Today I’ll take a week off from my book’s “tell all” personal history, to share something that’s hitting me now, hard. Actually, I’ve had a lot of good news. Since its July 26 start, my blog has had 5,721 hits. Plus, it was listed among ‘Best
Blog Posts’ on August 19 by the ACE Study’s ‘private Facebook’ community, ACEsConnection.com. So why am I so emotional?”ACE who?” you may ask, so I did. What is this ACEsConnection? I’d sorta heard of the Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) Study. (But never asked why does their logo pyramid top off with “Early Death”?) And now, here’s this highly-informative website
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Just tuning in? I’ve been writing that 50% of Americans have some form of Attachment Disorder, but we don’t know it. Yet since 1994, there’s been an Adult Attachment Interview (AAI) which can be used to accurately diagnose us 50% quickly.12a
What about family doctors who should be asking why a patient “just feels lousy” for years? Why isn’t our system set up to send us at least for one AAI check by a therapist? Why haven’t more than a small minority of therapists even heard of the AAI? Using it would’ve saved me three years in failed treatment hell.
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This post is being written as an open letter to Brian Williams, Dr. Oz and Dr. Phil about their recent portrayal on their shows of people living with mental illness.
Dear Dr. Phil, Dr. Oz and Mr. Williams,
As you read this, you may be bracing yourselves for yet another attack and demand for a public apology for your recent ill-informed comments about people who live with mental health challenges. Gentleman, don’t, as I am not reaching out to you for that reason. I am writing to share all of the good that has happened since we launched this dialogue just a few days ago.
Read MoreOn August 1, Jeffrey Lieberman, M.D., the current President of the American Psychiatric Association, wrote an open letter to Psychiatry News asking whether is was time for psychiatry to “re-engage with pharma”.
Dr. Lieberman asserts that although there are problems with the way the public perceives drug companies, he thinks it is time for psychiatry to re-evaluate its connections to the industry. He reports on a recent meeting of the American Psychiatric Foundation Corporate Advisory Council with representatives of 14 pharmaceutical companies.
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As we said last week, 50% of Americans have some Attachment Disorder. How can there be so little information on it available to parents, teachers, pediatricians, people who care for children? What about us blindsided adults who walk around with it and never even know? What is being done on any scale to alert the public that this issue, one of the largest causes of emotional and physical illness in the US, even exists?
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“Don’t Try This At Home” takes you along on my journey to the center of the brain, tripping down what felt like my old New York City apartment building’s incinerator shoot, blind and alone, after the first professionals I saw called the wrong shots. I discovered, with no desire to do any of this, the realities of Attachment Disorder (AD) in a world half sick with it – unbeknownst to all but a few of the 3.5 billion folks involved.
Read MoreI asserted previously that the impression of short term efficacy tends to be inflated. What I mean by this is that there is a general sense – within my profession and among the general public – that neuroleptic drugs are very effective. They are after all what allowed us to shutter our state hospitals. The folk narrative is that the main problem is not that they do not work but that people do not take them reliably so we should therefore put our efforts into getting people to stay on them.
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I have recently put together a talk in which I summarize my current thinking on the optimal use of neuroleptic drugs, primarily focusing on the treatment of individuals who are experiencing psychotic symptoms. In order to foster conversation on this topic, I will be posting the content of this talk in a series of blogs.
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