I’m still on August hiatus, but here’s a two-hour lecture on the history of mass media to tide you over until September! This is Lesson One of my three lesson Mass Media: A History online course. Buy the complete course for audio and video downloads, a hyperlinked transcript of each lesson and a study guide with questions and reading recommendations. Enjoy!
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Parents Should Not Expect a Long-Term Benefit
By Peter A. McCullough, MD, MPH | Courageous Discourse™ | August 12, 2024
In 1991, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) first recommended that all infants in the United States receive the hepatitis B vaccine at birth or within 1–2 months of age. The goal was to prevent maternal transmission of the hepatitis B virus (HBV) and reduce the incidence of infections in babies. Many healthy mothers without hepatitis B or risk factors such as IV drug abuse with normal infants ask what is the benefit in their babies?
The CDC recommends that children receive three doses of the hepatitis B vaccine as part of their routine childhood vaccine schedule:
What happens later in life when young people go into the medical field and are potentially exposed to hepatitis B in sick patients? Posuwan et al evaluated a prospective cohort of young people (mean age 18 years) going into medicine and evaluated their antibody titers as a proxy of enduring immunity to hepatitis B.
The investigators were disappointed to find that only 6.9% had long-lasting immunity to hepatitis B, and thus underwent booster doses upon entering medical school. It is unclear when immunity is lost in this cohort. The results are important for parents to understand that the hepatitis B shots given at birth are only applicable if the mother has hepatitis B or serious risks for carrying it including active IV drug abuse. Otherwise the vaccine schedule for this illness has little value at that age.
By W.M. Peterson | Truth Blitzkrieg | August 5, 2024
Former U.S. Congressman Ron Paul once asserted, “There’s no history to show that Iranians are aggressive people. When is the last time they invaded a country? Over 200 years ago!”
As with many other important matters, Congressman Paul was absolutely correct; Iran has never been a warmongering state, unlike adversarial belligerents Israel and the USA.
Despite deep state meddling in the Persian nation’s affairs (e.g., the 1953 coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh and the 2020 murder of Major General Qasem Soleimani), Iran has never posed the slightest threat to America. Why, then, are we being maneuvered into war when there is absolutely no national interest at stake?
It’s somewhat of a rhetorical question, I admit, since by now most people who aren’t cognitively impaired understand that Israel is trying like hell to steer America’s military into the Middle East to shed more blood on its behalf. The recent provocations towards Iran are but the latest installments in an ongoing saga we’ve witnessed play out repeatedly since 2001.
Americans should know by now what to expect. After having been led by the nose into 20 years of costly wars primarily for the enrichment and comfort of Jewish intruders squatting in the Holy Land, you’d think we might have learned a thing or two about international Zionist statecraft. It’s not as if their methods of fomenting a climate of war have changed. It’s not as if we weren’t told what to expect.
In fact we were told, by none other than former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, General Wesley Clark.
During a 2007 interview on Amy Goodman’s political talk show Democracy Now, General Clark spoke about a detailed war agenda that was revealed to him by members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff when he visited the Pentagon just ten days after 9/11:
“One of the generals called me in. He said, ‘Sir, you’ve got to come in and talk to me a second… We’ve made the decision we’re going to war with Iraq.’ This was on or about the 20th of September. I said, ‘We’re going to war with Iraq? Why?’ He said, ‘I don’t know…I guess they don’t know what else to do.’ So I said, ‘Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?’ He said, ‘No, no…there’s nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq…I guess it’s like we don’t know what to do about terrorists, but we’ve got a good military and we can take down governments.’ And he said, ‘I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail.”
A few weeks later, Clark returned to the Pentagon and met with the same man, recalling:
“I said, ‘Are we still going to war with Iraq?’ And he said, ‘Oh, it’s worse than that.’ He reached over his desk. He picked up a piece of paper and he said, ‘I just got this down from upstairs’ — meaning the Secretary of Defense’s office — ‘today.’ And he said, ‘This is a memo that describes how we’re going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran.’ I said, ‘Is it classified?’ He said, ‘Yes sir.’ I said, ‘Well don’t show it to me.’ And I saw him a year or so ago, and I said, ‘You remember that?’ He said, ‘Sir, I didn’t show you that memo! I didn’t show it to you.’”
