Sunday, June 05, 2011

Shrink Rap News: Our Second Collateral Blog is Up!



We were invited to blog on the website of Clinical Psychiatry News, a print publication sent to psychiatrists around the country. They launched a website a few months ago and have made bloggers of some of their regular columnists. Shrink Rap, they thought, would having something to add (we hope so!) and we'll be doing a weekly column there.

The CPN website is specifically for psychiatrists and commenting there requires registration--- please do join if you're eligible. For those who aren't, we'll let you know here when we've put up a post and you're welcome to comment on the regular Shrink Rap.


Today's post is up on the CPN Website as an introduction called The Accessible Psychiatry Project.

34 comments:

Duane Sherry, M.S. said...

Oh boy,

Radio interviews, book tours, a blog here, another one there.

Maybe more psychiatrists (shrinks) will do the same.

Staying so busy they don't have time to see patients... So busy they become obsolete in the medical community... real medicine (non-shrink variety)...

Until shrinks are seen for what they are, a "side-show".

How cool would that be!

Duane Sherry

moviedoc said...

Collaterol? What's that, another me too drug? Maybe an add-on for lowering cholesterol?

Duane, I dream of the day when we find the cure, when there's no mental illness, no need for psychiatry. Meanwhile the real docs are too allergic to our patients, and we still like them.

Your concept of staying too busy to "see" patients is true of the "real" docs, too. They're fed up with practicing medicine, too, looking for something more rewarding. I hope there are still a few left when I really need one.

Anonymous said...

Duane,

I greatly share your contempt for many practices that go on in psychiatry.

But in my opinion, when you write the type of posts that you write, people will turn off and not listen to what is being said.

I am not saying to back down from tough positions but to watch the language you use such as calling shrinks a side-show. That isn't necessary.

Also, remember that the shrink rappers are allowing us to post on their blog without any censorship whatsoever. Try doing that on Carlat's blog.

AA

Duane Sherry, M.S. said...

The chemical cure is a myth -

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/8138893.stm

Until the myth is seen for what it is, I will continue to try to save as many lives as possible... especially our children!

If my writing style rocks the cage of psychiatrists, so be it...
I could care less about how they "feel" as they continue practicing their harmful methods.

Re: moviedoc,

Who are you?
What are all about?

You write out of both sides of your mouth.... Take a stand, cowboy!
Or end up on the wrong side of history, with the rest of your colleagues.

Duane

Duane Sherry, M.S. said...

moviedoc,

You took a good swing at me on the 'Doctors Who Write' post...

I left a comment for you that you ignored.

For 'My Three Shrinks', I'll do my best not to take personal shots at any specific doctor, unless those like 'moviedoc' swing first....

In such case, I'll swing back (the subject of another post, as I recall).

moviedoc,

One last time.
Who are you?
What are you all about?

Duane

Duane

Anonymous said...

oh yes, please fix the spelling - "collateral" not "collaterol."

Rob Lindeman said...

Col-la-te-rol - n. 1. The piece of bread they give you free with your salad. 2. (Banking) any item of value surrendered by the borrower as security against a loan of baked goods.

Anonymous said...

Duane, this approach is not going to bring you what you want. I believe in standing up against things that are wrong (i.e. forced treatment, etc), but I do not agree with your approach nor do I believe it will lead to the changes you want.

Leslie

Anonymous said...

I have commented here quite a lot. It was my understanding that you do not allow ad hominem attacks. It used to feel safe here. It doesn't anymore.
Awhile back, someone was concerned about anonymous comments. Is it really okay to be so aggressive as long as you leave a name?

Dinah said...

Thank you for catching my mistake, I fixed it.

Anon: I may go inside and lock the door for a while. You are welcome to join me.

Duane Sherry, M.S. said...

Anonymous,

This is the comment from moviedoc that set the tone -

"Not to worry, Duane, the myth of the chemical imbalance will just be replaced by the myth of kindling. Psychiatry may die, but there will be lots of people with MS degrees, RN's and PhD's to prescribe all those brain shrinking drugs, shocking them silly, and locking them up."

"After all, we are what we eat. Integrate those left and right brains! Look at those adrenals!"

"Duane will show us the way, truth and the light!"

"WWDD?"

My comment:

I understand that some people prefer to use 'anonymous,' but I would like to know the name of a person who delivers such a vicious attack on me personally.

Moviedoc is hardly the quiet soul in the back of the room. He puts it out there, big-time.

Regarding your desire to visit a "safe place"...

