The quiet voices out there suggest the industry the system itself is at fault

http://www.madinamerica.com/2013/05/the-mental-illness-paradigm-itself-an-illness-that-is-out-of-control/

Paris Williams, Ph.D

Let’s take a moment here and look at the research. Robert Whitaker (in Anatomy of an Epidemic) and others have compiled extensive literature reviews suggesting that the kinds of chronic “depression” and “bipolar disorder” that we see today were apparently much rarer before the introduction of psychiatric drugs. What we call “depression” was apparently transient in the large majority of cases, with “relapses” were also relatively rare. And the more extreme forms of “bipolar disorder” that seem to be so prevalent today were also much more rare. The prevalence of such disabling bipolar disorder was seen only 1 of 5,000 to 20,000 individuals prior to the introduction of psychopharmacology, with 75% to 90% of these individuals going on to experience “good long-term functional outcomes.” And now? We find that 1 in 20 to 50 individuals experiences such disabling bipolar disorder, with one 33% going on to experience “good long-term functional outcomes.” This is an increase of between 100 and 1,000 times the prevalence rate since the introduction of psychopharmacology, and among these individuals, a greatly reduced likelihood of full recovery. In addition, it’s been shown that the use of antipsychotics can ironically increase the likelihood that someone will experience psychosis in the first place or move from a transient psychotic condition to a more chronic course (this is discussed in Whitaker’s Anatomy of an Epidemic and in my own book, Rethinking Madness).
So, knowing all of this (this research comes from multiple peer-reviewed sources and is readily available), how can someone as educated as Linda not even entertain the idea that the “treatment” itself, which most likely included all of the aforementioned types of psychiatric drugs and more, may very well have played a major role in the radical deterioration of her condition?  “100 different combinations and dosages of medications,” she said. Think about that for a moment. By acting from this entirely unfounded assumption that Linda and others who experience such crises must have some kind of brain disease, we attempt to “treat” the brain, which is of course absurd since we don’t even know what the heck it is that we’re treating. So we flood an individual’s brain with an array of highly toxic chemicals designed to make it through the brain’s natural blood-brain barrier and impact this extraordinarily complex and fragile organ in a ridiculously blunt and haphazard manner, and we call this “treatment.” Can we really be surprised that such treatment so often results in converting natural and transient crises into lifelong chronic “illnesses”? The terrible irony is that while it seems very likely that such crises are not the manifestation of a lifelong brain disease, the standard “treatment” actually ensures that this fantasy becomes a reality. After receiving such treatment, there’s is no longer any question about it: Now, you do have a chronic brain disease.
Actually, I don’t blame Linda for not making this connection. The tragic truth is that our society has become so entrenched in the “mental illness” paradigm that many (and perhaps most) people now consider alternative perspectives a kind of ignorant quackery. And yet, if we do make this little shift in perspective, moving away from the “mental illness” paradigm to the “overwhelmed by natural human experience” paradigm, I can’t help but wonder just how much more easeful and enjoyable Linda’s and many others’ lives may have been…  just how clear the absurdity of such treatment would become to anyone who took the time to consider it…  just how much more frequently people would stand up to such treatment and say enough is enough…  just how much rarer stories of such devastating demoralization, dehumanization, and intoxication would become.
So, if we act from this different paradigm that I’m presenting here, then how do we go about offering alternative support for someone who is in so much “psychic pain” that they’re seriously considering taking their own life (as was the case for Linda) or possibly even causing serious harm to someone else. Well, the current m.o. is to apply the kind of “treatment” that Linda received—a person overwhelmed by feelings of hopelessness and powerlessness reaches out for support, and what do they get? They’re stripped of any last remnants of hope and self-empowerment and provided with a new set of problems in the form of substance dependence and the particularly disempowering “mental illness” paradigm as a means for making sense of their troubles.
I admire Linda for recognizing her potential for self harm and finding the courage to reach out for support, and yet just imagine if she had a very different kind of support available to her—the kind of 24-hour “suicide watch” support she felt she needed but without all the dehumanizing, disempowering and intoxicating baggage that generally comes along with this. This is not a difficult thing for our society to make readily available—we already have successful models of peer-run residential homes and other types of homes that could function in this way (such as Soteria-style homes), and families and friends themselves could offer such support to loved ones in times of need. The cost of providing such places of refuge is certainly much less than the cost of psychiatric hospitalization—there are simply no excuses as to why we don’t have such places of refuge set up in every community and readily available to anyone who needs them.
And what about other kinds of support? Well, if we operate from the “overwhelmed by natural experiences” paradigm and recognize the innate wisdom within all beings that continuously strives for health and wholeness, then we can let go of the “I’m an expert, I’ll take over and fix it” role and instead explore ways to support the person’s own inner resources and honour their own wisdom and self agency. This is akin to supporting the growth of a plant. We can’t force a plant to grow or even to heal, but what we can do is provide it with healthy soil, adequate water and sunlight, and then stand back and trust in its own innate wisdom. Likewise, when a person is in distress, we can work collaboratively with that person and explore the ways that this person may not be receiving adequate nourishment, and look for potential “toxins” in their environment that may be restricting their growth. And along with this, we don’t attempt to reduce their distress to problems in any one realm but recognize that many different realms work together to contribute to the wellbeing or distress of an organism—psychological, physiological, relational, environmental, spiritual, etc.
And who knows, there may be occasions where some psychoactive chemicals may provide some benefit, but rather than pretending to “correct a biochemical imbalance,” we name the drugs for what they really are—not “anxiolytic” or “anti-anxiety” medication but drugs that will numb you out for a while, maybe help you sleep; not “antipsychotic” medication or “mood stabilizers” but drugs that will tranquilize you and really numb you out and make it difficult to remember what your problem was (perhaps); and not “antidepressants” but… well… uh… occasionally effective placebos(?) Let’s face it. Drugs are drugs, whether illicit drugs or psychiatric drugs. And what have drugs been shown to do time and time again? When effective, drugs provide some degree of short term relief and benefit but nearly always at the expense of significant long term harm. Sometimes that short term benefit may seem to be worth it, but let’s be honest with ourselves and not forget to look at the big picture.
The “mental illness” paradigm interferes with our own natural resources and innate movement towards healing and growth:  Linda’s story comes across to me as yet one more example (an excellent example, actually) of a person who experienced a natural though clearly precarious existential crisis—something that seems to be a hazard that goes along with being particularly sensitive and open in the midst of the “madness” of contemporary society. In her case, the existential dilemmas associated with death, loss, meaning, and personal identity appear to have been particularly potent.
The literature throughout human history is loaded with accounts of people who go through such crises as a gateway into a profound positive transformation and a much richer, more meaningful and more enjoyable life; and it’s also loaded with accounts of people who have a very difficult time integrating these profound truths and who go on to suffer greatly as a result of it. And when we look closer at this literature, we find that certain models for understanding these experiences are more conducive to successful integration than others. In particular, honouring the deeper truths that are so often unearthed within such crises and acknowledging the potential for positive transformation resulting from them has clearly led to much better outcomes in general than perceiving such crises as the manifestation of a diseased brain (I discuss this in great detail in my own book, Rethinking Madness). And yet we continue to perpetuate the very harmful “mental illness” paradigm, with all the toxic treatments, hopelessness, and self fulfilling prophecies that so often go with it.

