I gotta jump in here,

I am not a medical professional, just an educated and experienced person who
has recovered from severe depression. I have recovered from severe
depression by getting away from all the drugs and addressing many
environmental and nutritional factors that EVERYONE seems to be ignoring. In
my experience the language of conventional wisdom articulates only the
perspective of current conventional medical and scientific ideologies, not
any unconventional biological or scientific realities the victim's
experience. Many professionals and intellectuals behave in a way that shows
they only care about factors recognized by their education and the resulting
intellectual ideology, dismissing any factors not controllable and
recognized by their education. That lead me to the fact these people,
usually due to vested conflicts of interest, are not acting intelligently,
they are acting stupid, selfish, or narrow minded, and wrecking my life,
making them just salespeople of conventional medicine. This only proves they
are just blind intellectuals and professionals. In my experiences that is
what exposes the fragility, close mindedness, and limitations of
conventional treatments. There was a time during many years of my life I
would wake up in the morning and dread the battle of the day. During those
years I usually felt worthless, confused, and exhausted. With the exception
of my children I avoided contact with as many people as possible. I had no
knowledge on how to control what was happening to me, no useful help from my
doctor, and that made me feel like a loser trapped with no way out. All of
that was a direct result of many detrimental nutritional and environmental
factors in my life. The tools I used to overcome that are the common sense
health factors spelled out in a guide I wrote and donated to the National
Network of Mental Health, they have it posted on there website www.nnmh.ca
If anyone wants to read it they can email me or get it off there site.  They
allow substantial reduction of the symptoms that originally brought me to
the failures of conventional healthcare treatments. Doctors have become
mid-level functionaries who carry out the orders of the government and Big
pharma. Due to imprecision the whole clinical examination process is
designed to encourage fraud. In my experiences we have a cold and
dysfunctional health care system. The only health benefit from ignoring so
many obvious detrimental nutritional and environmental health factors is it
has over the last few decades influenced many advances in pharmacology,
biochemistry, microbiology, virology, and molecular biology which have
altered our concept of illness and treatments. The sad part about that
advance is it was accomplished by promoting disrupted lives, illnesses,
disease, and cancer.
I ESCAPED!!!

It is so depressing to find yourself deprived in qualities you know you have
and value: intelligence, ability, energy and health. The further I allowed
many nutritional and environmental factors to manipulate those qualities the
more twisted your thinking becomes. In my own experience seeing a
psychologist I learned; you don't have to do anything especially worthy to
create or deserve self esteem. All you have to do is turn off that inner
voice, because that inner voice is wrong. Now what I taught myself beyond
that is; I cannot turn off that voice while exposing myself to the
detrimental nutritional and environmental factors that influence, support
and manipulate that voice. I saw a psychologist for about 6 months and it
didn't help me at the time, because therapy ignored the external factors
causing my problems. It was certainly not a waste though; I gained many
valuable tools I have used to evolve over the years. My key to physical and
emotional enlightment is the knowledge and ability to address the many
nutritional and environmental factors - that affect my energy - that affect
my thoughts - that affect my moods. Controlling those external environments
allows control of my internal events.

Jeff Chiacchieri

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----- Original Message -----
From: "Thompson, Kenneth" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Saturday, June 11, 2005 11:26 AM
Subject: Re: [SDOH] primary health care models


hi all,

look, it is true that the way psychiatry has evolved contains many many
problematic issues..
but there is no question that it has evolved- at least in part- due to the
very serious dilemas and discomfort that arise in human life.  we are
creatures of cognition and emotion.  and sometimes these elements are
related to suffering and/or to difficulty living fully and taking on the
tasks of life..
so there is real suffering and disability involved.

when we do a psychiatric interview, we are doing a physical exam but its an
exam of the mind/brain- we are talking with people to understand how they
are experiencing their emotions and how they are experiencing their
thoughts.  it is as subjective and materialisitic as listening for a heart
murmur.   do our diagnositic categories come close to being able to
shorthand how a persons brain/mind is working? absolutely not!  is the
perception of the psychiatrist subjective- of course.  (so is the perception
of the heart murmur.  dont go to a deaf cardiologist and dont go to an
insensitive psychiatrist...

ultimately, i think the issue before us is how do we construct a profession
of people who attend to the issues of suffering and disability of the
brain/mind without creating a hierarchy of oppression.   for me, i am
working to do this, along with others, to build the recovery movement, to
understate the overclaims of science, but most of all, to engage as
authentically and as wisely as possible- having the courage to change the
things that i can, the capacity to accept those i cant, and the wisdom to
know the difference.

of course, in this context, i can only quote robert burns
would some gift the giftie gie us, to see ourselves as others see us..

ken


-----Original Message-----
From: Social Determinants of Health on behalf of Graeme Bacque
Sent: Sat 6/11/2005 1:23 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: [SDOH] primary health care models

Anneliese Poetz wrote:

> True, there are stigma issues but that is more a societal issue, not
> just confined to healthcare workers.  These are also not easily overcome.

Healthcare workers frequently aggravate this situation in collusion with
the media.

And let's ditch this word 'stigma', OK? What we are talking about here
is bigotry, pure and simple. There is a pervasive social prejudice at
work here that is every bit as malignant as racism, misogyny, or
homophobia - and which is just as unacceptable.

>
> However, your claim that "*/there is no physiological basis that has
> been identified for any psychiatric diagnosis"/* is based on what?  I
> know of a few psychiatric diagnoses that have physiologic bases: 1)
> ADHD patients have a noticably smaller brain on MRI scans


Blame that one on Ritalin. The manufacturers of this drug are facing
lawsuits in the United States over just this type of thing.

> 2) depression can occur from a number of measurable things such as low
> iron, not just chemical imbalance or social/personal issues.


I was referring to /*psychiatric*/ diagnoses, not iron deficiencies or
other clearly physical issues that generally fall under the domain of
other medical professionals. You can detect iron deficiency through a
simple blood test. /*There is no equivalent clinical diagnostic
procedure for any so-called 'mental illness'.  */Every day, people are
losing their rights and having their lives ruined on the basis of  these
diagnoses - only this is the result of  the labels themselves rather
than any underlying  'disease'.

Psychiatrists base their labels entirely on their observations of
someone's  behaviour and a subjective evaluation of their 'patient's'
answers to a set of (trick) questions rather than any kind of
physiological examination. Frankly, I have yet to hear of anyone
actually being given any kind of physical exam by a psychiatrist prior
to being diagnosed. (I certainly never experienced one). Do you know of
any other physicians who make their diagnoses or prescribe treatment on
the basis of a verbal interview alone?

>
> Further, the field of medicine is not just science and things you can
> /quantify and measure/ it is also an art.  So, many diagnoses involve
> guesswork, not just mental disorders.


Psychiatrists are almost entirely guessing when they make 'diagnoses',
(much more so than other fields of medical practice) and as well, they
represent the only branch of medicine with the legal power to routinely
impose its decisions on unwilling individuals based on this brand of
guesswork.

Graeme

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