General Clark was having these conversations at a time when the Pentagon was entirely under the thumb of Zionist Jews who had been plotting and preparing for a global war on terror for many years prior to 2001. The battle plan disclosed to Clark is not of American provenance; it is an Israeli war stratagem smuggled into our foreign policy by duplicitous foreign agents. You’ll notice that almost every country named by the general has been ‘dealt with’ militarily in one form or another in the years following 9/11, Iran being the lone exception. That status is likely to change real soon as Israel continues to escalate tensions in the region. AIPAC control over U.S. politicians ensures there won’t be so much as a whimper of protest from the ‘American Colossus’ in response to Zionist saber-rattling and increased provocations. And, rest assured, America will defend Israel to the death when the situation in the Middle East reaches critical mass. American citizens, and especially ‘conservatives,’ need to understand how they’re being emotionally manipulated into supporting yet another war that is entirely at variance with our interests and could only spell doom for our already beleaguered nation.
Netanyahu’s War on Terror
On July 24th, Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu swaggered into the U.S. Capitol to address a joint session of Congress and to cultivate material and emotional support for his upcoming war with Iran. During the course of his nagging hour-long harangue, the Israeli prime minister received 58 standing ovations from submissive stooges on both sides of the aisle, proving once more that Pat Buchanan’s description of Capitol Hill as “Israeli-occupied territory” is as true today as it was 30 years ago.
The AIPAC-funded adulation shown this Hebrew war criminal was a sickening sight to behold. Former US Marine and United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter summed it up nicely:
“Israel has bragged about buying the US Congress. And this is the result, where a war criminal—a man who has been accused of genocide, who has arrest warrants being prepared for him by the International Court of Justice, a man who heads a State that has been defined legally as an “apartheid state,” carrying out an illegal and unjust occupation and, again, genocide of the Palestinian people—has demanded an audience to the Congress that he has bought and paid for. That’s what’s happening here. We must see it in that perspective. This isn’t an honor being given to Netanyahu by the US Congress. This is the US Congress obeying the commands of the man who leads the nation that owns the US Congress.”
In one of his most memorable lines of the day, Netanyahu affirmed with a straight face, “there is no place for political violence in democracies!” (He made the comment while referring to the recent shooting at a Trump rally in Pennsylvania.) Within one week, however, Israel had assassinated Hamas political leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran; Hezbollah commander Fuad Shukr in Beirut; and Al Jazeera journalist Ismail al-Ghoul in Gaza. The recent killing spree occurred only three months after IDF jets bombed the Iranian embassy in Syria killing 16 people, including seven diplomats. “There is no place for political violence in democracies!” quoth the mass-murdering psychopathic Jew, who once attended a two-day anniversary celebration commemorating the Irgun’s 1946 bombing of the King David Hotel.
Bibi the Butcher, that distinguished darling of America’s political class, has spent his entire adult life promoting Israel’s War on Terror.
In 1979, he and his father Benzion partnered with Irgun terrorist-turned-prime minister Menachem Begin to organize the Jerusalem Conference on International Terrorism, a three-day event intended to “launch an international propaganda offensive to promote and exploit the issue of international terrorism,” as Philip Paull explains in his 1982 book, International Terrorism: The Propaganda War. The event was held at the Yonatan Institute, named after Netanyahu’s deceased older brother, and its purpose was to bring Western political leaders together to discuss international terrorism and the possibility of manipulating America’s military into the Middle East to wage a war on terror. The elder Netanyahu (born Mileikowsky) said in his opening address, “This conference was called to serve as a beginning of a new process — the purpose of rallying democracies of the world to a struggle against terrorism and the dangers it represents.” (George H.W. Bush spoke on the last day of the event.)
From that point on, the Western media dutifully disseminated the propaganda of the Jerusalem Conference and Benjamin Netanyahu would produce a number of books, articles and speeches throughout the 1980s and 90s promoting the doctrine of a global War on Terror. As Philip Paull wrote in 1982, “This ‘anti-terrorist’ propaganda campaign was and is being conducted in a style reminiscent of war-time ‘psychological warfare’ by journalists serving as conduits and spreaders of misinformation originating in Jerusalem.”<
Forecasting War
Netanyahu’s plan to haul America’s military into the Middle East to wage war on Israel’s enemies became a reality after September 11, 2001, a day he claimed was “very good” for Israel. (Source: New York Times, Sept. 12, 2001)
Many Americans still believe the War on Terror was launched in response to the 9/11 attacks. The fact is, however, the War on Terror was conceived many years before 2001, and the atrocities perpetrated in New York City and Washington D.C. were merely the excuse to make the war agenda operational.
