Let me first say straight up that I am not a supporter of Tom Cruise or the Scientology. The association between anti-psychiatry and Scientology does not go both ways at all. Actually, it appears that the pharmaceutical establishment has engaged in slander to encourage people to associate the two in order to discredit critics:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=kOW8LNU2hFE&mode=related&search=
http://youtube.com/watch?v=KFbs8s3VI6M&mode=related&search=
http://youtube.com/watch?v=FEIg1as2ppc&mode=related&search=
Not surprising, is it? There's only a small part about their work into convincing others that all who are against psychiatry are just 'crazy Scientologists', but it's all good material.
Anyway, I was quite angry to find in my copy of popular science an article which bought into the modern perspective of biological psychiatry hook, line, and sinker. I guess I should have expected this from POPULAR science, but even though it's does not feature content of the absolute best quality, it's provided some neat information on new inventions, etc.
First, we start with a picture of a brain hooked up to a bunch of wires, with "Happiness is a warm electrode". We already know that any notion of 'social change' has already gone out the window at this point, but beneath the words "The most promising new treatment for severe depression isn't a pill. It's a permanent implant that shocks the brain. Is this what joy looks like?" are clearly printed. The most 'promising' treatment for severe depression is to end extreme materialism, help people develop some critical thinking and understanding of others, and treat people who suffer from depression as human beings with legitimate reasons to feel the way they feel (as opposed to common psychiatric practice).
http://www.lampdirect.org.uk/news/newsletters/TT/December2002.html(scroll to the bottom of the page)
The book that details this is 'On our own' by Judy Chamberlin. I have not read it but I have read quite detailed accounts of the experience at this center. The recovery rate was about 70% for SCHIZOPHRENICS.
By what I've said so far, you already know that you're in for a real treat. The author of the article was Gregory Mone, whom I will try to get in contact with.
We flip the page, and witness an emotional account of someone receiving surgery, with her psychiatrist near her bed. Yet more propaganda trying to equate emotional problems with physical illness.
Later, we find that this woman has been stuck in severe depression for twenty years. In this article, depression is referred to a 'crippling strain of the disease'. Then we go on to find:
"Years of therapy, at least 10 different drugs, and six courses of the whole-brain shock technique known as electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) all failed to bring Hire lasting relief.
Now, let's wait a minute here!
If you watch the first videos I posted, you'll see that this woman was turned into a complete basket case by psychiatric drugs she attempted to take to relieve minor anxiety. Could it be possible that this woman did not get better, and in fact only got worse because of these drugs, perhaps because of a condescending attitude in the therapy, and from ECT brain damage? Well, we will soon find out, indeed.
One interesting thing to note is that this article, along with the psychiatric establishment have already determined their treatments to 'work' in their own minds, so they refuse to accept that they may have damaged the 'patient', and instead pump them full of more drugs. This is also discussed in the first three clips I posted. Again, it is much easier to blame a single biological entity than focus on monolithic problems in society and our environment, which are the real culprits for these issues.
The treatment is further supposed as her last hope, when of course the issues I outlined have not been examined. Soon after, it simplifies 'happiness' into a small group of neurotransmitters that are quite poorly understood. While it is true that neurotransmitters are responsible for some form of 'elation', the formula for true happiness is a huge, complex interaction of psychological, social, spiritual, and subconscious factors.
"Millions of neurons bask in the electricity, and the effect is fairly immediate."
Okay, perhaps you did create some artificial stimulus (note: These brain functions could have been messed up by the ECT and drugs in the first place, and not due to the depression itself), which combined with the placebo effect could produce some kind of better feeling. Yes, the placebo effect is pretty powerful when you're told that this is a 'life saving' treatment that is your last resort.
"....for the first time in 20 years, with a halo bolted to her head and two freshly drilled holes in her skull, Hire smiles."
More propaganda acting as if depression is a real disease and we need surgical treatment for happiness.
"Why the pulses affect mood is still unclear, but scientists believe that they may facilitate chemical communication between brain cells, possibly by forcing ions through nerve fibers called axons. In turn, this may trigger the release of mood regulating chemicals like serotonin and norepinephrine."