I understand, and I'll do my best to tone it down. I would ask 'moviedoc' to do the same.

Duane Sherry, M.S.

jesse said...

Rudeness here can take various forms. A good test is to ask yourself how you would respond in a discussion at a professional conference if you wished to strenuously disagree with another person who was right there.

Anonymous said...

Duane: I think most people prefer to visit "safe places".

If you so desire, I am certain that you can figure out who MovieDoc is. What good would that do? Are you going to hunt him down? That is how it comes across. For what it is worth, MovieDoc could tone it down a bit, too.

Anonymous said...

Duane likes people's real names because that way, he can cuss them out on other blogs.

Not kidding

Anonymous said...

Duane, you're right, and I'll butt out. I know I get irritated when I'm called a scientologist or antipsychiatry for having a contrary opinion (which makes me think of Godwin's Law because that's what people do in politics), and I can certainly dish it out myself. I'm trying to work on that, as I realize it doesn't accomplish much. I know when i get called a scientologist I've immediately diregarded anything else the person is saying, so I assume it probably works the other way too when I attack.

Leslie

Duane Sherry, M.S. said...

Both Anonymous' and Jesse,

I appreciate what you have to say.

I've been falsely called a 'scientologist' and worse... more than once, for what it's worth.

It comes with the turf I suppose, but I'm not beyond some growth (that's for sure).

Your words make some sense, and I think it goes without saying that I come on too strong, and need to tone it down.

I'll give it my best shot.

Thank you for the comments.

Duane Sherry

Sarebear said...

Congratulations! I enjoyed your first post.

Rob Lindeman said...

The Ad Hominem attack ain't what it used to be!

During the Inquisition, if you departed from the True Faith of the Church, they burned you at the stake.

In Freud's day, if you departed from the True Faith of the Master you were denounced as having Dementia Praecox, in letters if you were an ex-colleague, or in print if you were Woodrow Wilson.

But at Shrink Rap, if you depart from the True Faith of Psychiatry they denounce you as a Scientologist or as rude. Man, by comparison that is, you might say, water off a duck's back!

Sunny CA said...

Congratulations on the invitation to blog on the Clinical Psychiatry News website! What a nice honor!

Anonymous said...

Don't listen to fleas.

Sarebear said...

The scientologist comment wasn't from Shrink Rap, it was from ME, and I later apologized for it. Does nobody understand that fact? Yes, I made a mistake that I truly regret in name-calling or labeling.
I am not perfect, I make mistakes.
I am growing impatient with those who would pillory me forever because of that mistake, save for the one whom the personal jab was addressed to in the first place, the only one whom I feel has the right to be personally offended (note I say personally, I see that some are offended on general principal, even though it was not directed at them) by what I said, even though I did apologize later. It's up to him to accept that apology or not, but to others who keep bringing up what I said, it seems there is no allowance for being human and making mistakes, which makes me disregard most anything of what you say, if you think you are so perfect as to continue casting stones at me.

This may be another mistake of a post, but come ON people, I was and am truly sorry for what I said.

jesse said...

Congratulations, Rappers, that first column will wet the appetite of CPN readers for more.

And Sarebear, I for one noted your apology, as I did Duane's, and respect you both for having apologized. I find that I listen much more thoughtfully to a point made in a respectful manner. Psychotherapy itself is rarely effective if the patient does not feel respected by the doctor. So, again, thank you both.

Anonymous said...

Sarebear, oh I know you didn't call me a scientologist and my comment wasn't directed at you. I've been on here and other mental health related message boards over the years, and it's something I've been called in the past which is kind of funny since about all I know about it is the Tom Cruise on the sofa thing, sorry if you took that as being directed at you. I was just thinking out loud, and I'm probably a bit distracted by trying to type while listening to the latest on Weiner-gate.

Leslie

Anonymous said...

Just an interesting side note, if you google the word "scientology" it comes up 774 times on this blog.

I'm wondering about a hypothetical situation. If a patient was brought into the ER for a psych related issue and the patient said, I'm a scientologist and I cannot talk to a psychiatrist, what would happen? Would the patient still be admitted into a psych ward if the ER doc felt they met criteria, or would it be treated like a Jehovah's Witness who can't get blood?

Leslie

moviedoc said...

