Psychiatric Drug Facts via breggin.com :

“Most psychiatric drugs can cause withdrawal reactions, sometimes including life-threatening emotional and physical withdrawal problems… Withdrawal from psychiatric drugs should be done carefully under experienced clinical supervision.” Dr. Peter Breggin

Feb 10, 2011

Medication Optimization, Choice, and Alternatives: A Statement

the following statement has links at the bottom for peers and professionals to sign in support of choice, informed consent, truth and transparency in mental health services and public policy.

Medication Optimization, Choice, and Alternatives: A Statement 
from Peers in the Consumer/Survivor Recovery Movement

01-24-2011 
We are people with lived experience of mental health hospitalization, including diagnosis and labeling, voluntary and forced treatment, as well as traumatization, poverty, and homelessness. We are concerned that the present standards of care in mental health treatment be enhanced to maximize full recovery.
We affirm the power of each person to discover their own path to recovery, and we are pro- treatment choice regarding taking or not taking medication. Our perspective includes the use of psychotherapy, psychosocial programs, peer support, holistic health, and other community based mental health services and supports. We are concerned about the over-reliance by providers on psychiatric medications. While medications can be useful for many people, our experience and the research evidence show that medication over-reliance can be counterproductive to recovery. We call on mental health prescribers, service providers, policy makers, and the peer movement to:

* Medication Protocols: Adopt sound medication prescription protocols based in shared decision making, informed consent, and the principle of 'do no harm.'
* Diagnosis Education: Educate accurately about what is known and not known about mental illness diagnosis to ensure informed consent to treatment. Patients should be educated that mental illness remains a medical mystery and there is a wide range of possible explanations, rather than only be told mainstream and unproven theories about genetic predisposition, chemical imbalance, and brain disorder.
* Medication Education: Educate accurately about what is known and not known about medication. Patients should understand that medications basically function as psychoactive tranquilizers and stimulants that change brain chemistry and may carry long term risk of worsening their condition that may outweigh possible short term usefulness.
* First-Break Psychosis: Engage with "first break psychosis" -- the initial crisis that first brings a person to mental health services -- with psychosocial alternatives to medication first. If needed, address sleep issues through medication as a first priority. When medications are used to bring a person out of crisis, work with a clear "exit strategy" to help the person move from medication reliance toward non-medication ways of addressing any ongoing or recurring mental distress.
* Rejection of Polypharmacy: Reject the common practice of "polypharmacy," where peers are put on "cocktails" of multiple medications. When medications do not seem to be working for an individual, prescribers should instead look first to non-medication options, rather than adding another medication.
* Recovery Promotion: Promote the expectation of recovery and an attitude of hope and optimism in all treatment settings. Treat mental health crisis as primarily episodic and based on life circumstance. Use caution when prescribing medication during these instances.
* Holistic Health Assessment: Ensure that everyone experiencing mental distress has a comprehensive and holistic health assessment to identify potential physical factors contributing to symptoms. Common physical factors include sleeplessness, food allergies, thyroid imbalance, side effects of medications, and malnutrition.
* Wellness Programs: Ensure access to a wide range of supported wellness programs as alternatives to medication, including healthy sleep education, exercise, peer support, therapy, nutrition, and self-care education such as the Wellness Recovery and Action Plan, Person-Centered Planning, and Psychiatric Advance Directives.
* Children and Alternatives: Work actively to provide non-medication alternatives to families and children facing behavioral problems, with the aim of not prescribing psychiatric medications to children.
* Information on Reducing and Coming Off Psychiatric Medications: Provide information and support through
support groups and literature about reducing and coming off psychiatric medications to everyone, not with the
expectation that everyone can or should reduce or come off, but with the understanding that each person is different and everyone should have the opportunity to discover for themselves what works best for them.
* Medication Optimization: Train providers and peers in medication optimization, empowerment, trauma-informed care, and education, including reducing and coming off medications.
* Healing Trauma: Educate patients in the potential role that trauma may have in their experience and the possible importance of healing trauma for recovery.
* Patient Education and Consent: Ensure patients' rights are protected when providing patient education and
informed consent, including decision-making regarding medication use and discontinuation. This includes the
ability of patient to seek a second opinion and obtain the latest known information about side-effects and research about medication cessation or continuance. Patient preferences i.e. to reduce or come off medication, should not be contingent upon ongoing receipt of other mental health services, housing or income subsidies.  We express our support for all efforts to bring these principles into practice, especially the upcoming February 11-12, 2011 Medication Optimization Symposium convened by providers and policy makers, and inspired by the important work of journalist Robert Whitaker and his book, “Anatomy of An Epidemic."
This statement was coordinated by Laura Van Tosh, Will Hall, Amy Zulich, and Ann Kasper. Initial endorsers include Lauren Spiro of the National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery and Oryx Cohen of the National Empowerment Center.
For more information please contact portlandhearingvoices@gmail.com
Please add Name and Organization (identification purposes only)  at this webpage:
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?l=en&formkey=dFFjMWVDS0tONEk4OTBsblZMU1JVTnc6MQ#gid=0
Alternate url for page: http://bit.ly/h1T3Fk
Download this statement as a pdf file here:
http://www.portlandhearingvoices.net/files/MedicationOptimizationChoiceandAlternativesPeerSignOnStatement01-2011.pdf

