With all due respect to the profession of psychiatry, I need to ask why the "world's most famous psychiatrist," E. Fuller Torrey, and his group the Treatment Advocacy Center are so far completely silent on the tragedy at Fort Hood,...
Posted in Furious Seasons on November 6, 2009 12:05 AM
There was an op-ed in the Seattle Times over the weekend authored by Jeff Skolnick, a psychiatrist at an area psychiatric hospital called Navos, formerly known as Highline West Seattle Mental Health. Skolnick argues that Washington State's commitment laws need...
Posted in Furious Seasons on September 14, 2009 12:03 AM
And by OK I mean last night's "Primetime" program on Mad Pride wasn't quite the disaster I fear. There's something about mental illness in the hands of network TV that usually doesn't go too well for us little folks. Hell,...
Posted in Furious Seasons on August 26, 2009 12:03 AM
A new study of schizophrenia and violence out this week in JAMA can't be anything but bad news for Fuller Torrey and his Treatment Advocacy Center, prime proponents of forced medication of people diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. That's...
Posted in Furious Seasons on May 22, 2009 12:03 AM
This week's Newsweek had a good article on The Icarus Project and Will Hall, a leader of the group, and what's called "Mad Pride." "I met Hall one night at the offices of the Icarus Project in Manhattan. He became...
Posted in Furious Seasons on May 5, 2009 12:05 AM
I've been writing about the dirtiest little secret of antipsychotics for some time now, namely that they cause brain shrinkage in some (I'm assuming it's not all) patients and animal studies, so it was rather bracing yesterday to read this...
Posted in Furious Seasons on September 18, 2008 12:05 AM
On Friday, the alleged mass murderer Isaac Zamora, who killed six during a shooting rampage in Skagit County, Wash. last week, was arraigned. He told the judge, "I kill for God. I listen to God." Variously described as having schizophrenia...
Posted in Furious Seasons on September 8, 2008 12:01 AM
Today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer has a lengthy article examining "another failure" of Washington State's system for handling people with mental illnesses. The article was spurred by the recent mass murder north of Seattle. In some respects, the article does a decent...
Posted in Furious Seasons on September 4, 2008 10:26 AM
On Tuesday afternoon, a deranged man named Isaac Zamora went on a shooting and stabbing rampage in and around the small town of Alger, Wash., which is about one hour north of Seattle. He killed six people, including a Skagit...
Posted in Furious Seasons on September 4, 2008 12:01 AM
I'm not a big fan of playing journalism police on this site simply because it's pretty awkward for a journalist to criticize other journalists and because that stuff is for Howard Kurtz, one of the big media critics out there....
Posted in Furious Seasons on August 20, 2008 12:03 AM
A new Australian study in the Archives of General Psychiatry is out, bolstering earlier research showing a therapeutic benefit--ie, less psychosis--for women diagnosed with schizophrenia. It's an add-on treatment and, of course, not super helpful for men with schizophrenia (who...
Posted in Furious Seasons on August 5, 2008 12:03 AM
Over the weekend and on Friday as I was thinking through the future of this site and my own future, I received many comments and emails. Some were supportive, some abusive, someone called me depressed (nah, I was just good...
Posted in Furious Seasons on July 28, 2008 12:03 AM
So last evening I was sitting around getting ready to write posts for today when a small flame war broke out. It was again involving some readers who dislike psychiatrists intensely and the commenter known as Therapy First who is...
Posted in Furious Seasons on July 25, 2008 12:03 AM
I wanted to clear up a few misconceptions that seem to have cropped up around my posting on being off-meds for bipolar disorder for one year. First, it is not a path I am suggesting others follow. There's no way...
Posted in Furious Seasons on July 23, 2008 12:03 AM
There was an ironic intersection of various forces in the mental health world yesterday. Fuller Torrey's Treatment Advocacy Center had a post trumpeting new forced treatment laws in Illinois, Louisiana and Idaho and the group made its usual argument that...
Posted in Furious Seasons on July 1, 2008 12:01 AM
Fuller Torrey, the so-called world's most famous psychiatrist, has a new book out called The Insanity Offense. It was reviewed last week in the Wall Street Journal by Paul McHugh, a psychiatrist and university distinguished service professor at Johns Hopkins....
Posted in Furious Seasons on June 25, 2008 12:03 AM
Some of you are aware that yesterday the New York Times had a front page article detailing multi million dollar payouts from pharmaceutical companies to Joe Biederman, Timothy Wilens and another Harvard/Massachusetts General psychiatrist. These researchers are the chief proponents...
Posted in Furious Seasons on June 9, 2008 12:03 AM
Last week, Gianna Kali who authors Bipolar Blast brought an academic study to my attention that left me speechless. It's a paper by Martin Harrow, PhD, and Thomas H. Jobe, MD, both of the University of Illinois College of Medicine's...
