16 Replies to “Those Who Can’t, Teach.”

  5. Oh come on, helium seriously? That stuff only makes you talk funny…now the punditry will only say that they were gas bags…
    At least they should have chosen Nitrous Oxide N2O, “laughing gas”, to introduce the comedic element.
    Then the headline would have read ‘Happiness couple laugh Death in the face!”
    Psalm 23:1-6
    1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want;
    2 he makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me beside still waters;
    3 he restores my soul. He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.
    4 Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil; for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
    5 You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies; you anoint my head with oil, my cup overflows.
    6 Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD for ever.
    Cheers
    Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
    1st Saint Nicolaas Army
    Army Group “True North”

  6. Helium because it isn’t CO2. CO2 triggers the gasping reflex and makes for an uncomfortable death.

  8. Regarding the second link…
    “CCHR was founded in 1969 by the Church of Scientology and the internationally acclaimed author, Dr. Thomas Szasz, Professor Emeritus of Psychiatry at the State University of New York, Syracuse.”
    Need I say more?

  10. Sounds like a lot of people on the anti-psychiatrist web site are in serious need of antipsychotics. I could easily create a similar horror story of the immense carnage caused by automobiles and the obscene profits made by the automotive lobby. Given the horrific death toll, one wonders why we even have automobiles on our streets?
    Thomas Szaz has some interesting ideas about insanity and doesn’t believe that anyone should be involuntarily treated. Nice Libertarian idea which immediately crumbles when one is first in contact with a homicidal maniac in the ER and it takes 10 people to take the guy down in order to inject him with haloperidol. WRT the Scientologists, the most successful exercise by a SF writer in creating a fake religion. In Vancouver the scientologists have an office on E. Hastings where they can draw in the mentally ill and reprogram them to become good little scientologists whose only function appears to keep on growing the religion.
    As far as women being the primary visitors to psychiatrists, there are a number of physiologic triggers; first the cyclic variation in estrogen during menstrual cycles. Not clear how this affects mood, but brain neurosteroid levels will change in a cyclic fashion in women. Also, there’s the fact that women get pregnant and, during pregnancy, fetal cells make it through the placental barrier into the woman’s circulation. These cells are very similar to her own cells yet different and autoimmunity is the result. There’s some very interesting research going on in the field of neuropsychoimmunology which suggests that much of depression is as a result of inflammatory/autoimmune brain responses. A proof of concept of this has been the treatment of depression with minocycline and low dose aspirin. Minocycline, used primarily for treatment of adolescent acne, is a metaloprotease inhibitor and has a very potent anti-inflammatory action on microglia in the brain which are also involved in neurodegerative diseases.
    I have to admit that I missed making a discovery when I was treating people with interferon and ribavarin for HepC and 1/2 of the patients got depressed. They responded to SSRI’s, but it was the high proportion of people becoming depressed with interferon that’s gotten a whole new area of antidepressant treatments being investigated which involve brain/immune system interactions. It’s gotten to the point where one can’t look at the brain in isolation but one has to look at what’s happening in the body as well.
    Finally, we have some biomarkers that can be used to investigate the course of antidepressant treatment but none, aside from the old CRP, are widely available. As medical knowledge grows we marvel at the treatments we used to use but that’s what happens in a dynamic environment.

  11. “good little scientologists”
    Is there any indication whether any go straight after their indoctrination ? If so, I would support anything that works and gets them off the streets ( other than overdoses, which I feel favorable to at this very moment but would have to think about) and back into society. The drugs don’t seem to remove the dragons but perhaps a new faith in L Ron Hubert’s visions would. No ?

  14. Reading anything by Ron Charach (a psychiatrist who is also a delusional anti-gun zealot, failed poet who writes poems about his anus, and supporter of child molester Roman Polanski) when he writes letters to Toronto newspapers makes for a strong argument that psychiatrists aren’t very emotionally or mentally stable.

  15. Did I know it was a Scientology link? No, mea culpa. I was simply looking for a reference to the high suicide rates in the profession. The primary story is in the first link anyway.

  16. As the saying goes, even a broken clock is right once a day, and the same can go for scientology whack jobs. As a contrast to the myopic view all too common with gp’s and many psychiatrists, perhaps reflected in one of the posts above, consider the point made in this link by Dr. Allen Frances in response to the newly minted DSM V. Frances was supervisor of the committees responsible for the fourth edition of the APA Diagnostic and Statistical Manual. The APA PR department’s response to a vast initial rejection of the DSM V has been quite naturally to try to paint those in opposition as scientologists and the like. It is simply not true.
    http://www.wired.com/opinion/2013/05/lets-defy-the-big-pharma-attempt-to-turn-difference-into-illness/

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