Warning: Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health

Rating:
Summary: It realy is - Your life - Your choice.
Review: For years doctors and scientists have been saying there is a direct link between health and mental states. What comes first the chicken or the egg? Well Dr William Glasser has devoted a lifetime to this research and he has come up with the result of unhappiness is the result of our choices. His research indicates that having a good strong family with and happy uplifting relationships can recreate wellness. Of course he does say that there are some people who do have physical and genetic conditions that cause depression, migraines and other mood related problems. Yet he goes on to say, that he believes the majority of our problems are the result of our choices. The DR also implies that its when we force our choices on others that our relationships break down, this is what I would call the control factor, the result is that relationships stifle, and break down due to the resentments and hostility.
Dr Glasser points out there are 7 bad habits, which lead to becoming ineffective. In the book Roadblocks to Communication they say there are 12, but Dr Glasser has condensed this to the 7 most destructive of them all. A mind opening read and I would highly recommend this book to people struggling with their relationships and life choices: TRUITY WILLIAMS {wanabelong(dot)com.} Author of BOOK OF CHOICES, WORKBOOK OF CHOICES AND The family board game TRUITY CHOICES


Rating:
Summary: Incredible
Review: It's amazing how much false information can be so easily believed. There are hundreds of research studies that have proven the efficacy of psychotropic medication, studies that have been examined and performed by the goverment, profesional organizations and independent researchers. Their efficacy and side effects are well known, the same as medications for other illnesses like diabetes or hypertension. It would be considered ridiculous to say that antibiotics are a ploy from drug companies, yet people can beleive that "brain" drugs are unnecesary and harmful. It's because of the stigma associated with mental ilness that this can be done. By attacking one of the treatment alternatives, you can attack the diagnosis and avoid the stigma.
However, in doing this you are also hurting the patient,i.e. he is not ill, he is choosing to be that way. As a psychiatrist in training I deal daily with idividuals who are unable to function because of the severity of their mental illnes. Persons who run naked in the streets trying to control airplanes, persons crying because the voices don't leave them alone, persons so malnourished that they require cardiac monitoring yet still believe they are overweight.This book does them and you a great diservice. Mental illness is real and medication is one of the treatments, sadly sometimes the only one.
This review probably will not change the minds of many, as we live in culture of suspecting everyone and blaming somebody else. But consider, those who speak in favor of Dr. Glassner (who is sadly out of touch with the medical profesion) are people with little experience in mental health or individuals shamelessly pluging their own produtcs (like Glassner himself).

Rating:
Summary: Warning: This Book Can Be Hazardous To Your Liberty
Review: Reading William Glasser's latest book "Warning: Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous to Your Mental Health" reminded me of a chapter in Thomas Szasz's 1978 book The Myth of Psychotherapy. Szasz argued in this book that psychotherapy is not a form of modern medical treatment, but a mix of religion, rhetoric and repression. It was in chapter 10 of this book that Szasz referred to Jung as a "Pastor Without A pulpit." Glasser definitely fits the description of a pastor without a pulpit and, like Jung before him, he is honest enough to admit he real isn't practicing medicine in his psychotherapy business, a.k.a. the William Glasser Institute.

The main premise of the book is one I can support. Most people getting labeled "mentally ill," including so-call "schizophrenics," today don't really have a mental illness but problems of living. By "mental illness" Glasser means diagnosable neurological disorders, like Alzheimer's or Parkinson diseases. To his credit, Glasser is not a believer in modern biological psychiatry. He is a believer in a theory he created called "Choice Theory," which he expounds on in much greater detail in a previous book. The basic premise of Choice Theory is that we choose to lead unhappy lives and people leading unhappy lives can do plenty to help themselves. People leading unhappy lives are either trying too hard to control the lives of other family members who annoy them, or are being controlled by other family members.

Glasser creates a framework for ordinary people to improve their happiness, or mental health as the author terms it, without mental health professionals. It's called a "Choice Theory Focus Group." This is a group of people who get together to talk about their problems of living from a Choice Theory perspective, cry and share a big group hug together (Yes, the author records such a moment with the group of people he met to write this book and it was a truly icky moment that felt contrived to play on the emotions of the reader). To demonstrate how a Choice Theory Focus Group might work in practice, Glasser starts one up for the purpose of writing the book and records what happens.