Posted in Furious Seasons on May 21, 2008 01:19 AM
A couple other voices on the 'Net have weighed in on Sunday's New York Times on folks with allegedly serious mental illnesses writing about such matters online. I wrote about the piece the other day. John Grohol at PsychCentral.com smartly...
Posted in Furious Seasons on May 14, 2008 12:03 AM
There's an interesting piece in today's New York Times discussing how some writers with serious mental illnesses--bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, according to the paper--have taken their writing online. That's of course nothing new to readers of this site which has...
Posted in Furious Seasons on May 10, 2008 11:31 AM
Among other things, staff at this hospital did not properly recognize or treat a 6-year-old with a broken arm, one of the most obvious and easy diagnoses to make in all of medicine. And, then, there's this: "What is specifically...
Posted in Furious Seasons on May 9, 2008 08:56 AM
Thanks to a reader for passing along this account of reports indicating that 70 employees of Texas's state hospitals have been fired in recent years for openly beating patients. It's a complete outrage that such events were allowed to take...
Posted in Furious Seasons on May 6, 2008 07:55 AM
Things have been getting heated in the comment threads again of late, and especially in my inbox. Yep, the anti-psychiatry camp is onto me again, especially folks from Australia and the UK, saying some of the vilest, nastiest crap. The...
Posted in Furious Seasons on April 30, 2008 12:05 AM
The New York Times' Alex Berenson, whom I hold in very high regard, stumbled onto an amazing real life paradox while in Alaska last week and turned it into a fascinating story. Brief summary: upstairs in the court house, Lilly...
Posted in Furious Seasons on March 26, 2008 12:03 AM
Another $76.26 came in yesterday bringing the fundraiser's total to $1,169.26. The goal is $2,000 by the end of Friday. So right now, it's $830 short, so let me remind readers of what I wrote once before: If this fundraiser...
Posted in Furious Seasons on March 4, 2008 12:05 AM
Yesterday another $10 came in via PayPal which I appreciate. That brings the total for the first three days of the fundraiser to $200. Some other contributions are headed my way via snail mail, but I won't know what they...
Posted in Furious Seasons on February 28, 2008 12:05 AM
The New York Times has a good article--very fair, very balanced--on the weird connection between anti-depressant use and misuse and violent acts in today's paper. The article quotes Sara Bostock, one of the ssristories.com people and a frequent commenter on...
Posted in Furious Seasons on February 19, 2008 12:05 AM
There was an essay in the New York Times yesterday, written by Terri Cheney who apparently writes the "Modern Love" column for the paper. Cheney has a book on the way called Manic: A Memoir which means it's time for...
Posted in Furious Seasons on January 14, 2008 12:05 AM
The fine folks at the Treatment Advocacy Center had a post yesterday about how homeless shelters and the streets have come to replace many of the former state hospitals and became de facto psych units along with jails and prisons....
Posted in Furious Seasons on December 12, 2007 12:03 AM
One of the things I am thankful for this holiday season is Seattlest (a local blog owned by the Gothamist folks), and specifically Michael van Baker. He's literally the only other person in the media in Seattle--a big media market--who...
Posted in Furious Seasons on November 21, 2007 04:24 PM
Someone using the handle I Am The Brain has recently begun a new blog called the Fascism Advocacy Center, a clear reference to Fuller Torrey's Treatment Advocacy Center which advocates for laws to force powerful, unsafe medications upon people diagnosed...
Posted in Furious Seasons on November 19, 2007 12:01 AM
John at Storied Mind has an excellent, gut-wrenching post on his war with depression and what it's done to his career: "One of the hardest admissions I have had to make about the effect of depression was to say bluntly...
Posted in Furious Seasons on November 13, 2007 12:05 AM
Over the last few days, I have bumped into several interesting items concerning schizophrenia and culture. An article this week in the Washington Post which examined, post-Cho, problems faced by many immigrants in the DC-area with mental illness, especially schizophrenia....
Posted in Furious Seasons on September 5, 2007 12:01 AM
A state panel is releasing its report on the April 16 tragedy at Virginia Tech later today. The New York Times got a copy yesterday and reported on it on the web last night. Among other things, the report notes...
Posted in Furious Seasons on August 30, 2007 12:03 AM
I haven't written about Mr. B. in a while. He's the Vietnam-era vet who's schizophrenic and was kicked out of his housing recently because he smokes. He has new housing now in a dicier part of town, but is still...
Posted in Furious Seasons on July 19, 2007 12:05 AM
I'm thoroughly blessed to have readers who leave fabulous comments, often saying things I don't dare. Here are two recent examples. One reader apparently wrote the fine folks at the Treatment Advocacy Center after that political action group's attack on...