Transpersonal Archetypal Forces at work or mental illness as defined by medicine?

We are first and foremost emotional beings who from conception begin to rage, weep and laugh and hide in terror and dance for joy- and seek to receive and give the emotion of love.
For me, by definition, everyone who is mad is in an archetypal, transpersonal experience, just as everyone who isn’t mad is too.

The artificial distinctions that label some mad people chronic schizophrenics and others blessed to be in a spiritual emergency don’t exist for me. The mumbling, homeless mad person is just as deserving of our seeing that they are in a spiritual wasteland where the Gods of the wasteland rule as the person who is having amazing, visionary experiences that we are inspired and maybe dazzled by,- who brings Hermes or Persephone or Kwan Yin into the room with us as often happened on I-Ward.

The New Age and sometimes Transpersonal Psychology over emphasis on defining spirituality and spiritual emergency and spiritual emergence as being only enlightening and uplifting is an unfortunate mistake. The elevator goes down as well as up.

Spiritual experience means to me the contact with spiritual energy. From my own initiatory madness some of it is dark I know. Some of it is light I know. Darkness initiates just as much as light does. It turns out that both light, love emanating energy and rightly feared dark, dangerous spiritual energies are sometimes active in bringing balance through transformative madness as well as in- ‘normal’ life.
Based on my experiences on I-Ward which I describe in my last blog, I believe that if you spend much time with people in acute madness experiences who aren’t medicated you will encounter an uncanny presence of what can be viewed as spiritual light as well as darkness.

Dr Michael Cornwall

views on mental wellness or otherwise

The first and most striking fact I unearthed was that a chemical imbalance had never been observed in a human brain. Surely, I thought, this must be a mistake, as everything I read elsewhere concluded that an imbalance of neurotransmitters was the cause of mental illness. Such a ubiquitous claim would have to be backed by solid science, right? I then discovered there was no way to measure live neurotransmitter levels in the human brain, so there was no “healthy level” of neurotransmitters by which to even make comparisons. Furthermore, I learned that if chemical imbalances did exist, they could be caused by a person’s experiences. Therefore, if I did have an imbalance, I would have no way of determining whether it had biologically erupted to cause my psychological, spiritual, and emotional crises, or whether it was a biological reflection of them.

Soon enough, I realized that even though the chemical imbalance theory was a gross oversimplification of how the brain and mind operate, it was coasting through the masses on a wave of propaganda designed and funded by pharmaceutical giants, who directly benefitted from its treatment implications.

As my presumptions fell apart, I investigated more into the concept of psychiatric recovery. I found that nearly all long-term studies indicate that the majority of people diagnosed with major mental illness significantly recover over time. That was news. Furthermore, I learned that medications are ineffective and even harmful to a large minority of people with major diagnoses, and that some alternative treatment models which use little or no medications have produced better results than treatment-as-usual. That was news, too.

http://beyondmeds.com/2009/02/02/the-wind-never-lies-must-read/