In February 1982, the World Zionist Organization published ‘The Yinon Plan: A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties.’ The document was published in Hebrew but was later translated into English by the eminent professor Israel Shahak of Hebrew University. It was written by military strategist Oded Yinon and detailed a plan to break up large Arab nations like Iraq and Syria and transform them into tiny ethnic statelets that would be incapable of defending themselves against Israel’s superior military might. Yinon wrote:
“The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unique areas… is Israel’s primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target.”
Yinon’s vision for Iraq came to fruition following the illegal American invasion, launched on the Jewish revenge holiday Purim, in 2003. Almost immediately, America’s conquering forces disbanded Iraq’s military and the entire country soon descended into civil war between competing factions of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds. Prior to the invasion, Iraq had been a significant impediment to Israeli domination of the Middle East, which is why the Jews in control of America’s foreign policy selected it for annihilation. And, as an added bonus, there were the financial spoils of war to acquire as well. Oded Yinon: “Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand…is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel’s targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria.”
What Yinon described in 1982 is the Eretz Yisrael (Greater Israel) project that Americans have been fighting and dying for since 2001. America’s military is not fighting terrorism; it is reorganizing the Middle East to conform with Israel’s whims and Iran is the crown jewel. This war agenda has already bankrupted America morally and financially and has destroyed the erstwhile superpower’s standing on the world stage. As noted Middle East expert Linda S. Heard wrote in an article for Counterpunch (April 25, 2006), “Oded Yinon’s 1982 ‘Zionist Plan for the Middle East’ is in large part taking shape. Is this pure coincidence? Was Yinon a gifted psychic? Perhaps! Alternately, we in the West are victims of a long-held agenda not of our making and without doubt not in our interest.”
A Clean Break and PNAC
An updated version of The Yinon Plan was drafted for Netanyahu in 1996 during his first year as Israel’s prime minister. Titled ‘A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm,’ the document was assembled for Netanyahu by neocon hawks Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser. It specifically called for the removal from power of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Bashar al-Assad in Syria and recommended military confrontations with both countries as well as with Lebanon and Iran. One year later, Perle, Feith and Wurmser would all join the newly-founded Project for a New American Century (PNAC) and continue their strategizing for Netanyahu’s War on Terror.
PNAC was an elite neoconservative think-tank founded in 1997 by influential Zionists William Kristol and Robert Kagan. The majority of the group’s membership was comprised of fanatical Jews with deep ties to the state of Israel, many of whom came to power just prior to 9/11 within the administration of George W. Bush. These include: Dov Zakheim, Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith, Elliot Abrams, Richard Perle, David Frum, Robert Zoellick, David Wurmser, and the convicted felon Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby.
The overarching philosophy of PNAC was based on the ideology of Jewish intellectual Leo Strauss. Like many of today’s neoconservatives, Strauss was an ex-Trotskyite who promoted Machiavellian tactics and the use of lies as necessary political tools while a professor of political science at the University of Chicago. Significantly, he was also a dedicated Zionist and a follower of the terrorist Ze’ev Jabotinsky. On the surface these ideological alignments appear to be contradictory, unless some understanding of the overwhelming Jewish role in both Zionism and Communism can be apprehended. Both were pioneered by the same man, Moses Hess, and both are Jewish revolutionary movements whose sole aim is to do whatever is best for Jewish interests even if it means employing seemingly opposing methods. Far-right Zionism (Jewish nationalism) and far-left Communism (Jewish internationalism) are two sides of the same shekel working in tandem as a lethal pincer for global hegemony. Attempting to explain these amorphous tendencies, Jewish historian and political theorist Murray Rothbard once noted that neoconservatives “moved from cafeteria Trotskyites to apologists for the US warfare state without missing a beat.”