Posted in Furious Seasons on July 2, 2007 09:06 AM
There was a weird, gloating post on the Treatment Advocacy Center's blog yesterday: "The anti-psychiatry crowd tried to use the Virginia Tech case to paint the frightening image that psychiatric medications caused Seung-Hui Cho to go on a murderous rampage....
Posted in Furious Seasons on June 26, 2007 12:03 AM
Fuller Torrey and his lapdogs at the Treatment Advocacy Center have made a career of lying about people with mental illnesses, claiming that they are ipso facto dangerous when in fact the scientific data on the matter points more towards...
Posted in Furious Seasons on June 21, 2007 12:05 AM
Then you've got to go for the old forced exorcism. It's highly efficacious for chasing off demons, according to four out of five Popes whose views were recently dug up in a new meta study. The study's result were shouted...
Posted in Furious Seasons on June 5, 2007 12:05 AM
Much credit to Depression Introspection for jumping on the fine folks at the Treatment Advocacy Center over recent distorted claims they'd made about violence among the mentally ill--schizophrenics are 10 times more likely to commit violence than the general population....
Posted in Furious Seasons on May 3, 2007 11:15 AM
Hi. Happy May Day. Oodles of interesting stuff out there. Virginia's governor closes loophole that allowed Cho to buy guns. Psych Central raises questions about the slippery slope that lawmakers may be on with regards to people deemed to be...
Posted in Furious Seasons on May 1, 2007 10:41 AM
A bit of housekeeping here. In the wake of the Cho shooting, there was much discussion on this blog, the wider blogosphere and the media about psychosis (which turned into a short hand for schizophrenia). At times, including in comments...
Posted in Furious Seasons on April 30, 2007 12:05 AM
As I guessed last week, the Cho story will be with us for a while because it is chock full of implications and will be a whipping boy for ideologues of every stripe for months to come. Much as the...
Posted in Furious Seasons on April 25, 2007 12:03 AM
I'm having to do a lot of thinking about my life and my future lately. My back is to the wall, sadly: my rent just went up 10 percent which is something I fear I cannot absorb. I am unemployed...
Posted in Furious Seasons on April 24, 2007 12:01 AM
Or writes. Yes, the most famous psychiatrist in America has an op-ed in the New York Post--apparently, no good paper would have him--in which he asserts that the mentally ill commit five percent of all murders in the US, that...
Posted in Furious Seasons on April 23, 2007 08:41 AM
Somehow, I missed John McManamy's blog post a couple of weeks back on early-onset bipolar disorder or juvenile bipolar disorder or whatever the hell we are going to end up calling it, aside from a failed a social experiment, when...
Posted in Furious Seasons on March 19, 2007 03:17 AM
A neighbor of mine, whom I'll call B., is about to be evicted from his apartment here in Seattle. He's 61 years old and has had schizophrenia since he was in his early-20s. But I'll come back to that problem...
Posted in Furious Seasons on March 8, 2007 12:01 AM
Memory Pharmaceuticals today announced that its MEM 1003 compound--a calcium channel blocker--failed to meet efficacy targets in its 2a trials. Not sure if that means the drug is toast for bipolar disorder. It is also being studied in Alzheimer's where...
Posted in Furious Seasons on March 5, 2007 11:02 AM
Just because it's obligatory and vaguely amusing, here are some of the posts that generated the most hits on my blog this year. Thanks to all of you for reading and for your support. Happy New Year. Love American Style:...
Posted in Furious Seasons on December 31, 2006 03:34 PM
We all know that the fine folks at Fuller Torrey's Treatment Advocacy Center love, love, love their database of "preventable tragedies" and have defended its integrity to me when I challenged them on some of their stats back in May,...
Posted in Furious Seasons on November 30, 2006 12:03 AM
I have no idea how legitimate this supposed study is, but a Russian newspaper carries a report on research by Russian docs indicating that spanking is a good fix for addictions and depression. If Fuller Torrey catches wind of this,...
Posted in Furious Seasons on October 30, 2006 12:03 AM
On Tuesday morning (OK, at 12.01 a.m.), I put up a post asking people in the mental health community to move slowly, thoughtfully and contemplatively in response to the murder of Wayne Fenton, a psychiatrist in Montgomery County, MD, who...
Posted in Furious Seasons on September 8, 2006 12:01 AM
Just so no one thinks I am not properly recognizing the work of Wayne Fenton, here's his obituary. It's clear the fellow had a more nuanced view of mental illness than Fuller Torrey and TAC....
Posted in Furious Seasons on September 5, 2006 06:32 AM
It's discouraging that only 6 hours ago I posted to my blog, alluding to the possibility that the murder of Wayne Fenton would be used by some in the mental health world to bang the drum for forced medication and...