Congratulations, you have just admitted that you have little idea what you are doing. You may have produced a temporary stimulant/placebo effect mix, and your 'treatment' may be safer than ECT (come on, let's be fair here), but you still have not determined it to be safe or really work in the long term for people suffering from depression alone. You also greatly simplify depression into a 'chemical imbalance' and categorize it as a disease to lend more legitimacy to these treatments.
"In some ways, severe depression is a far more challenging disease to treat than Parkinson's."
Yeah, maybe because it involves actually THINKING about the state of the world and waking the fuck up, whilst Parkinson's is a specific physical ailment? Just a thought.
"It can manifest....some genetic, some environmental." Yeah? Prove it.
"For isntance, scientists are just starting to identify a class of what they call vulnerability genes...."
More pseudoscientific guesswork and garbage. Within the pharmaceutical genetic/drug research, anything ambiguous can be skewed to support the work of the pharmaceutical establishment. Computers look for very vague patterns between depressed or 'mentally ill' patients that may not be related to depression itself and psychiatrists assert that depression is a partially genetic problem. Nonsense, pure and simple. Depression is only 'genetic' because genes technically code for all of us, but the notion that it is a specific condition that people are 'susceptible' to individually is, again, nonsense.
I'll give you an example:
Fourty out of fourty eight people who have depression and are in a study are more passive. Passive people are more likely to be depressed. Their genes are thoroughly analyzed and some tiny similarities come up because basic personality is partially genetically determined. However, people who are more aggressive are simply prone to DIFFERENT reactions under stress. The passive people are normal and more prone to introverted, depressive emotional reactions under stress, whilst the aggressive are more prone to 'rage' type outbursts.
Another example:
In a study, most of those who are depressed tend to be more intuitive/creative than average. In this crazy and materialistic society, they naturally do not function well. A study shows some very minor genetic similarities between the two, and though those with natural intuitive/creative intelligence are more likely to be depressed, this does not mean they have a disease. It's plainly society's fault.
And last, but not least, the twin studies!
Fraternal twins are supposedly less likely to get depression together than identical twins. I can give several reasons for this:
Identical twins often have different family and peer dynamics than fraternal twins. They look the same, and thus are more likely to be treated the same way, hurt the same way, etc.
Identical twins may take after each other more.
Identical twins may have the same basic passive personality type, and on average, be more likely to have the same type than fraternal twins. Though this technically has some genetic basis, it means absolutely nothing.
Now, on with my critique:
"Most depression therapies address the disease. as a kind of communications problem in the brain."
Ah, we have a winner! With most ignoring a social perspective and 'biology' usurping social change, no wonder we have a lot of depressed people around who feel cast away and disenfranchised.
"When all is healthy...blah blah blah (explanation of correct brain functioning, malfunctioning in accordance to 'chemical imbalance' theories)"
Still fails to note that the brain adapts to circumstances, and that depression is simply a natural reaction to negative circumstances.
"But first, Rezai must convince his colleagues that attacking depression with electrical current is a good idea. Patients like Hire, who don't respond to drugs, therapy or ECT, reveal how little modern science understand about depression, which is one reason why DBS tends to raise thorny scientific and ethical questions"
Errr, maybe because depression has nothing to do with anything scientific at all? Maybe they don't respond to your treatments because they're ineffective and dangerous, or because they hate being forced into a mental hospital like a slave? Many patients do respond with a placebo effect but this usually dies off if the environment does not change.
This treatment is touted as the 'new lobotomy', with a picture of a surgeon in the background. More garbage equating psychiatry with Neuroscience. The two have nothing to do with each other because the former is simply fraud.
"Hire's psychiatrist uses a handheld device to tune to voltage and frequency of the stimulators implanted in her chest. Although some patients might wish to manipulate the device themselves, Malone says self-control is unlikely. There's a risk of cranking the volts too high, potentially causing brain damage."
So, in an unproven treatment, how does a psychiatrist who DOES NOT know how this even work do this accurately? Lack of self control, causing brain damage? Ha ha. It's the psychiatric profession that's been stupidly shocking minds for decades and causing long term problems.
