mental disturbance, psychiatry still sears the brain with electroshock, tears it with psychosurgery and deadens it with dangerous drugs.

Many brain scan studies cannot be reproduced or scientifically validated. Yet sensationalist psychiatric public relations tout claims only meant to sell the latest drug or other “treatment.”

Legitimate scientists and the media are now starting to question the hype. Troubling evidence continues to surface about defective research methods, challenging scores of “revelations” about how the brain works.

In fact, there is flatly no scientific evidence showing a definitive link between brain scans and mental disorders. In a study published in Nature (20 May 2020), 70 teams of neuroimaging researchers analyzed the same brain scan data, looking to verify the same nine hypotheses about the results. Every single team picked a different way to analyze the data, and their results varied wildly.

In short, Brain Scans in psychiatry are really Brain Scams.

Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging

Magnetic Seizure Therapy – How Unattractive!

Monday, December 14th, 2020

In 1993 a team of researchers from the United States and Switzerland triggered seizures in patients with a magnetic field. They thought this was wonderful, and could lead to a revolution in treatment of various ailments.

Yet competent medical experts warn that seizures are linked to developmental disabilities, learning and behavioral disorders, and many other negative long-term outcomes. The Mayo Clinic advises people to seek immediate medical help if one has a seizure.

Psychiatrists, however, are banking on making a ton of money by forcing vulnerable people to have seizures for depression.

Magnetic Seizure Therapy (MST) is a brain stimulation therapy in which magnetic pulses deliberately induce seizures, similar to electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), in patients under general anesthesia.

Like Repetitive Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (rTMS), MST uses magnetic pulses instead of electricity to restimulate a precise target in the brain. However, unlike rTMS, MST aims to induce a seizure like ECT does, in the forlorn hope that this would not have all the horrific side effects of ECT.

The claim is that this assault on the brain reduces symptoms from major depression or bipolar disorder in 30-40% of individuals so treated. Well, of course it might temporarily reduce symptoms, since it basically shuts down normal activity of the brain for a period.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t cure anything and never will, while also carrying the significant risks of anesthesia exposure and induction of seizures.

Even the psychiatric billing bible, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM), carries a category for seizures [“Conversion disorder (functional neurological symptom disorder), With attacks or seizures”], for which psychiatrists can prescribe one or more psychotropic drugs. [A Conversion Disorder is a mental condition in which a person has some neurologic symptoms unrelated to a specific disease.]

All competent medical personnel know about the grave consequences of untreated seizures, yet psychiatrists actually promote this as a “treatment.” How do they get away with this?

Seizures are also one of the possible adverse side effects of various psychiatric drugs such as psychostimulants, antidepressants, antipsychotics, anti-anxiety drugs, and lithium. What’s one more so-called “treatment” that causes seizures?

The psychiatric industry has a history of deliberately reducing their patient’s intelligence as a “treatment.” Evidence that electroshock lowers IQ is certainly available. Documented side effects of ECT include lowered intellectual function, with a 20- to 40-point drop in IQ.

Are you beginning to see the pattern here? Since psychiatry cannot cure any mental disorder, they turn to “treatments” which just knock you out so you don’t feel bad any more. Of course, you don’t feel good, either.

Sure, fry your brain with magnetic seizure therapy! Who knows, it may enhance your natural animal magnetism (Not!).

Traumatic Brain Injury