I took a tour a few years ago at the Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR). It was shocking, but I know it was all true - that's the worst part. When I was in high school, "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich" was required reading in my history class - thanks to Mr. David DiCarlo, who was a totally brilliant history teacher.

It was a very difficult book to digest - and by far, the most horrendous parts were those that disclosed the atrocities committed by psychiatrists on the people imprisoned in the concentration camps. I still remember the descriptions of some of these experiments. Totally horrifying, like putting a man naked, strapped to a bed, out in the snow, and seeing how many hours it would take him to die. Or doing this for several hours every day, until he finally died - and recording how many days or weeks it took. In one experiment, they warmed the man up next to a naked female prisoner - and another man was warmed by two naked female prisoners. The psychiatrists wanted to know if the men were more likely to live if they had ONE or TWO women to warm them, after being held in the snow for hours.

It was horrible, but this, I am afraid, is part of the history of psychiatry. It's far more gruesome than Pavlov's dogs, I am afraid. It looks sterile and clean now, but psychiatry does, indeed, have a dark underbelly, even today. Insurance fraud is the least of their crimes.

I knew a woman who was raped by her psychiatrist, under sedation (she happened to wake up during one of the probably many episodes). When she filed a complaint with the APA they refused to take her seriously. They just didn't want to take this guy to task. Years later he was still "practicing medicine", although I wouldn't call it that. (And probably billing insurance companies for his sessions as well...)

Psychiatric rape is not a small thing. It's happened to many women, children, and even men.

When people need help - whether they are suffering from depression, anxiety, postpartum depression, schizophrenia, or dealing with children with ADHD - the last thing they need is abuse at the hands of a psychiatrist. I would have to say this abuse extends to the doling out of harmful psychiatric drugs as well.

Change is definitely needed - and I don't expect that psychiatry, with its roots steeped in human rights abuses - to have any ability to change its ways.

The Citizens Commission on Mental Health is doing an amazing and intrepid job, exposing the crimes of psychiatry to the world. It's not for the faint of heart, but it is so needed!

The more I think and read on the subject of postpartum depression, the more certain I am that Tom Cruise has the right of it. It's not about Scientology - it's about psychiatry, which really IS a pseudoscience. The psychopharmaceuticals have the FDA in their pockets, and they have gotten approval on drugs which never should have been approved.

They are finally beginning to be exposed.

To read more about Tom Cruise, check out: Tom Cruise and Scientology

Also, take a look at THIS from Charley Rees on Tom Cruise at LewRockwell.com

One of the artificial flaps du jour recently was about Tom Cruise's comments related to psychiatry and Ritalin. What do actors know about medicine, many of the snide TV talking heads said?

Well, in the first place, actors are human beings and can know anything anyone else can. Just because a person is an actor doesn't mean that he is dumb. Cruise started with nothing and has forged himself a successful career in a viciously competitive and cutthroat business. Dumb people can't do that.

Furthermore, psychiatry is a pseudo-science, just like so-called social science, as Cruise said. There are several psychiatric theories floating around, some of them contradictory. Sigmund Freud has been thoroughly discredited. Alfred Kinsey turned out to be an entomologist, not a psychologist, who preferred to interview convicted pedophiles, who are hardly an objective source on normal sex habits.

Neurology is a science, but psychiatry is not. Neurology studies the physical structure of the brain, while psychiatry purports to study the intangible products of that physical brain, such as thought, imagination and behavior. These are things that cannot be measured or weighed or, with the exception of behavior, even observed.

As for Ritalin, which in my opinion is irresponsibly prescribed for millions of children, it is a stimulant in the same family as cocaine. Long-term studies show that it has no permanent therapeutic value. Furthermore, there is disagreement on whether the so-called attention-deficit disorder even exists. There are also some negative side effects of Ritalin.

So Cruise was quite correct in admonishing NBC's Matt Lauer to read a history of psychiatry and to study the drug Ritalin before he superficially mouths off about their alleged benefits based on nothing more than anecdotal evidence. Journalists don't like to be challenged, but Lauer is the guy who brought the subject up. Cruise called him on it, and Lauer was found lacking any real knowledge of the subject – which, of course, is normal for talk-show hosts.

I wouldn't go to Tom Cruise for medical advice, but I wouldn't go to Matt Lauer, either. Of the two, Cruise has clearly got the edge when it comes to IQ.

Go to the link to read more: Lew Rockwell - Tom Cruise

Postpartum Depression

I am currently expecting our 7th baby. Having experienced postpartum depression before, I know that it's important to know what it is - how to identify what is happening, what to do to alleviate stress, and how to find good medical care.

I was not prepared for ppd - it was with my 4th baby, but as I had never experienced it before, it just blindsided me.

I was lucky - I had a good doctor who did not just label me crazy and give me a psychotropic drug. Instead, he identified the hormonal imbalances, found out what was happening (or not happening!) to me in terms of sleep, and discussed with me the importance of good nutritional supplements.

I just found out that Brooke Shields was given Paxil for her postpartum depression. She also suffered a common side effect of Paxil - after stopping it, she became suicidal and homicidal - thinking of driving her car into a wall with her baby in the backseat.

Her doctor may not have known that this is a common problem with Paxil - that people taking it, at the beginning and when they go off the drug, are 4 times more likely to be suicidal. Not just "crazy people" - but otherwise healthy test subjects have proven this.

The doctor probably did not know because the makers of Paxil hid those studies - and the studies that show it is no better than a placebo in handling depression - from the FDA.

But her doctor SHOULD have known that a low progesterone level (which Brooke had, per her own doctor) is not treatable with Paxil. Hormonal therapy helps that.

Here are some valuable resources for information about postpartum depression:
Truth about postpartum depression - not psychiatric pseudoscience

Postpartum Depression and Paxil

About PPD - Postpartum depression

Gentle Birth