Free Republic

In my career as a psychologist, I have talked with hundreds of people previously diagnosed by other professionals with oppositional defiant disorder, attention deficit hyperactive disorder, anxiety disorder and other psychiatric illnesses, and I am struck by (1) how many of those diagnosed are essentially anti-authoritarians, and (2) how those professionals who have diagnosed them are not.

Asperger's syndrome. A myth. An invention by government to punish its victims for government's failures. This is because the government is supposed to always be right to the left. But far from it the government even in its efforts to conceal its failings and the failings of socialism and public education continues to fail and continues to injure innocent people in the name of the greater good. Instead of punishing bullies, instead of allowing educational alternatives, the government has invented a phony and dubious illness called Asperger's syndrome to punish the victims of bullying so our lazy teachers and...

(CNSNews.com) -- Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital and its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry, said that transgenderism is a “mental disorder” that merits treatment, that sex change is “biologically impossible,” and that people who promote sexual reassignment surgery are collaborating with and promoting a mental disorder. Dr. McHugh, the author of six books and at least 125 peer-reviewed medical articles, made his remarks in a recent commentary in the Wall Street Journal, where he explained that transgender surgery is not the solution for people who suffer a “disorder of ‘assumption’” – the notion...

Active ingredient in cannabis delta-9-THC is linked to psychosis effects Scientists do not fully understand mechanisms that cause these effects Yale team found delta-9-THC increases random neural activity, or noise Believe increased neural noise plays role in psychosis triggered by drug Experts say effects are similar to the symptoms of schizophrenia Smoking cannabis can induce psychosis-like effects, similar to the symptoms people diagnosed with schizophrenia endure, scientists have said. While past research as come this this conclusion in the past, the mechanisms underlying these effects are less clear. Now, a team of scientists at Yale School of Medicine have found...

Time Capsule Found at 1950s Mental Hospital, Contains Film With Message For the Future Construction crews in Indiana were shocked to discover a time capsule from 1958 at a former mental hospital. The most exciting part? It contains a film with a message to the future–a message about electroshock therapy and psychiatric drugs. Frustratingly, much of the audio from the film has been lost. What were they saying in the damaged parts of the film? Was it a warning? Did they know something that we don’t?!?! “When the psychiatrists of the future open this time capsule, only they will be...

NEW YORK – At a hearing Monday in Manhattan in which he ruled filmmaker Dinesh D’Souza must continue community service for four more years, U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman said he considers D’Souza’s violation of federal campaign-finance laws to be evidence of a psychological problem and ordered further counseling. D’Souza’s defense counsel Benjamin Brafman provided evidence to the court that the psychiatrist D’Souza was ordered to see found no indication of depression or reason for medication. In addition, the psychologist D’Souza subsequently consulted provided a written statement concluding there was no need to continue the consultation, because D’Souza was...

A federal law enforcement source has identified the man suspected of killing nine people inside a historic black church on Wednesday evening as 21-year-old Dylann Storm Roof. He was captured Thursday morning in Shelby, N.C. ....Since January, Roof has been arrested twice, both at the Columbiana Mall in Columbia, S.C. According to arrest records obtained CBS News investigative producer Laura Strickler, on February 28, Roof went into a Bath and Body Works store wearing all black and asked "out of the ordinary questions," including how many associates were working, when they closed and what time they leave. Mall employees complained...

The man accused of killing nine inside a black church wore pro-apartheid flags, held ‘strong conservative beliefs,’ and made a ‘lot of racist jokes.’ Police said they have arrested Dylann Storm Roof, the suspected killer of nine people at an historic black church in Charleston. Roof, 21, is from Lexington, South Carolina and was taken into custody in Shelby County, North Carolina. At a press conference, police chief Greg Mullen said a citizen's tip led police to his car. He would not comment on whether weapons were found in the vehicle, but said Roof was "cooperative." [Snip] Roof’s father...

The idea that one’s sex is a feeling, not a fact, has permeated our culture and is leaving casualties in its wake. Gender dysphoria should be treated with psychotherapy, not surgery. For forty years as the University Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry at Johns Hopkins Medical School—twenty-six of which were also spent as Psychiatrist in Chief of Johns Hopkins Hospital—I’ve been studying people who claim to be transgender. Over that time, I’ve watched the phenomenon change and expand in remarkable ways. A rare issue of a few men—both homosexual and heterosexual men, including some who sought sex-change surgery because they...

A few years ago, this column discussed certain disturbing findings regarding psychiatry and its relationship with the pharmaceutical industry: The major psychoactive drugs are no better than placebos; the “chemical imbalance” theory of mental illness is mostly nonsense; and psychoactive drugs are being given to children as young as two. The first finding was buried in clinical trials of antidepressants, in which side effects of real drugs (such as dry mouth) could be emulated in an otherwise non-active agent (aka removing “unblinding bias”). In these cases, there was absolutely no difference in efficacy between the antidepressant and the placebo. As...