"This is not cosmetic neurology," he says. "This is about treating a fatal illness".
Fatal based on what? Your assumption that someone is going to kill them self in despair? I'm sorry, but when one of your 'diseases' is simply a manufactured attempt to make money off someone's misery, you can't accurately determine the fatality/pathology of it. Interestingly enough, 58% of people who committed suicide in 2002 were already ON psychiatric drugs. Does this say that they were just going too far and the drugs helped but didn't stop them? Considering the number of horror stories and many other studies that show that some medications are actually worse than a sugar pill or just simply provide a numbing effect, I highly doubt it. By itself, the statistic does not mean much, but when you combine it with the likely reality that the percentage of suicidal people ON medications is probably much lower than 58% (many hide from the 'mental health' system), and frightening drug trial results, it is a different story. This can only point to the ghastly reality that pharmaceutical corporations in corroboration with the government are excessively drugging the public to make billions of dollars with not only no real positive effect, but quite possibly many long term and short term negative effects.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nW46gJSwGfg (the data IS actually there, but in powerpoint format. You'll find it on page 10.)
http://psychologytoday.com/articles/pto-19940701-000028.html
"Depression started controlling Hire's life in her early 30s. At 36, after 12 years of service in the Navy, she was medically discharged because of the "disease". She went back to school and became a physical therapist. She worked and work, trying to ignore her growing unease and inability to relate to family and friends, let alone stranger. She tried various drugs and met frequently with therapists. Yet the depression only grew stronger."
Ah, now here we go. It is again clear that the depression is being ignored as a social problem, and touted in the same way anti-depressant commercials proclaim depression to be; a separate 'disease' interfering with ordinary life. Now, let's go on.
"In 1999 she stopped working for good. She started semi-regular courses of ECT. The treatment failed to improve her mood and effected her short-term memory, a common side effect. Then in 2005, Hire haerd...."
Well, what do you know? If you remember the first three youtube clips of the drug rep, you'll see that she started off with a comparatively minor problem that was made into a mountain by psychiatric drugs. Many people end up worse from ECT, but it's particularly bad for those who rely on their creative/intuitive/emotional area of the brain, as ECT targets these areas in an attempt to rectify a supposed "chemical imbalance". In fact, Earnest Hemmingway committed suicide after receiving treatments of ECT due to memory loss and despair. If this treatment HYPOTHETICALLY did work for long term relief (though of course social issues should be the primary focus), we don't know if it would on the average depressed person, because Hire may have been severely destroyed by these 'treatments'.
"By 2006, Hire rarely left her sofa, spent most days in sweatpants...."
More garbage trying to act like depression is an actual disability caused by biological factors.
"For 30 seconds, she's happy. Then Baker shuts off the electrodes, Hire's smile fades, and the machine maps how her brain reacts. Another 30 seconds pass, and the happiness returns."
Wait, did they turn it back on 30 seconds later? This is purposely unspecific. It's also based on observations, do they really know if she returned to absolute blackness just when the stimulator was turned off?
"We're putting electrical impulses into a hub that connects large parts of the brain involved in your mood, your anxiety and your energy level." Rezai says. The more that scientists understand about how the diseased brain functions, he explains, the more they will know how to find the faulty wiring or circuits responsible for it, and from there they can design the therapies to fix it."
Alright then. Yet again, a social perspective on the issue is ignored, and a depressed person is labeled as 'diseased' or 'faulty'. The circuits responsible for it are within society, the brain only adjusts to this. As a psychiatric patient tainted by many dangerous drugs and ECT, Hire may not be the ideal person to test this on. Nonetheless, I would absolutely hate to see this used as a substitute for social change, which would indubitably happen if it succeeded. Obviously, 'science' (the amount of times in the article that psychiatry is pushed as science is laughable) is blind to the true causes of depression, because they are NON SCIENTIFIC.
"In 2005, the Toronto group found that four out of six patients showed significant improvements."
So some didn't? Again, this is all based on the observations of someone ELSE, and placebo effects can play into it. This also makes a patient dependent and although it may not be harmful at first, who knows what kind of subtle changes in the brain it could cause? What if the brain becomes dependent on it? What about ECT/psychiatric drug damage? Maybe something looks better on the surface to the psychiatrists, but there's really a lot more still there. These are all things to think about.