I have no problem with groups of people getting together and forming one of these focus groups Glasser writes about, provided they do so voluntarily and I don't have to pay for it through tax payer supported insurance, or "mental health parity" mandates. The clue I got early on in the book that I may not like it happens to be on page six. Here the registered trademark logo is placed next to the term "Choice Theory." This was a dead give away that I was dealing with an evangelist for his religion as much, as I was dealing with a teacher of an idea.

Glasser mentions Thomas Szasz early on his book as well. He only mentions his classic tome arguing that psychiatry is fake medicine The Myth of Mental Illness. He never mentions Szasz's principled opposition to involuntary commitment and at the end of the book the reader learns why. He is in favor of involuntary commitment and he is "concerned that I have not made clear what I would do if I were confronted with an individual who behaves in a way that appear to family, friends and even police, to be a threat to himself or others. In that situation, I strongly believe that the individual needs immediate placement in a treatment facility where, if necessary, he is put in a secure environment."

Glasser's concern here isn't that somebody who has committed no crime is being robbed of their liberty in involuntary commitment proceedings, but "that the present law requires a DSM-IV diagnosis, in order to compel a person to be treated." Glasser claims to not believe in mental illness, but he is in favor of locking people up to be "treated" for it. Glasser also claims to be a follower of Peter Breggin, but he apparently hasn't read Breggin's strongest statement against involuntary commitment in his book The Heart Of Being Helpful. Breggin defends his position against involuntary commitment by arguing, correctly, that there isn't a shred of evidence locking somebody up against his/her will is the least bit helpful. In this respect, Breggin has proven to be a good student of Szasz.

Glasser states at the end of the first chapter that "From years of experience, I can state without reservation that, while I can't guarantee better mental health, I can guarantee that nothing in this book can harm you." When people are involuntarily locked up in an institution, all Glasser "can hope for in such cases is that the family members, who are concerned about his mental health, will read this book and prevail up the court to recommend, or the treating psychiatrist to consider, the patient choice theory as all or part of his treatment." He can't hope for abolishing involuntary commitment, but he can hope to make a buck off of the misfortune of somebody getting locked up against his/her will. In the end "choice" theory ends where involuntary committment begins.

Glasser asserts near the end of his book that "My ideas are being applied to an entire community in Corning, New York," and that "It is my vision to teach choice theory to the world." Whether or not the world wants to join Glasser's religion is another matter. -Rick Giombetti, http://rjgiombetti.blogspot.com

Rating:
Summary: Great BOOK and a Great INTERVIEW
Review: There is growing scientific evidence that happiness is directly related to our being mentally fit. So is it true that mental illness is caused by unhappiness, rather than chemical imbalances in our brains?

Dr. William Glasser has devoted over 40 years of his professional life proving that so-called mental illnesses can be cured (or made healthy again) by having happy marital, family, teacher-student, and manager-worker relationships. He believes it's time to remove the plague of the old school of psychiatry, which actually causes a physical impairment of the brain (where there once was none) and then hinders a person's chance for true happiness and mental health.

If you, or someone you know, have symptoms such as depression, attention deficit, anger, hyperactivity, migraine headaches, anxiety or panic attacks, then I urge you to get this book and read it.

Dr. Glasser is an internationally recognized psychiatrist who is best known as the creator of Reality Therapy, a method of psychotherapy that is taught all over the world. His approach is considered non-traditional, because he does not believe in a person being labeled mentally ill unless something organically wrong with the brain.

The major purpose of this book is to teach the world "Choice Theory," which is aimed at proactively creating mental health through happy human relationships. In a nut shell, Choice Theory says people can only be responsible for their own choices, and by forcing our choices on other people we cause a break down in the relationship, which in turn makes us very unhappy. In our unhappy state, our perfectly healthy brain acts in such a way as to try to regain control over the other person by inflicting symptoms that are commonly attributed to mental disease on ourselves.

For instance, when someone is diagnosed with depression, they are choosing to depress (they are "depressing") so that they can gain the upperhand (its a form of getting bad attention). However, when choose to proactively control their own thoughts and actions in a mature way, thus gainning the respect and admiration of the people they love and care for, they will return to a very happy state and not need to use the external contol mechanism of "depressing." The same works for paining, panicing, angering, crazying, etc.