In September 2000, PNAC published a 90-page document titled ‘Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategies, Forces, and Resources For a New Century.’ The document, co-authored by Rabbi Dov Zakheim, called for America to initiate a series of regime change wars in the Middle East and North Africa with an emphasis on Iraq, Syria, Libya, Lebanon and Iran. The authors of the report emphasized the importance for America to “fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars” but acknowledged that “the process of change is likely to be a long one, absent some catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor.” One year to the month of the document’s publication America got what George W. Bush referred to at the time as ‘our Pearl Harbor.’
Conclusion
And so America teeters once again on the brink of war due to our fatal attraction to the Zionist state. The man who claims “there is no place for political violence in democracies” presides over a country that has made political assassinations its stock-and-trade and is undoubtedly responsible for the 9/11 attacks which activated its long-held War on Terror scheme. Speaking to an audience at Bar Ilan University in 2008, the war criminal recipient of 58 standing ovations from the US Congress reiterated his belief that the 9/11 attacks were in fact good for Israel: “We are benefitting from one thing, and that is the attack on the Twin Towers and Pentagon, and the American struggle in Iraq.” (Source: Ha’aretz, April 16, 2008)
*Nota bene: Netanyahu listed three things, not one, but to the mind of an architect of the War on Terror, all three blend seamlessly together.*
The Israeli prime minister and his minions have nothing but contempt for America. That won’t change regardless of how many standing ovations he receives from a goyische congress or how many US dollars flow into his over-stuffed war chest. In 2001, he was filmed having a conversation with Israeli settlers about ways in which he intended to undermine the US-led Oslo Peace Accords that had been signed in 1993 and 1995. During one such conversation, he crowed: “I know what America is… America is a thing you can move very easily, move it in the right direction. They won’t get in the way.” He goes on to boast about his ability to manipulate the US in the ongoing Israeli/Palestinian peace process, saying, according to the Washington Post (July 16, 2010), “They asked me before the election if I’d honor [the Oslo Accords]… I said I would, but … I’m going to interpret the accords in such a way that would allow me to put an end to this galloping forward to the ’67 borders. How did we do it? Nobody said what defined military zones were. Defined military zones are security zones; as far as I’m concerned, the entire Jordan Valley is a defined military zone. Go argue.”
Benjamin Netanyahu ladies and gentleman. A man whose military has killed upwards of over 186,000 Palestinians this year alone and has bombed hospitals, schools, churches, aid convoys and refugee camps; a man who sanctions the anal rape of prisoners; a man American politicians hail as a conquering hero; a man millions of evangelical ‘Christians’ believe we should sacrifice more of our children’s blood for.
How honesty leads to the trauma of unnecessary psychiatric hospitalization
By Dr. Roger McFillin | Radically Genuine | August 8, 2024
Picture a soul in turmoil, wrapped in the suffocating embrace of despair. In the sanctuary of a therapist’s office, they finally find the courage to voice the unspeakable:
“Sometimes, I think about not being here anymore.”
The words hang heavy in the air, a testament to the crushing weight of their pain, loneliness, and emptiness. This confession, born from a place of vulnerability and trust, should be the beginning of a deeper healing journey.
During these intense emotional struggles, it’s important to understand that thoughts of escape, including suicide, are a common human response to overwhelming pain. There’s a vast chasm between contemplating an end to suffering and actively planning to end one’s life.
Context is everything.
The mind, overwhelmed by anguish, may grasp at any perceived exit, including the idea of nonexistence. But voicing these thoughts doesn’t signal imminent danger. Rather, it’s often a cry for understanding, a desperate reach for connection in the depths of isolation.
Skilled and experienced therapists understand this.
The very act of sharing these dark musings with a trusted professional can be profoundly cathartic. It’s in these raw, unfiltered moments that true therapy has the potential to work its magic. A skilled therapist, one who can navigate these turbulent waters without succumbing to panic, becomes a lifeline. They offer not just a listening ear, but a steady hand to guide the patient through the storm, helping them to contextualize their pain and find hope in the midst of despair. This is the essence of healing – not in avoiding the darkness, but in facing it together, unafraid.
Fast forward to mental healthcare in 2024.
As the demand for mental health services skyrockets, we’re witnessing a disturbing trend: the proliferation of ill-equipped therapists flooding the market. What was once a skilled profession has, in many cases, devolved into little more than paid listening.
