Category — mental health

There are a lot of things that can push people over the edge these days, but we have to worry about prescription of anitdepressants and anti-psychotics combined with easy access to assault weapons.

behind the spate of family homicides is not just the economy, job stress and failing marriages, but a government that approved a cohort of psychoactive drugs with proven homicidal and suicidal side effects. Blockbuster antidepressants and anti-psychotics that are kept on the market despite the blood baths they can cause so drug companies can get their patent’s worth.

And it’s a government that allows unlimited weapon arsenals — including military and assault-style weapons — in the hands of everyone, including the unbalanced on “depression” drugs, only to act surprised when another entire family — everyone who was home — is killed.

via What’s Behind the Epidemic of Family-Killings? Could it Be Anti-Depressants? | Health and Wellness | AlterNet.

Many Americans think that ECT has gone the way of bloodletting, but it continues to be regarded by American psychiatry as a respected treatment, especially for patients who are “treatment resistant” to drugs. Although ECT for young children is nowhere near as common as for adults, most U.S. states do not prohibit ECT for kids. California prohibits ECT for children under the age of 12 but allows children between 12 and 15 to receive ECT if three psychiatrists are in favor of it.

Psychiatrys Shock Doctrine: Are We Really OK With Electroshocking Toddlers? | Health and Wellness | AlterNet

A couple in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada founded the International Campaign to Ban Electroshock (ICBE)  in 2007. The ICBE website has ECT articles, links, videos and other pages. The ICBE deems ECT to be unethical, barbaric an atrocity and a crime against humanity.

As if things weren’t bad enough, the depths of this financial crisis is taking its toll on our mental health. Pushed past their breaking points, people are robbing banks to pay the rent, setting homes on fire — even taking their own lives.

The Financial Crisis Is Driving Hordes of Americans to Suicide | Corporate Accountability and WorkPlace | AlterNet

Workers on temporary or part-time contracts don’t just have budget shortfalls to worry about. New Canadian research suggests that workers who do not have job security will develop more physical and mental health problems compared to their full-time counterparts.

CTV.ca | Temp, part-time workers have more health problems

Real Change News
Studies demonstrate that the amount of mental illness in a rich nation is associated with the income gap, the difference in earnings between the rich and the rest of us.

In a big-gap nation, life is much more stressful for most people. Those lower down the economic ladder (the bulk of the population) struggle to get by on two or three low-paying jobs and have little time to devote to raising children or nurturing relationships. Those in the ever smaller so-called middle class (in fact most of us are in the working class) struggle to keep up with the Gateses.

Our overall health is also related to the income gap. We die much younger than we should for living in the richest and most powerful country in history that houses close to half of the world’s billionaires. In some 30 countries, life is longer and better. And to accomplish this feat we spend half of the world’s health care bill, over $2.2 trillion in 2006, representing about one-sixth of our total economy.