Dr. Glasser points out there are "7 Deadly Habits" that lead to totally ineffective people. We use them to try to gain control over others, wrongly thinking that they will make us happy. They are:

Critizing
Blaming
Complaining
Nagging
Threatening
Punishing (Abusing)
and Bribing

I interviewed Dr. Glasser on "The Inside Success Show" and he was inspiring! If I hadn't already believed in the power of great relationships to make people happy, I would after talking with him.

Here's some other things I learned from Dr. Glasser:

** How Dr. Glasser found out about the 'dark side' of Psychiatry
** Why common brain drugs like Prozac and Ritalin make you ill
** What 7 good habits help you to avoid anger, depression, and anxiety
** How to quickly turn around sour relationships using Choice Theory
** Why it is always better to get rid of false beliefs than punish others
** How to supercharge your mental health with a little known "phrase" that you can say to yourself
** And much, much more ...

If you want to rid yourself of "UNHAPPY-itis" and be completely mentally fit (it's like the difference between being out-of-shape and being fit enough to run a marathon), then I highly recommend reading this book.

Randy (Dr. Proactive) Gilbert, Host of The Inside Success Show (www.TheInsideSuccessShow.com) and best-selling author of "Success Bound"

Rating:
Summary: Good insight into the sham of biological psychiatry
Review: This book is a very good expose of the fraud of biological psychiatry and the alliance between psychiatry and the pharmaceutical companies to get as many people as possible on drugs for the longest possible time for the maximum profits. There is absolutely no science behind the idea of a biochemical imbalance which is nothing but a marketing device for drugs. Psychiatry used to be a noble profession with people such as Dr. Glasser but around 1980 when they saw their professional and financial existence threatened by the increasing number of nonmedical psychotherapists they decided to go with their unique market niche which was psychotropic drugs. They simply proclaimed without any scientific evidence whatsover and against all the accumlated knowledge and insights of the great psychiatrists that almost every mental disorder was caused by a biochemical imbalance in the drugs which they had available to prescribe. Then the pharmaceutical companies used their wealth to market this absurd idea to the public so as to convince people that they needed the "chemical balancer" that the company makes and that the psychiatrists have to prescribe. Other medical doctors who know nothing about mental disorders naively accepted this, and now they too can make money by including "mental health" in their practices.
The public finds it inconceivable that such a fraud could have completely permeated the medical profession, since they understandably assume that their doctors would base their practices only on real science. So what is the result of this: Among other things preschoolers given multiple psychotropic drugs for nonexistent diseases to correct nonexistent biochemical imbalances with drugs which have no evidence of efficacy and no proof of their safety. The drugs may now cause real brain damage while the child is psychologically damaged by being labeled with a mental disorder. But each such child will provide years of profits or become what Glasser aptly calls "the geese that lay the golden egg". This whole thing is fraudulent and terribly damaging to so many people and to our society as a whole.

Rating:
Summary: A Real Prescription For Mental Health
Review: Warning: Psychiatry Can Be Hazardous To Your Mental Health pulls back the sheeps clothing that currently cloaks the rabid pharmaceutical industry and the misdirected psychiatric profession. In place of these modern day snake charmers and their magical elixirs, Dr. Glasser offers a sound explanation for, and solution to, the epidemic of mental illness that we have allowed (our choice) to overrun us.

Readers will learn why drug companies and current "mental illness providers" don't really want us to become healthy - Big Bucks! Rarely spoken of "mind drug" side effects (physical and mental) will also be discussed in detail, explaining why people on the current course of treatments seldom get better. And thankfully, Glasser offers a low-cost, no risk replacement remedy to help the millions of people out there, who are very unhappy and simply "mentally out of shape."

People who do not want to take responsibility for their problems or who demand instant gratification (even when pain and suffering are the long term consequences) will not find this book helpful. Those of us who think in terms of "internal control" and realize that depression (we all feel its touch now and then) is really a valid sign and symptom that we are currently not meeting one of our "basic needs" or reaching our personal "wants", will be enlightened and filled with hope after reading Bill's recent work.

Read it. Use it! Share It!!