AlternativeMentalHeatlh.com
International Guide to the World of Alternative Mental Health
Welcome to the world’s largest site on non-drug approaches for mental health.
Thousands of people around the world have recovered from mental disorders and now enjoy the simple pleasures of a drug-free life. Most were told this was impossible. Yet we hear from these individuals regularly.
Many others have been able to significantly reduce their dependency on psychiatric medication. Commonly these people find that underlying their “mental” disorders are medical problems, allergies, toxic conditions, nutritional imbalances, poor diets, lack of exercise, or other treatable physical conditions.
Our site has testimonials, over 100 articles, and the Web’s only directory of alternative mental health practitioners. You can also get information from our bookstore, support groups, email lists, and our free monthly newsletter.
We hope you find the answers you have been looking for…
http://www.alternativementalhealth.com/
Robert Whitaker has won numerous awards as a journalist covering medicine and science, including the George Polk Award for Medical Writing and a National Association for Science Writers’ Award for best magazine article. In 1998, he co-wrote a series on psychiatric research for the Boston Globe that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service. Anatomy of an Epidemic won the 2010 Investigative Reporters and Editors book award for best investigative journalism. http://www.madinamerica.com/author/rwhitaker/
For over a decade Loren R Mosher, MD, held a central position in American psychiatric research.
He was the first Chief of the Center for Studies of Schizophrenia at the National Institute of Mental Health, 1969-1980. He founded the Schizophrenia Bulletin and for ten years he was its Editor-in-Chief. He led the Soteria Project.
The Soteria research demonstrated that there is a better way: A better way to treat schizophrenia and other psychoses that destroy the lives of so many young people. The Soteria research showed that the prevalent excessive destructive psychiatric drugging of all these young people is a huge and tragic mistake. The psychiatric establishment was offended. Prestige and Money won. Truth and Love lost.
The success (!) of Soteria was the reason that Dr Mosher was forced to leave his key position in American psychiatry.
When Dr Mosher died he was Director of Soteria Associates, San Diego, and Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego.
Finding the Medical Causes of Severe Mental Symptoms: The Extraordinary Walker Exam
by Dan Stradford Founder, Safe Harbor Project
The Sherlock Holmes of Neurology: Dr. Sydney Walker
Probably no American physician understood this phenomena of misdiagnosis better than Dr. Sydney Walker, a board certified neuropsychiatrist from Southern California.
When Walker was doing his early medical training in the 1960’s, he went to the school library in search of a text on this subject. He couldn’t find it. Taking the matter to the head of the psychiatric residents, he asked, “Where is the book in the library on the medical causes of psychiatric symptoms?”
“There isn’t one,” came the reply.
“Then I’ll write one,” Walker retorted.
Incredibly, his 1967 book Psychiatric Signs and Symptoms Due to Medical Problems was the first volume written on this subject in the United States. One other book was written by a European. Even though this phenomena accounts, by some studies, for nearly half the admissions into psychiatric hospitals.
http://www.alternativementalhealth.com/articles/stradford.htm
Prepared for the
California Department of Mental Health and Local Mental Health Programs Pursuant to Chapter 376, Statutes of 1988Assembly Bill
MEDICAL EVALUATION FIELD MANUAL
By Lorrin M. Koran, M.D., Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences,
Stanford University Medical Center
Stanford, California 1991
INTRODUCTION AND RATIONALE
This Field Manual shows California mental health program administrators and staff how to screen their patients for active, important physical diseases. The Manual explains how, where, and when to screen, how to initiate and staff a screening program, and how to maximize its cost-effectiveness. The Manual also includes a list of clinical findings that characterize patients whose mental symptoms are quite likely to be caused by an unrecognized physical disease.
For several reasons, mental health professionals working within a mental health system have a professional and a legal obligation to recognize the presence of physical disease in their patients. First, physical diseases may cause a patient’s mental disorder. Second, physical disease may worsen a mental disorder, either by affecting brain function or by giving rise to a psychopathologic reaction. Third, mentally ill patients are often unable or unwilling to seek medical care and may harbor a great deal of undiscovered physical disease. Finally, a patient’s visit to a mental health program creates an opportunity to screen for physical disease in a symptomatic population. The yield of disease from such screening is usually higher than the yield in an asymptomatic population.
http://www.alternativementalhealth.com/articles/fieldmanual.htm
THE RIGHT TO BE INFORMED
There are numerous medical and non-harmful alternatives to psychiatric diagnoses and psychiatric drugs, including standard medical care that does not require a subjective psychiatric label or mind-altering psychiatric drugs. Prescription drug addiction is the fastest growing drug problem in the U.S., and with 1 in 5 Adult Americans currently taking some form of psychiatric drug, and the addictive nature of these drugs, this page is for those looking for safe withdrawal or alternatives to psychiatric drugs. Although CCHR does not condone or promote any specific practitioner, medical organization, practice or group, we have found the below resources to be helpful for individuals looking for more information on the following topics: Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal Programs, Alternative Medical Non-Drug Treatment Programs, Non-drug alternatives for children, Alternative non-drug treatments for those diagnosed “schizophrenic”, legal resources and more:
View these resources listed here: http://www.cchrint.org/alternatives/
Professional And A Legal Obligation To Recognize The Presence Of Physical Disease In Their Patients
According to the California Department of Mental Health Medical Evaluation Field Manual—which CCHR assisted in introducing—“Mental health professionals… have a professional and a legal obligation to recognize the presence of physical disease in their patients … Physical diseases may cause a patient’s mental disorder [or] may worsen a mental disorder.” In fact, up to 40% of psychiatric facility admissions would be unnecessary if patients were first properly medically examined. This represents enormous potential savings in terms of dollars and suffering. Ultimately, psychiatrists, psychologists, psycho therapists and their hospitals must be made fully accountable for their funding, practices and treatments, and their results, or lack thereof. This includes criminal acts that should be dealt with only through the courts, not medical tribunals.
See page 23 of Massive Fraud Psychiatry’s Corrupt Industry
Lack of Results Washington State Mental Health 