"Medtronic, a company in Minneapolis that manufactures the hardware for DBS, is working with the Food and Drug administration to plan the largest study yet of depression and DBS - a 100 patient trial in which the scientists may delay stimulation in half the patients for six months, switch it on in the other half, and compare the results."
First, the FDA is completely in the grip of the pharmaceutical companies, which was also mentioned by the drug rep in the early videos. Just to make a note of this, I know that one case does not make for everything, but if you search, you will find other videos of other people WITHIN THE INDUSTRY who say more or less the same types of things. Also, a company testing their own product that THEY WANT TO SELL is hardly fucking RELIABLE. We'll see the results, though. I expect that the placebo effect will play at least some role, but even a short term 'benefit' cannot be proven to be anything but a temporary stimulant effect with unknown long term consequences for some. This idea that it 'treats' something biologically wrong is crap. Again, many of those 'treated' may already be under the influence of drugs that may taint the process. This is another cop out on the process of making heard the true causes of depression, but at least it doesn't seem as damaging as ECT. Only time will tell.
"Rezai, for instance, envisions implanted sensors that could detect abnormal activity in key brain circuits and deliver the necessary jolts to correct it."
DISGUSTING. I could see this being EASILY misused as a way to blame people for the problem, possibly as a mechanism of punishment, and ignoring the problems of life while artificially 'stimulated'. Also, brain scans have shown not been able to detect 'mental illness'.
"She now walks 50 miles a week, talks to her family constantly...."
More garbage purporting that "our treatment cured a biological disease".
"Yet Hire's depression hasn't been vanquished. The disease could still be triggered by life events".
IT IS NOT A FUCKING DISEASE FOR THE LAST FUCKING TIME. The reason for this is because you have made someone temporary stimulated and from a drugged up, damaged haze. Depression is CAUSED by poor conditions (such as emotional, physical, and emotional abuse), an extremely materialistic society, obsessive thoughts, others refusing to help, and trying to deal with learning how fucked up the world is when the illusion of comfort is shattered (or, of course, a combination of these).
"But if Hire starts feeling despairing or apathetic again, Malone can adjust the stimulation enough to ward off the darkness"
Without even wondering why, eh?
To be honest, I'm happy that the woman feels a bit better. But I'm not happy that the true causes of all of this mess are being ignored. I'm not happy that the previous treatments are not being examined as a large part of a problem. I'm not happy that this emotional problem is being pushed as a disease. I underwent severe depression for four years and see this article as an insult. As a child, I had social trouble and my family never got along. Now, I am fine, thanks to my own willpower. I changed my perspective on life and eventually swallowed all the difficult realities about our fucked up world. I stopped blaming myself and realized that as a child, my parents' eccentric, passive-aggressive style completely distorted my extroverted and social personality. I was on 'medications' for a month too, and they were DISASTROUS. I took myself off of them and felt slightly better. A month and a half later, I decided to pull myself out of the slump, and learned about why I deserved better than what I had been giving myself. Depression is real as an emotional problem and is beatable even on your own, but this is VERY, VERY DIFFICULT. Even so, you may not be happy. If you grow much more intelligent and realize what was to blame for the way you felt, you may just become a cynical, albeit lukewarm misanthrope akin to myself. With the help of others and in a semi-intelligent society, very few would be depressed. Very few people who realize just how the world really works will be any more than gray (not happy, not depressed), unless they positively LOVE being alone; when one sees how blind others are they usually refrain from associating with them too much. The reason why this is not reality is because the companies that market these drugs, and any powerful person that benefits from the status quo would have far less power and money.
I completely agree that depression and other mental disorders can be shocking for others to witness. However, one must understand the process behind their creation. There are many compounded subconscious and environmental factors involved that build up over time, and then erupt when someone comes to a point of revelation and is cast aside by society. I deplore Mr. Mone publishing an article with so many blatant lies and half-truths in it, but also hope that my response will give others a chance to see things in a very different light.
Popular Science, I dub thee 'Junk Science'.
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