Pat Deegan reflects on her own experience an shares about the need for hope in recovery: He said, I should retire from life and avoid stress. I have come to call my psychiatrist's pronouncement a "prognosis of doom". He was condemning me to a life of handicaptivity wherein I was expected to take high dose … Continue reading Hope and Recovery
Tag: Mental Health
What are teens hoping to feel when they self-harm?
This isn't about addiction, but self-harm is not unusual in the addicts we serve. A common motivation teenagers give is that non-suicidal self-harm provides a way to escape unpleasant thoughts and emotions. Another motive, little explored before now, is that self-harm is a way to deliberately provoke a particular desired feeling or sensation. … Continue reading What are teens hoping to feel when they self-harm?
Precovery
Bill White introduces a new concept, precovery: Precovery involves several simultaneous processes: physical depletion of the drug's once esteemed value, cognitive disillusionment with the using lifestyle (a "crystallization of discontent" resulting from a pro/con analysis of "the life"), growing emotional distress and self-repugnance, spiritual hunger for greater meaning and purpose in life, breakthroughs in perception … Continue reading Precovery
What makes treatment effective?
This will be my post in response to the NY Times' series on Suboxone. This post originally ran on 7/19/13 and addressed a lot of our concerns. * * * I've been catching a lot of heat recently for posts about Suboxone and methadone. (For the sake of this post, lets refer to … Continue reading What makes treatment effective?
Sentences to ponder
Nearly one-third of U.S. veterans who are given psychiatric medications by their doctors do not have a diagnosed mental health problem Many vets given psychiatric drugs without diagnosis | Reuters Related articles Many Vets Given Psychiatric Drugs without Diagnosis (nlm.nih.gov) 30% of Vets Given Psych Drugs Have no Diagnosis (madinamerica.com) When "Psychiatric Survivors" Think They … Continue reading Sentences to ponder
Sentences to ponder
If your loved one is suffering from addiction or mental health issues, it means you’re suffering right along with them. You don’t have to struggle alone. ... We can make it together. We Made It Together | Love First - Intervention for alcoholism and addiction
NIMH acknowledges that antipsychotics worsen prospects for long term recovery
Thomas Insel, the Director of the National Institute on Mental Health comments on a recent study of the long term effects of antipsychotic maintenance for schizophrenics. The study looked at patients who discontinued antipsychotics compared to those who were maintained on antipsychotics. ...by seven years, the discontinuation group had achieved twice the functional recovery rate: … Continue reading NIMH acknowledges that antipsychotics worsen prospects for long term recovery
Recover from ==> Recovery to
Commenter Web Servant responded to the a recent "Sentence to Ponder" from Bill White about the need to expand the scope of treatment and recovery services that create pathways to natural community supports and adopt a wellness model. His comments seem worthy of a post of their own. The place of treatment in recovery is … Continue reading Recover from ==> Recovery to
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.
“manifestly unsuitable for (psychiatric) treatment”
Will Self reviews a recently published book on psychiatry and has some interesting observations on the relationships between addicts, mutual aid groups and psychiatry: Interestingly there is one large sector of the "mentally ill" that Burns believes are manifestly unsuitable for treatment – drug addicts and alcoholics. He points to the ineffectiveness of almost all … Continue reading “manifestly unsuitable for (psychiatric) treatment”