The rise of virtual therapy platforms, while increasing accessibility, has created a cohort of isolated practitioners. Lured by the promise of higher profits without the overhead of a physical office, many therapists now find themselves cut off from the vital support networks of supervisors and mentors. Without this crucial guidance, they’re left to navigate treacherous emotional waters alone, often defaulting to a “cover your ass” mentality when confronted with challenging situations.
Simultaneously, as large hospital networks muscle into the mental health arena, therapy is increasingly reduced to an appendage of psychiatry. The nuanced art of healing is replaced by a simplistic “take your pills and manage your mental illness” approach. This medicalization of human suffering is fundamentally dehumanizing, reducing complex emotional states to mere chemical imbalances.
The consequences of this shift are stark. Individuals brave enough to voice thoughts of death are no longer met with understanding, but with fear. Their pain is hastily labeled as emerging “mental illness,” triggering a rigid psychiatric protocol that leads to overmedicalization and unnecessary hospitalization.
“I want you to go to the emergency room”
The knee-jerk mantra of risk-averse therapists and doctors who’ve been brainwashed to treat every fleeting suicidal thought like a ticking time bomb.
They herd the emotionally vulnerable into sterile, overpriced hospital rooms, mistaking cold fluorescent lights and paper gowns for actual care. It’s a convenient way to abdicate responsibility, slap a band-aid on deep-seated pain, and pad the pockets of our broken healthcare system – all while patting themselves on the back for “saving lives.”
A Rise In Psychiatric Hospitalizations
The U.S. mental health care system is at a breaking point, buckling under the weight of an insatiable demand for inpatient care. Recent federal data, as reported by CBS News, reveals a system in crisis: hospitals and clinics are operating at a staggering 144% capacity for inpatient psychiatric beds. This alarming statistic, courtesy of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), exposes the raw nerve of a long-festering problem – a dire shortage of psychiatric inpatient facilities.
Yet, this begs a crucial question: Is this surge in demand a genuine need, or merely a symptom of a more insidious systemic failure?
The COVID-19 pandemic has cast a long shadow over youth mental health, with alarming consequences. A recent study comparing mental health emergency admissions among young people before and after the outbreak reveals a disturbing trend. In the two years following March 2020, youth psychiatric emergencies surged by an astonishing 116.7% compared to the same period in 2018-2020. Even more concerning, this new wave of patients skewed younger and were less likely to have prior psychiatric histories.
These findings suggest a troubling shift: the pandemic appears to have triggered new, earlier onset psychiatric manifestations in previously unaffected youth. Moreover, these emergencies lead to psychiatric drugs as a matter of course.
Which leads to worsening outcomes.
Primary Care Driving Hospitalizations
The mental health crisis among youth has been sensationalized to a dangerous degree, leading to misguided interventions that may do more harm than good. In pediatric offices across the country the use of quick, invalid screening measures that reduce complex emotional states to simple checkboxes is the primary assessment approach. These cursory assessments, administered by primary care doctors ill-equipped to handle nuanced mental health concerns, are causing undue panic.
A single checked box on these questionable screening measures can set off a chain reaction of fear-mongering, with parents being urgently directed to emergency rooms for what may be nothing more than typical teenage angst or temporary emotional struggles. This knee-jerk approach not only overwhelms emergency services unnecessarily but also risks pathologizing normal developmental experiences.
The media’s portrayal of primary care doctors drowning in a youth mental health crisis obscures a more insidious reality: these physicians, despite their best intentions, are conducting mental health evaluations in alarmingly short timeframes without the proper training to contextualize their findings.
The result is a perfect storm of misunderstanding, where the vulnerability and complex emotions inherent to adolescence are stripped of their context and hastily labeled as mental health emergencies. This approach not only fails to address the real needs of struggling youth but also potentially traumatizes families and clogs a healthcare system already stretched to its limits.
Even if these youth are not hospitalized they are going to placed on a drug that will at least double the risk of suicide, if not more. Lexapro is often prescribed despite the 6-fold increase in suicide risk!
The Trauma of Psychiatric Detention
When desperate parents drag a sullen teenager to the ER, or a vulnerable adult finds themselves cornered by an ER social worker, a grim dance begins. The fluorescent-lit stage is set for a performance of “crisis management theater,” where real human suffering collides with bureaucratic checklists and liability concerns.
Parents, gripped by fear that their child might take their own life, often feel coerced into consenting to psychiatric hospitalization and medication. This fear becomes a potent weapon wielded by hospital staff, despite the lack of evidence that such interventions actually prevent suicide.
