Some interesting quotations (2)

You might find some (or all) of the following quotes interesting:

“… there’s not a lot to master in medications. It’s like ‘2001: A Space Odyssey,’ where you had Hal the supercomputer juxtaposed with the ape with the bone. I feel like I’m the ape with the bone now.” Dr. Donald Levin, (psychiatrist), Talk Doesn’t Pay, So Psychiatry Turns Instead to Drug Therapy (NY Times article, March 5^th, 2011).

“If as many as 85% of depressed individuals who go without somatic treatment spontaneously recover within one year, it would be extremely difficult for any intervention to demonstrate a superior result to this.” Dr. Michael Posternak (psychiatrist at Brown University), The naturalistic course of unipolar major depression in the absence of somatic therapy, Journal of Nervous and Mental Disease 194 (2006): 324 – 349.

“I don’t have to go through a system that was put in place for addicts. I don’t have to sit and listen to someone who I know is not listening to me advise me about drugs that he has never taken and probably never would.” Dr. David Healy, The Anti-Depressant Era

“I am confident of this idea. There are patients who may be living in a quite peculiar way, and they may have psychotic ideas, but they still can hang on to an active life. But if they are medicated, because of the sedative action of the drugs, they lose this ‘grip on life,’ and that is so important. They become passive, and they no longer take care of themselves.” Prof. Jaakko Seikkula, Blueprints for Reform.

“I conclude that patients with schizophrenia not on antipsychotic medication for a long period of time have significantly better global functioning than those on antipsychotics.” Dr. Martin Harrow, American Psychiatric Association annual meeting, 2008.

“It is time to reappraise the assumption that antipsychotics must always be the first line of treatment for people with psychosis. This is not a wild cry from the distant outback, but a considered opinion by influential researchers . . . [there is] an increasing body of evidence that the adverse effects of [antipsychotic] treatment are, to put it simply, not worth the candle.” Prof. Peter Tyrer, Editor, British Journal of Psychiatry, August 2012.

“We have known for a long time that terms such as ‘schizophrenia’ are scientifically meaningless. They are not actually ‘diagnoses’ in a medical sense, since they are not based on patterns of bodily symptoms or signs. Instead, the criteria consist of a ragbag of social judgements about people’s thoughts, feelings and behaviour. The people who are so labelled may well have difficulties and be in urgent need of help, but this is not the way to help them.” Dr. Lucy Johnstone, www.madinamerica.com 2013.

“Our mania for rational explanations obviously has its roots in our fear of metaphysics, for the two were always hostile brothers. Hence, anything unexpected that approaches us from the dark realm is regarded either as coming from outside and, therefore, as real, or else as a hallucination and, therefore, not true. The idea that anything could be real or true which does not come from outside has hardly begun to dawn on contemporary man.” Carl Jung, Civilization in Transition (Volume 10 in The Collected Works of C. G. Jung).

“There is no wi-fi in the forest, but I promise you will find a better connection”. Unknown

You can find some additional interesting quotations here.