Book Review - 'American Therapy - The Rise of Psychotherapy in the United States,' by Jonathan Engel - Review - NYTimes.com

Book Review - 'American Therapy - The Rise of Psychotherapy in the United States,' by Jonathan Engel - Review - NYTimes.com: "Engel describes an experiment that seems to have been animated by these very questions. In 1979, a Vanderbilt University researcher named Hans Krupp divided 30 patients with psychological problems into two groups, one to be treated by trained psychotherapists, the other by humanities professors with no psychological expertise. The result? The two groups reported improvement at the same rates. “Effective psychotherapy,” Engel writes, “seemed to require little more than a willing patient and an intelligent and understanding counselor who met and spoke regularly and in confidence"

Psychiatrists Revising the Book of Human Troubles - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com#postComment#postComment

Psychiatrists Revising the Book of Human Troubles - Readers' Comments - NYTimes.com#postComment#postComment: "The largest mental health facility is Rikers Island. The second is the Los Angeles County Jail. Remember Erhard Seminar Training, EST? It wasn't that long ago that psychology was regarded on the right as junk science. The only thing that puts mental illness on the political agenda is the money the drug companies can make with all their new pills. They really are following the exact model of the tobacco companies. Which would you consider a war on mental illness to be closer to, the war on cancer or the war on crime? Patients may well be crazy, but they are far more honest than the doctors that treat them"

PatientsLikeMe : Forum : Inner Chatter

PatientsLikeMe : Forum : Inner Chatter: "I've been having these never ending conversations in my head with my doctor, and it is driving me nuts! I just started back on topomax which is notorious for brain fog. I've got a few things I'm feeling guiltiy about, and I'm having some mixed states. He didn't want to give me topomax because he said it wouldn't control my mania, and we all know how much bipolars love to get high. All in all I'm just a mess. You can say it was a mistake to go back. Maybe it was, but what were my options? I've been on three different meds in the past few months and I'm afraid my doc was about to withdraw treatment. He is fed up with me. I don't blame him. I would be too. I'm at the end of my rope with no place to go. So topomax is it. I'm manic, and I'm going to try to hide it from him. Of course I'll be down by the time I see him. I just have live with the guilt and the shame and the bewilderment as to what to do. Basically there are medications that make me feel like crap that do control my mania. I have refused to take them. Now the chickens have come home to roost. Now I have to pay the piper. Pay me now or pay me later. And after this I get to look forward to a nice bout of depression. Isn't that special? Still, I can't go back to the crap. I've used up all my free trials so it's the topomax or nothing.

I just figured something out! I knew it would help my thinking to write something down. I know this is unbelieveably simple, but this shows what a fog I'm in. Duh! I need to try a little extra. I was reading what others were saying about topomax. I'm taking 100 a day. Some are taking as much as 400 a day. Just thinking about it seems to clear my head. Is that the placebo effect or what? I'm so strange. I'm just a strange old man with nothing to do except complain. I still feel guilty about my doc. He's not really a doc. He's a nurse practioner. Doctors don't do anything for me. They think they deserve a lot of money, and they try to keep other people from doing things that they think only they should do. They're stuck up pricks that you have to suck up to. Is that a little negative? I have problems with authority, doctors and policeman. Try me. Don't treat me. Really doctors are the biggest reason we don't have universal health care. They were the biggest impediment to medicare. They get away with murder. Armys cause wars. Police cause crime, and doctors'll kill ya. Well, you've been a great audience. Remember to tip your bartenders and waitresses. This has been really good for my mental health. Thankyou and good night.

Vets for Freedom

Vets for Freedom: "I am a disabled vietnam veteran. I mean you no harm. For some reason I am compelled to tell you that it is exactly your philosophy that gets us into these unspeakable horrors. I know you believe in what you're doing. I know there are two sides to everything, and change doesn't come easy. But someday your way of doing things will be extinct, and the world will be a better place for it. I am putting everything I have into reaching that day. I probably won't see it in my life time. That doesn't mean it isn't worth pursuing. Thank you for your time."

Downsizing to 100 square feet of bliss - CNN.com

Downsizing to 100 square feet of bliss - CNN.com: "Californians have begun building 100-square-foot homes for minimalists

Couple says you don't need to keep up with the Joneses to be happy

One designer's home is so tiny, there's no space for his wife

'I like the idea of showing people how little a person could need'"



"I don't think bigger is better," he says.

Top Psychiatrist Failed to Report Drug Income - NYTimes.com

Top Psychiatrist Failed to Report Drug Income - NYTimes.com: "From 2000 through 2006, Dr. Nemeroff earned more than $960,000 from GlaxoSmithKline but listed earnings of less than $35,000 for the period on his university disclosure forms, according to Congressional documents"

Psychoanalytic Therapy Wins Backing - NYTimes.com

Psychoanalytic Therapy Wins Backing - NYTimes.com: "Intensive psychoanalytic therapy, the “talking cure” rooted in the ideas of Freud, has all but disappeared in the age of drug treatments and managed care.

But now researchers are reporting that the therapy can be effective against some chronic mental problems, including anxiety and borderline personality disorder.
In a review of 23 studies of such treatment involving 1,053 patients, the researchers concluded that the therapy, given as often as three times a week, in many cases for more than a year, relieved symptoms of those problems significantly more than did some shorter-term therapies"