Ironically, within academic circles, it’s widely acknowledged that these very interventions may increase the likelihood of suicide. This grim reality makes a perverse kind of sense: patients are prescribed powerful, mood-altering drugs and then discharged back into the very circumstances that initially drove them to contemplate suicide.
The experience of psychiatric detention is frequently described as traumatizing. Patients are stripped of their dignity – quite literally during invasive searches – and their autonomy, as their phones and personal belongings are confiscated. Many report being treated like cattle by burned-out, unprofessional staff.
Young women often feel unsafe, surrounded by men who are also experiencing mental health crises. For women struggling with the aftermath of sexual violence – a common precursor to psychiatric hospitalization – the hospital stay itself can be profoundly re-traumatizing.
This system, designed ostensibly to help, often inflicts further harm. It substitutes genuine care and understanding with a one-size-fits-all approach that prioritizes risk management over true healing. In our rush to “do something,” we’ve created a revolving door of trauma, where those seeking help often emerge more damaged than when they entered.
When parents, armed with knowledge and a desire to protect their children from potentially harmful interventions, attempt to resist the pressure to medicate, they’re often met with a dismissive and exasperated “What do you want us to do then?”
It exposes a mental health apparatus that has become reliant on the false promise of quick-fix pharmaceutical solutions, lacking the resources, training, or willingness to explore alternative approaches. This attitude effectively holds families hostage: either accept potentially harmful psychiatric drugs or be left with no support at all.
This false dichotomy – drugs or nothing – is a damning indictment of a system that has lost sight of its purpose. It reveals a profound lack of creativity and compassion in addressing mental health crises. Instead of working collaboratively with families to develop comprehensive, individualized care plans, hospital staff often default to a one-size-fits-all approach that prioritizes expediency over efficacy.
Moreover, this response subtly shifts blame onto the parents, implying that by refusing medication, they’re somehow obstructing their child’s care. It’s a manipulative tactic that exploits parental fear and guilt, further eroding trust between families and mental health providers.
Fear Based Therapy
The mental health industry has a dirty secret: it’s terrified of the patients it claims to help. Therapists, those supposed bastions of understanding and support, turn into protocol-driven robots at the mere whisper of suicide. Gone is the empathy, replaced by a checklist of CYA questions designed more to protect their licenses than to save lives.
This is how they are trained.
This fear-based charade masquerading as care has created a toxic environment where honesty is punished. Patients learn quickly: bare your soul at your own risk. Admit to dark thoughts, and watch your therapist’s eyes glaze over with panic as they mentally rehearse their mandatory reporting script.
In my years of specializing in treating chronically suicidal clients, I’ve witnessed firsthand the deep-seated trauma inflicted not just by their original experiences, but by the very system purporting to help them.
A disturbing pattern emerges, particularly among women survivors of sexual violence. Their acute trauma reactions are frequently misunderstood and hastily misdiagnosed as bipolar disorder or other psychiatric illnesses, leading to a cascade of inappropriate treatments and interventions. The psychiatric hospitalizations that often follow are not just ineffective; they’re actively traumatizing.
When these survivors finally find their way to my office, the damage is palpable. Trust, the very foundation of effective therapy, has been shattered by their previous encounters with mental health professionals. It can take months of patient, careful work to rebuild that trust, to convince them that it’s safe to be open and honest in therapy. This process is painstaking, requiring us to undo layers of iatrogenic harm – harm caused by the very institutions and individuals tasked with healing.
The tragedy here is twofold: not only are these women denied proper care for their actual traumas, but they’re also subjected to a secondary trauma at the hands of a mental health system that fails to recognize the complexities of their experiences. This cycle of misdiagnosis, inappropriate treatment, and subsequent re-traumatization doesn’t just delay healing – it actively impedes it, sometimes for years. Many never recover.
What Genuine Help Looks Like
True healing begins with the compassionate ear of a skilled, experienced therapist who can create a safe space for emotional expression and validation. This approach recognizes a fundamental truth: everything, including emotional pain and suicidal thinking, is temporary. By understanding struggles in their proper context, therapists can help clients navigate their darkest moments without resorting to extreme measures.
