Welcome to the May/June 2010 issue of the Psychology Debunked newsletter!
In the March and April issues, we looked at the first of three qualifications for overcoming that which overcomes us: the need to die to self. Once we die to self, we are able to fulfill qualification #2.
Qualification #2: Trust in God
Mat 16:24Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any [man] will come after me, let himdeny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. Mat 16:25For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
Gal 2:20I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.
Jhn 7:37In the last day, that great [day] of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. Jhn 7:38He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. Jhn 7:39(But this spake he of the Spirit, which they that believe on him should receive: for the Holy Ghost was not yet [given]; because that Jesus was not yet glorified.)
Imagine your heart as a cup. If we empty ourselves of the muddy, polluted water of self and look to God by faith, He will fill our cups with pure living water. This living water is nothing but the Holy Spirit life of Christ, producing "the peacable fruits of righteousness" as we continually trust and abide in Him. The living water has nowhere to go if our cups are still full of ourselves, and its "spiggot" doesn't flow if we have no faith.
Faith is the key ingredient to our relationship with God:
Hbr 11:6But without faith [it is] impossible to please [him]: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and [that] he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him
Faith, combined with diligent prayer, pleases God and unleashes His power to change us and everything around us.
In the news this month, a great commentary from psychiatrist Peter Breggin on FAA's recent ruling that pilots can now take antidepressants without reprisal; pesticides a potential cause of ADHD behaviors; lethal cervical cancer vaccinations for young girls acceptable in the USA but not in India; more invented diseases by big pharma to grow revenues; a renowned psychiatrist comments on DSM-V's labels gone amuck; a Robert Whitaker interview on the correlation between more mental illness and more psych drug use; and a nine-year-old describes his horrific stay at a psychiatric hospital.
In this month's Q&A, we give some practical advice to a mother struggling with her six-year-old son's violent behavior. In Letters, a woman takes the torch and teaches fellow sisters in her church to reject psychology and drugs and embrace counseling God's way.
By faith,
Lisa and Ryan Bazler
Dr. Breggin responds to pilots taking antidepressants
A few years ago I was hired by the FAA to defend the agency against a suit brought by a pilot who wanted to fly while taking a prescription antidepressant. I helped the FAA formulate its defense of the agency's ban on pilots using antidepressants and, as a result, the ban remained in effect. Pilots remained unable to fly while taking antidepressants, including the newer ones such as Prozac, Paxil, Zoloft, Celexa, Lexapro and Effexor.
"How times have changed.
"Ignoring the scientific data on adverse drug effects that the agency and I generated and evaluated for the earlier case, the FAA is lifting its 70-year-old ban on allowing pilots to take antidepressants."
"A new analysis of U.S. health data links children's attention-deficit disorder with exposure to common pesticides used on fruits and vegetables." more »
India bans HPV vaccination program after four girls die
"The program was marred by controversy after four deaths and complications among 120 girls were reported after vaccination. The girls complained of stomach disorders, epilepsy, headaches and early menarche.more »
Eight invented diseases could mean big profits for pharma
"Since direct-to-consumer drug advertising debuted in 1997, pharma's credo has been When The Medication Is Ready, The Disease (and Patients) Will Appear.
"Who knew so many people suffered from restless legs?
"...Now pharma is back to creating new diseases, patients, risks and "awareness campaigns" faster than you can say thimerosal (the vaccine preservative that started the backlash.)" more »
DSM-IV leader: DSM-V will create epidemic of mental illness
"As Dr. Allen Frances read through the list of proposed changes to psychiatry's bible of mental sickness, alarms started ringing in his own mind.
""I was surprised," the renowned U.S. psychiatrist says, "that the proposals managed to be much worse than my most pessimistic expectations."
"By the time he was finished reading, Frances had calculated that the recommendations contained within the first draft for the fifth and latest revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders -- a hugely influential book used daily by doctors worldwide, psychiatry's official classification of all the ways humanity can go "mad"--could unnecessarily trigger wholesale "epidemics" of mental illness and expose millions more adults and children to potentially harmful psychiatric drugs."more »
Are psych drugs causing a rise in mental illness?
"An interview with investigative reporter Robert Whitaker, about the dramatic increase in mental illness disability and its surprising cause.
"In 1987, prior to Prozac hitting the market and the current ubiquitous use of antidepressants and other psychiatric drugs, the U.S. mental illness disability rate was 1 in every 184 Americans, but by 2007 the mental illness disability rate had more than doubled to 1 in every 76 Americans. Robert Whitaker was curious as to what was causing this dramatic increase in mental illness disability. The answers are in his new book, Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America (Crown Publishers, April 2010)."more »
Psychiatric hospital horror: Nine-year-old escapes restraints, thorazine, and seclusion
"Nine-year-old Anthony Morales is a different child now that he’s not in restraints, shot up with Thorazine or locked away in a seclusion room of a state children’s psychiatric hospital.
"The youngster seemed like any other kid in the Florida Keys as he sat squirming in a plastic chair and concentrating on a Pokemon game on his handheld video console.
“I’m glad to be back in Key West,” he said Wednesday, without missing a play. “I’m glad to see my older brother again.”
"His mother — a single mother — watched him fondly as she explained how her son was almost lost to her in the state’s child psychiatric system.The program was marred by controversy after four deaths and complications among 120 girls were reported after vaccination. The girls complained of stomach disorders, epilepsy, headaches and early menarche."more »
Q&A
This reader asks, "How do I help my misbehaving and violent 6-year-old son?" See our response here.
Letters
This woman had opportunity to teach fellow sisters in her church about God's way in counseling believers. She shared with us her teaching notes containing valuable nuggets of truth. Her premise? "Our minds were created BY God, FOR God - it's part of the way He communes with us and us with Him. It's HIS territory, not man's!"You can do the same for ladies in your church.more »
"Now consider this. Reckless driving is one of the most commonly reported adverse effects of antidepressants. After taking antidepressants, disinhibited, agitated or angry drivers find themselves exploding into road rage or using their cars as instruments of suicide. This is one of the first antidepressants reactions that clinicians like myself began noticing soon after Prozac hit the marketplace. In Medication Madness I describe how an otherwise calm and self-controlled individual took Paxil and then drove his car into a policeman in order to knock him down to get his gun to kill himself. He seriously injured the cop but failed to get his gun from him. In another case in my book, a kind and gentle man turned wildly psychotic on Zoloft and drove his car into a barrier in the hope of killing his passenger wife after he realized her body was harboring an alien beast bent on destroying him and all of humanity. Yes, just the class of drugs for pilots to take."
-- Dr. Peter Breggin on FAA's recent lift on ban of pilots taking antidepressants
"6. "Treatment Resistant" Conditions If an engine additive or laundry product didn't work, who would chase it with another product--or two-- because the manufacturer told them to? Who would pay $300 to $900 a month out of their pocket for antidepressants, antipsychotics, mood stabilizers and mood brighteners some of which don't work? (see: fear, forever, faith.) Increasingly, pharma is approving drugs as add on or "adjunctive therapy" like AstraZeneca's antipsychotic Seroquel, approved last year "for patients who had failed to respond adequately to an antidepressant alone." Also last year, the FDA approved Eli Lilly's Symbyax, a combination of the SSRI antidepressant Prozac and controversial antipsychotic Zyprexa --do patients gain 100 pounds but feel great? -- for "treatment resistant depression." Why are diseases "treatment resistant" instead of the drugs "ineffective" or diagnoses "wrong"?"