Interesting question, Leslie. The ED in my community is staffed by MSW's, but if the patient wanted to be admitted he might be told he would have to allow a psychiatrist to examine him. I suspect voluntary admits to the hospital have to sign an agreement. Don't know the details. If he decided to risk it, then he would have to decide person by person with whom he would talk. He would have to decide whether each person was a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist would have to decide whether to risk writing orders for such a patient, but mute patients are not that unusual.

Rob Lindeman said...

Re: Leslie's hypothetical

*pulling up a chair*

Ooooooh! This is gonna be GOOD!

Duane Sherry, M.S. said...

A couple of quick-comments.

First and foremost to any reader who felt like I was creating a hostile climate, and taking away their feeling of having a "safe place", I truly apologize. It hurt me to realize that I might have hurt someone else.

I've been thinking about this all day, while at work. And wondering why so much passion on my part?

I think it's because I don't view psychiatry as medicine, in the conventional sense, and I feel upset about what I see as political.

And so I see my own comments as political... A "free speech" of sort, rather than a medical debate.

This comes from a couple of angles - psyhiatry's past along with where it is today... which, IMO is not better than where it has long-been... Psychiatry uses force, and labels, and dangerous drugs, and it uses these on the most vulnerable, children, elderly, and war-traumatized veterans.

So I feel an obligation to stand-up, and speak-out... In fact, not a day goes by that I don't ask myself if I'm doing enough.

And when there are forums like this, I do stand-up and speak-out... But it goes without saying, that my passion is often not seen by others as it is felt inside myself... My messages are not "miscontrued" as much as they are "mis-spoken" on my part.

So I need to work on those things... And mostly I need to allow people to get to know who I am as a person, and how much I care about people who have been given psychiatric labels, and mis-treated, so that they feel comfortable knowing that I'm on their side.

I suppose I could be called "anti-psychiatry"... but I much-prefer to call myself, pro-freedom, pro-wellness (thriving) and pro-recovery. Because I believe in people, especially those who are suffering deeply... I believe that recovery (from even the most severe diagnoses) is not only possible, it's quite probable... In fact, I think it's fair to say that I never stop believing in people's ability to overcome adversity.

I have worked with people with severe disabilities as a counselor for most of my adult life. At age 54, I am in "retirement" status with my counselor certification, but I continue to work in the area of vocational services, with blind and visually-impaired people, who renew my faith in people's ability to overcome adversity every day.

That's a little bit about me (for anyone interested). I think I'd like to work on putting up more inspirational links on recovery... If the passion against conventional psychiatry surfaces, I hope readers will see that it comes from a place of concern for the injury I've seen first-hand, as the moderator of Safe Harbor (alternativementalhealth.com), as a dad who almost lost a son to psychiatric drugs (Pharmalot article, run in Bloomberg on our son, Brian Sherry), and personally knowing people who have lost friends and family members to conventional psychiatric "treatment."

Sorry for the long ramble... I'll work on limiting some of the comments, and putting up some good links that offer people the one thing that is needed most, namely hope!

Duane Sherry
http://discoverandrecover.wordpress.com

jesse said...

Duane, that Pharmalot article on bipolar diagnoses of adolescents increasing dramatically, with your son's experience being highlighted, would be of concern to any of us (I googled Pharmalot, Sherry, Brian). If things are not going well in treatment one should talk about it with the psychiatrist and a consultation should be considered. I have often suggested to my own patients that they get a consultation with another psychiatrist, and hopefully with one having experience and training different from my own.

Almost everything in medicine ends up being overdiagnosed at some point. That stems, I think, from three factors: we recognize that with which we are familiar more easily, the more we recognize it the more the boundaries get stretched to include cases increasingly on the edge, and we can keep only so many things in mind at any time. In other words, we recognize what we know and the more we see it the more we are likely to see it, even when it isn't there.

This speaks to how important it is to doubt our most firmly held assumptions. It is often the ideas we are most certain of that are likely to prove wrong.

Duane Sherry said...

Jesse,

You wrote:

"I have often suggested to my own patients that they get a consultation with another psychiatrist, and hopefully with one having experience and training different from my own."

My response:

That's commendable.
But any patient of yours has a right to NOT see "another psychiatrist." In fact, they have the option to reject (not 'deny', but 'reject' their labels), and find something that offers more hope!

In other words, they do not need "permission" to make their own decisions.

Including those diagnosed with 'bipolar disorder' and 'schizophrenia"?

Especially those folks!

I mentioned that my background is in Rehabilitation Counseling (presently in retired status).