A competent therapist knows that most expressions of suicidal thoughts are not declarations of intent, but rather desperate attempts to communicate profound suffering. This nuance, while seemingly obvious, often eludes less experienced or inadequately trained professionals who are paralyzed by fear and uncertainty. Instead of reacting with panic, skilled therapists help clients explore their pain and envision a life worth living, even in the midst of emotional turmoil and trauma.
When someone is in emotional turmoil and suicidal risk is present, truly skilled therapists know that a gentle, personalized approach can make all the difference. Instead of rushing to hospitalization, these compassionate professionals take the time to really listen and understand. They work hand-in-hand with the person in crisis, crafting a safety plan that feels right and makes sense for their unique situation. It’s not about imposing rules, but about finding inner strength and support.
Effective therapy often involves teaching clients how to regulate intense emotions and tolerate distress. This might include techniques drawn from dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) or other evidence-based approaches. For many, additional support such as telephone coaching and family-based therapies can create a plan to weather crisis periods. These interventions recognize that suicidal crises tend to be episodic and often resolve when the underlying problems are addressed.
Primary care doctors should not be administering mental health screening measures or prescribing psychiatric drugs for complex emotional issues. Their well-intentioned but misguided interventions often exacerbate the situation, medicalizing normal human experiences and setting patients on a path of unnecessary and harmful treatments.
Working in “mental health” requires patience, understanding, and a willingness to sit with discomfort – both from the client and the therapist. By moving away from a fear-based, reactionary model of care towards one that embraces complexity and prioritizes genuine human connection, we can create a mental health system that truly serves those in need.
When the storm of the mind rages, feel-good therapy buzzwords and empty reassurances are as useful as a paper umbrella in a hurricane. What’s needed isn’t another degree or certification, but something far rarer: the guts to stare unflinchingly into the abyss of another’s pain without flinching. In the end, perhaps the most radical act in modern mental health care is simply having the backbone to shut up, sit down, and bear witness to suffering without trying to sanitize it.
By Maryanne Demasi, PhD | August 5, 2024
Recently, The Conversation ran an article which claimed to “debunk” a range of myths about antidepressants such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).
Natalina Salmaso, a clinical psychologist at Carleton University in Canada, highlighted five common myths that make people hesitant to take antidepressants.
Salmaso said hesitancy is often “unfounded” and “may not be grounded in science” and that “debunking the myths surrounding antidepressants is critical to permitting educated treatment decisions for those who suffer.”
However, Salmaso’s article was full of omissions and falsehoods, so we decided to debunk the debunker.
Myth 1 – I am stronger if I do this without meds
Salmaso says that a person with depression is like an athlete with a broken leg.
An athlete cannot compete effectively with a broken leg, in the same way a person with depression cannot function effectively, because their brain “is no longer responding to everyday life.”
She adds that a person’s brain needs to “heal” before they can expect it to function like they did pre-depression and implied antidepressants can help.
This is grossly misguided. This feeds into the false narrative that depression is a brain disease that can be cured by antidepressants.
Antidepressants don’t cure people with depression and their symptomatic effects are so small that they lack clinical relevance.
Studies show that patients actually do better with psychotherapy, which has enduring effects. Further, psychotherapy halves the risk of suicide whereas antidepressants double this risk, in people of all ages.
Myth 2 – I will be dependent on antidepressants to be happy
Salmaso says that antidepressants won’t make people ‘happy’ per se, but they “allow people to experience all emotions in an appropriate and balanced way.”
However, this is not what patients report. SSRIs tend to make people feel “numb” and unable to experience emotions. Some describe it as an inability to feel love, attachment or sexual excitement.
Some experience sexual dysfunction, which can continue long after the drug is discontinued.
Salmaso says that antidepressants “are a long-term (typically at a minimum for a year) and (hopefully) curative treatment, much like chemotherapy for certain types of cancer.”
This is also misguided. Most people become depressed because they have stressful or depressing circumstances, which no drug can cure.
People have been misled to believe that antidepressants can “correct” a chemical imbalance in the brain. A systematic review in 2022 thoroughly debunked the hypothesis that depression is caused a serotonin imbalance.
Salmaso even says that “most studies show that if you take antidepressant medications for a year before coming off of them, the majority of people will not relapse.”
This is also incorrect. The majority of studies on relapse are flawed because they involve subjects already on antidepressants and when they suddenly stop them for the trial they experience withdrawals, which interferes with the assessment of relapse.