3 comments:

Duane Sherry said...

Thanks for posting, Becky.
I signed it.

By the way, apparently if you leave comments on D.J. Jaffe's Huffington Post blog that are too controversial, the comments just dissapear.

I appreciate the comments you've made on his blog along the way.... We've both left some that don't mince words, that get right to the point, passionate comments based upon facts, etc.

I've noticed that some of yours have been withheld (left unpublished)... Mine were published, on the past four or five posts, until the other day, when they all disappeared, vanished, erased, gone... outta here.

Amazing, really.

I posted a comment about the absurdity of the Treatment Advocacy Center's statistics - namely their claim that the U.S. population has a one percent suicide rate, people with "bipolar" between 15 and 17 percent.

I simply pointed out that a one percent suicide rate in the general population would mean 3 million suicides per year, and for the "bipolar" population about 1 million suicides...

I reminded D.J. Jaffe that the suicide rate in this country is not millions... hardly. It is about 30 thousand per year, not millions and millions... I also pointed out that if he were going to be take seriously as an "advocate" that a good place to start would be the facts, the truth... and not scare tactics, especially those surrounding suicide/homicide.

The comment was posted on his Huffington Post blog, and then the next day, it disappeared, along with many others from four or five previous posts.

So, just a quick warning... If you have something to post on D.J. Jaffe's blog, don't be suprised if he decides to just get rid of it a couple of days, or a few weeks later.

He's a piece of work.

I trust him as far as I could throw him.
With his "statistics".
With his "advocacy".

A great post, if you ever have time would be to go to the TAC site, and look over their statistics on suicide and homicide, and then compare what they cite to the facts...

Amazing.
They claim the overall suicide rate in the U.S. is one percent, it is actually 11/100,000... or 1/100th of one percent.

If "bipolar" people those with "schizophrenia" have a suicide rate that is 10 times the national average, it would still be only 1/10 of one percent.... not 15 or 17 percent!

Duane Sherry, M.S.

Unknown said...

Duane,
I noticed that Jaffe is not able to be confronted with the facts...He is all about spouting his opinions. Recently he sent out a tweet where he had a link to his "reporting" and advocacy columns.

I am sick of the willfully ignorant and the willfully blind. It is a free country and they have right to be as stupid as they like---why do they insist trying to lower the bar for everyone? I am not trying to control stupid people; and I really wish so many did not have a need for controlling others.

Did you see my post on the Practice Parameters? American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry estimates 50% of children that take antipsychotics will get Tardive Dyskinisia... Truly Stupid to say the least.

Regards,
Becky

Duane Sherry said...

Becky,

Thanks for being out there.

Duane

LinkWithin

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...

FAIR USE NOTICE: This may contain copyrighted
(C) material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Such material is made available for educational purposes, to advance understanding of human rights, democracy, scientific, moral, ethical, and social justice issues, etc. It is believed that this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in Title 17 U.S.C. section 107 of the US Copyright Law. This material is distributed without profit.