For those who don't know anything about this type of counseling -

http://www.crccertification.com/pages/rehabilitation_counseling/30.php

IMO, we are in the midst of a major system transformation in this country in the area of mental health, and I'm proud that rehabilitation counseling is front-and-center in research; and the promotion of models that are self-directed, and focused on community integration, wellness and recovery.

From Temple University -

http://tucollaborative.org/

From Boston University -

http://www.bu.edu/cpr/repository/index.html

IMO, it's all about allowing people the opportunity to select the method of care they choose. The one that feels most right for them.

And in these models, a person can opt not to ever get started on "medication", and/or to find ways to slowly taper off them. As it should be.

Unforntunately, psychiatry is 'behind the 8-ball'... and hardly empowering... With its belief that severe forms of mental illness require "lifelong medication management" and "compliance with treatment."

Those days are gone, as the paradigm shift gains ground...
And it's gaining ground!

A recovery movement (actually, 'thriving' movement) is where we are headed, and it wouldn't surprise me at all, if we end up with self-directed, peer-supported models that either replace "professionals", or require them to bring something of value to the table -

http://www.mentalhealthpeers.com/

Things are changing, and I believe it's time!

Want to have a "healthy debate?"
Let's have one!

Duane Sherry, M.S., CRC-R

Duane Sherry, M.S. said...

Jesse,

Regarding the system transformation that's taking place... the paradigm shift, I think psychiatry may have to do some big-time soul-searching, and point itself in a new direction.

This will take an honest and thorough evaluation of all it has been taught, all it believes.

Or in your words -

"This speaks to how important it is to doubt our most firmly held assumptions. It is often the ideas we are most certain of that are likely to prove wrong."

Jesse,

I couldnt' agree any more!

Duane

Anonymous said...

Duane,

I don't know anything about your situation and what I know of your beliefs regarding psychiatry is limited to what I've just read on this comment thread. But I can tell you that psychiatry and the drugs they prescribe has been a life saver for me. Please don't damn the system in its entirety (if you are, I'm unclear on that) when it does in fact help some.

Duane Sherry said...

Anonymous,

My fight is with the illegal and fraudulent marketing of drugs, the expansion of those markets - with children, elderly, vulnerable people.

It is also with the unholy alliance that psychiatry has chosen to be part of... with Pharma.

It is with the force of psychiatry - without due process of law.

Do I think the drugs pose enormous risks? Yes.

Do I think many of them should have never been FDA-approved? Yes.

But they were approved.
And they are legal.

And as long as an adult is making an informed decision, it matters not what I think, or what anyone thinks for that matter about the decision to take them.

In other words, my opinion is an opinion.

I believe in freedom.
And so, I think it would only be fair to say that if I was pushing to have these drugs outlawed, I would be a hyprocrite, and anti-freedom.

On a personal note.
I have come to know many people who have been diagnosed with some pretty severe mental health conditions, and I know of the pain. I have suffered a great deal in this lifetime, more than I plan to share openly on this forum.

In short, I would venture to guess that you might be surprised to learn about some of the struggles, emotional pain, trauma that I have experienced first-hand. I'm no stranger to the symptoms.

I have come to know many people who have done the impossible, and am humbled by all they've done in spite of what can only be called enormous adversity. Some found temporary relief with psychiatric drugs, others who swear they saved their lives, and still take them... Some regularly, others prn.

So rather than go on too much with my opinion on psychiatric drugs, I would like to say that I hope you NEVER stop searching for things that make your life happier and more peaceful. And that you find joy in your life, and purpose.

We don't know each other, but if you're like so many others I've met along the way, I'm sure you do the best you can each day, and that your challenges must feel overwhelming...

You're still here. You're still searching... Never lose hope. In other words, I wish you nothing but the very best in your life.

And I mean that.

Duane

Duane Sherry, M.S. said...

Anonymous,

I'm not aware of a single recovery group or program that would exlude someone who is taking psychiatric drugs. Many of the members of these groups have folks who take them.

In fact, Recovery International feels so strongly about this, that it does not allow for discussion about psychiatric drugs in meetings (either pro or con) -

http://www.lowselfhelpsystems.org/

These are some others, if you are interested -

MindFreedom International is a group that calls for individual choice, and freedom in the mental health system -

http://mindfreedom.org

Safe Harbor - a place to get information on alternative and integrative approaches -

http://www.alternativementalhealth.com/emailsh2.htm

My best,

Duane Sherry
http://discoverandrecover.wordpress.com/recovery

Anonymous said...

This blog is rapidly turning into the Duane Sherry Show.