Also, the longer someone takes an antidepressant, the higher the probability of that person experiencing withdrawal effects.
Myth 3 – Meds will change who I am, I will be different or feel high
Salmaso says that antidepressants won’t change you, but rather “allow you to view things from a more balanced perspective.”
However, Danish psychiatrists have reported that half of the patients on antidepressants agreed that the treatment could alter their personality and that they had less control over their thoughts and feelings.
Far from rebalancing the brain, antidepressants alter the normal functioning of the brain and disrupt biological processes with potentially devastating consequences.
As far as “changing who you are,” there have been ample reports of out-of-body experiences (including akathisia) where people became suicidal or homicidal on antidepressants, even in people with no history of this behaviour.
A systematic review found that taking antidepressants increased aggression three times more than taking a placebo, in children and adolescents.
Myth 4: I will become addicted
Salmaso says that antidepressants “are generally not addictive and have a low potential for misuse.”
This is not correct. Antidepressants can lead to dependency. Many people experience withdrawal symptoms, which are very similar to those that people experience when they try to come off benzodiazepines.
Salmaso claims that some patients get headaches and other withdrawal symptoms when the stop taking antidepressants “suddenly” but says they are “generally short-lived and can be minimised by tapering off treatment slowly.”
However, it is well-documented that about half of patients on antidepressants cannot stop them without experiencing withdrawals symptoms, which for some, can persist for many years. These symptoms are very difficult to “minimise” even with slow tapering.
Myth 5: Meds should only be used as a last resort
Salmaso disagrees that antidepressants should be used as a last resort.
She says that reserving antidepressants only for extreme cases “doesn’t make sense” because depression can reduce “work productivity and has immense societal consequences.”
“The financial repercussions that can be attributed to depression in terms of the number of workdays missed, jobs lost, accidents caused, etc. are enormous,” she added.
However, studies examining the efficacy of antidepressants have not shown any meaningful effects, such as improvements in quality of life, and they make it more difficult for people to function.
In all countries where this relationship has been examined, the increased use of antidepressants has been accompanied by an increase in disability pensions for mental health reasons.
Salmaso argues that, “Depression significantly increases risk of cardiovascular disease, gastrointestinal disease, respiratory disease and Parkinson’s disease, to name a few. It also seems to worsen the outcomes for cancer.”
Antidepressants do not improve these conditions either. Overall, it is our view that Salmaso’s evidence and arguments are flawed and misguided.
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Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
By Dr. Elias Akleh* | Sabbah Report | May 24, 2010
A build up of heightened tension in the Middle East is escalating in the last few weeks. American and Israeli postures towards Lebanon, Syria, and Iran have become more threatening. Listening to speeches of political leaders one hears talks only about war not peace. Iranians and Israelis are continuously training hard for a possible showdown. Both sides are conducting extensive war games every month. This led Syrians to claim that Israel is preparing for a soon-to-come another war. The Jordanians also are warning that current stalemate of the peace process is an indication of a war breaking out this summer. The Russian President and his army chief hinted, a few months ago, that the US and Israel were planning for an attack on Iran.
Indeed Iran is, as it has been for last few years, the target of most of the threats and accusations of supporting terrorism. Escalating incitement against Iran the American Defense Department sent last month (April) to Congress a report on Iran’s military claiming Iran could develop intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of reaching the US by 2015.
Ignoring the fact that N. Korea, India, Pakistan, and Israel are proven to have nuclear weapons while Iran does not, the US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton chose in her speech, to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty review conference at the UN, to focus on Iran’s alleged nuclear ambitions putting the whole world at risk as she put it. According to Clinton Iran’s acquisition of nuclear weapons, rather than Israel’s more than 200 nuclear bombs, is destabilizing the Middle East. She called on the world’s nations to rally around US efforts to hold Iran, not other nuclear countries, to account.
The accusation that Usama Bin Laden is living comfortably in Iran had received a boost after the broadcast of a documentary called “Feathered Cocaine”. This echoed the June 2003 claims of the Italian newspaper Corre de la Sierra that Bin Laden was in Iran according to some intelligence report, and according to Richard Miniter’s book “Shadow War”. … continue
Aletho News If Americans Knew No Tricks Zone
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