Posted in Furious Seasons on September 5, 2006 06:25 AM
Greetings. As most of you know, I have been slacking off this summer, mostly to recharge my mind after writing entirely too much here since last September. I had planned to be a little bit more back at it by...
Posted in Furious Seasons on August 23, 2006 12:01 AM
John McManamy attended a scientific conference on bipolar disorder in Scotland last week. In one of his posts, he notes that many researchers were pointing to the fact that about 50 percent of patients who take meds don't take them...
Posted in Furious Seasons on August 15, 2006 12:14 AM
And you know the rest. On the Treatment Advocacy Center's website there is now a new special section slugged "Welcome NAMI Members." Gee, I wonder why TAC is getting so much interest from the NAMI crowd. Could it be anything...
Posted in Furious Seasons on August 7, 2006 12:01 AM
I was able to confirm yesterday that Naveed Afzal Haq, a bipolar man who shot up the Jewish Federation's offices in Seattle last week was in treatment for bipolar disorder. It's not clear to me what he was taking—he's known...
Posted in Furious Seasons on August 1, 2006 12:25 AM
The headline means nothing. But it is a long-favorite phrase (name of a band taken from a Bukowski poem) and it is hotter than hell in Seattle and has been for three days. Over 95 each day. Some of you...
Posted in Furious Seasons on July 24, 2006 12:02 AM
OK, the 3rd, but still no one is likely reading this today or tomorrow. And, there are several important posts I want to do: the 3rd round results of the STAR*D study of anti-depressants just came out (bad news for...
Posted in Furious Seasons on July 3, 2006 12:01 AM
A few people have written or commented on the recent Fuller Torrey post, damning him or praising him. What's interesting to me is that the favorable responses generally come from family members of the mentally ill while the con-side is...
Posted in Furious Seasons on June 30, 2006 12:03 AM
A regular reader of this site went to Fuller Torrey's appearance in Seattle last night. She asked questions and took notes: "I attended the forum and YES Torrey believes in his cat poop theory to the extent that he said:...
Posted in Furious Seasons on June 28, 2006 12:04 AM
Last week, I noted that the fine folks at the Treatment Advocacy Center--aka Fuller Torrey's political SWAT team--had posted a delusional item dissing the P & As for fighting to get patients out of lousy state hospitals, nursing homes and...
Posted in Furious Seasons on June 26, 2006 12:03 AM
Or whatever the hell the Full Torrey crowd is smoking over there in Alexandria, Virg. Last week, the fine folks at Torrey's Treatment Advocacy Center posted an asinine item on their blog. The post is so error-riddled that I look...
Posted in Furious Seasons on June 19, 2006 12:01 AM
The fine folks at the Treatment Advocacy Center put up a blog post pointing out that not only do their homies at NAMI National get a large percentage of their funding from pharma companies--as the Philly Inquirer recently drubbed them...
Posted in Furious Seasons on June 6, 2006 01:34 AM
There was another opinion piece in the WashPo on the murderers in Virginia, written by the paper's metro columnist. Man, you know shit is getting serious when the metro columnist breaks out the pen. As usual, it's armchair thinking about...
Posted in Furious Seasons on June 5, 2006 12:01 AM
The fine folks at Fuller Torrey's Treatment Advocacy Center posted this on their blog the other day: "In a Maryland county, law enforcement doesn’t allow the crisis team to put their own lives at risk. That means if they are...
Posted in Furious Seasons on May 26, 2006 12:03 AM
I've been down with a cold--my first since last year sometime, an achievement given our winter this year--so I'm playing a bit of catch-up. First, here's an article on the young man who killed the two police officers in Virginia....
Posted in Furious Seasons on May 20, 2006 10:35 AM
I was attempting to write an op-ed tonight. It is a response to an op-ed in the May 12 Washington Post by Pete Earley, who seems to be the front man for those who argue that the mentally-ill should be...
Posted in Furious Seasons on May 15, 2006 02:15 AM
My little dust-up with a group of suicide survivors over the weekend has gotten me thinking how we use the term survivor in the mental health world. The suicide survivors don't think I am one of them, despite overcoming serious...
Posted in Furious Seasons on April 25, 2006 08:48 AM
I've posted before about the practice of outpatient commitment, or forced medication of the mentally ill outside of hospitals based upon the presumption that some people are too crazy--ok, psychotic--to be permitted to exercise their own free will. It's back...
Posted in Furious Seasons on February 2, 2006 12:15 AM
A commenter notes that schizophrenia is genetic regardless of what's said in the previous post. There's no question that there is a genetic component to the illness. The real question is whether it is solely genetic in its causes or...
Posted in Furious Seasons on December 5, 2005 01:53 PM