Last week Rep. Jackie Speier, D-Calif., introduced a bill in Congress asking states to ban sexual orientation conversion therapy, often abbreviated as CT, for minors. California is one of two states that have prohibited licensed professionals from offering the practice, which includes efforts to change not only sexual orientation but also gender identity. While the congressional bill is only a resolution—it encourages states to bar the practice rather than proposing the heavier lift of a federal ban—the idea that CT is dangerous and should be banned is gaining momentum ... What do we actually know about the practice of CT...

"...In interviews with the Tampa Bay Times on Friday, May's friends described their frustrations over the past three months with the area's mental health care system, one that couldn't save May despite desperate pleas from loved ones who watched him dissolve into paranoia before their eyes...... Six months into his job as a prosecutor in the Dona Ana County District Attorney's Office in New Mexico, May couldn't concentrate. The 31-year-old had become so distractible, he told his friends, that he had decided to see a psychologist. He emerged from the appointment with prescriptions for an antidepressant and an attention deficit...

THINK back to your first childhood crush. Maybe it was a classmate or a friend next door. Most likely, through school and into adulthood, your affections continued to focus on others in your approximate age group. But imagine if they did not. By some estimates, 1 percent of the male population continues, long after puberty, to find themselves attracted to prepubescent children. These people are living with pedophilia, a sexual attraction to prepubescents that often constitutes a mental illness. Unfortunately, our laws are failing them and, consequently, ignoring opportunities to prevent child abuse. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental...

If someone came to a doctor and asked him to cut off a perfectly healthy arm because it just felt "wrong" for the arm to be there, should the doctor do it? This isn't an idle question because this does happen with a mental illness called Body Integrity Identity Disorder (BIID). People who have it feel as if they're not supposed to have a certain body part, like an arm or leg. As a general rule, doctors won't remove a healthy body part; so some of these poor deluded people crush, mangle, burn, or otherwise deliberately destroy their own arms...

Now a new study suggests that a simple blood test could soon allow doctors to diagnose clinical depression as easily as they check cholesterol. Researchers at Northwestern University have developed the first blood test that analyzes levels of nine blood biomarkers associated with adult clinical depression. The results of their study were published Tuesday in the journal Translational Psychiatry. The test looks at levels of nine RNA blood markers, which appear to be different among patients with diagnosed clinical depression versus those who do not have depression. RNA are the molecules that help to process DNA genetic code and carry...

It may be common for psychiatric patients who are Muslim to attribute their hallucinations or other symptoms to "jinn," the invisible, devilish creatures in Islamic mythology, researchers in the Netherlands have found. The findings demonstrate one way in which culture may influence how people perceive their psychotic symptoms, and could help Western psychiatrists better understand patients who have an Islamic background. Moreover, in today's connected world, patients may fuse the symbols from their own backgrounds with those of other cultures to explain their symptoms, study leader Dr. Jan Dirk Blom, an assistant professor of psychiatry at the University of Groningen,...

The latest research exploring the topic found that mice without serotonin still reacted to antidepressants. The data could change the way we think about treating the leading cause of disability worldwide.A lack in serotonin might not be entirely to blame for depression, new evidence suggests. It's widely believed that people with depression don't make enough serotonin-a messenger in the brain. But mice lacking serotonin did not exhibit symptoms of depression, reports a study in the journal ACS Chemical Neuroscience. When Prozac — which works primarily by increasing the amount of serotonin in the brain — was introduced in the 1980s,...

Full title: Johns Hopkins Psychiatrist: Transgender is a ‘Mental Disorder’ – Sex Change is ‘Biologically Impossible’ Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital and its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry. (Photo: Johns Hopkins Medicine) (CNSNews.com) -- Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospitaland its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry, said that transgenderism is a “mental disorder” that merits treatment, that sex change is “biologically impossible,” and that people who promote sexual reassignment surgery are collaborating with and promoting a mental disorder. Dr. McHugh, the author of six books and at...

The recent death of Robin Williams has put a spotlight on the matters of depression, how it’s treated, and the role of prescribed and illicit drugs. According to the American Psychiatric Association, “Depression is a serious medical illness that negatively affects how you feel, the way you think and how you act. Depression has a variety of symptoms, but the most common are a deep feeling of sadness or a marked loss of interest or pleasure in activities.” Three primary types are identified: bipolar disorder, major depressive disorder (clinical depression), and persistent depressive disorder. The Association details typical symptoms… Changes...

(Reuters) - Genes that increase the risk of a person developing schizophrenia may also increase the chance they will use cannabis, researchers said on Tuesday after studying more than 1,000 users of the drug. The results chime with previous studies linking schizophrenia and cannabis, but suggest the association may be due to common genes and might not be a causal relationship where cannabis use leads to increased schizophrenia risk. Cannabis is the most widely used illicit drug in the world, and its use is higher among people with schizophrenia than in the general population. "We know that cannabis increases the...