A special issue of Clinical Psychology Review examines the decline of talk therapies: Psychotherapy has issues. Evidence shows that some psychosocial treatments work well for common mental health problems such as anxiety and depression and that consumers often prefer them to medication. Yet the use of psychotherapy is on a clear decline in the United States. In a set of research review … Continue reading Why is talk therapy going out of favor?
Category: Treatment
Marc Maron on AA and psychiatry
This is great. I love Maron's fearless questioning and the interviewer's (a psychiatrist) tolerance for vulnerability and honesty: Slate: How did A.A. figure into your getting sober? Maron:For practical tools to deal with the addicted brain, the stuff I learned in Alcoholics Anonymous and the community of A.A. just totally worked for me. If you would … Continue reading Marc Maron on AA and psychiatry
Happy Labor Day!
The video's got nothing to do with recovery, but it's a great song and is apropos for Labor Day. While we're on the subject of labor, Bill White had a post a while back on the subject: In 2011, Dieter Henkel of the Institute for Addiction Research at the University of Applied Sciences in Frankfurt, … Continue reading Happy Labor Day!
Kako-what?
I read this recently and wondered if it explains a lot of what's wrong with much of the treatment provided in the U.S. Kakonomics is the strange — yet widespread — preference for mediocre exchanges insofar as nobody complains about. Kakonomic worlds are worlds in which people not only live with each other's laxness, but … Continue reading Kako-what?
Quality of life and death
A study out of Australia looks at death rates among opioid addicts receiving opioid substitution treatment (OST, for short. It's methadone.) in New South Wales between 1985-2005. It's a HUGE sample--43,789 people. If fact, the paper says: This cohort is likely to represent the majority of opioid dependent people in that State during this period, … Continue reading Quality of life and death
Sentences to Ponder
...conducting an RCT (randomized controlled trial) comparing two medical treatments (depot naltrexone and methadone.) misses the critical issue—that cure of addiction is not through medical interventions. People need social roles that provide identity other than being an addict and provide alternative rewards to drug use, in order to recover from addiction. Medical treatment cannot provide … Continue reading Sentences to Ponder
How’s this for a teaser?
I’ve always been very invested in the idea that I was severely and clinically mentally ill. It grabbed my attention. Read the rest of the post at After Party Chat.
a “selfish” and “untrusted” professional attitude*
Bankole Johnson, who was featured in HBO's Addiction documentary touting the use of Topiramate and wrote an anti-treatment screed years ago (my response here), has left his post after losing a whistleblower lawsuit. A University of Virginia department chairman nationally known for his addiction research has resigned less than 10 months after a subordinate won an $820,000 whistleblower lawsuit filed … Continue reading a “selfish” and “untrusted” professional attitude*
Love and faith
The field of addiction treatment was flawed in 1973, but not nearly as flawed as some would have you believe. The following is from Marty Mann in 1973 and I could not do a better job of summarizing Dawn Farm's approach. Para-professionals working in the field of alcoholism are overwhelmingly recovered alcoholics. Most of them … Continue reading Love and faith
Buprenorphine compliance rates
The following abstract popped up today. The purpose of the study was to look at factors associated with completion of the 6 month, primary care based program. What struck me was the completion rate--35.7%. For all the crowing about ORT, this seems really low. (And, they said this completion rate is consistent with prior studies.) … Continue reading Buprenorphine compliance rates
Recovery Review 