: Peter Lehmann
: Coming off Psychiatric Drugs Successful withdrawal from neuroleptics, antidepressants, mood stabilizers, Ritalin and tranquilizers
: Peter Lehmann Publishing
: 9780954542856
: 4
: CHF 13.20
:
: Medizin
: English
: 370
: kein Kopierschutz
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
The world-wide first book about the issue"Successful coming down from psychiatric drugs" primarily addresses treated people who want to withdraw on their own decision. It also addresses their relatives and therapists. Millions of people are taking psychiatric drugs, for example: Haloperidol, Prozac, Risperidone or Zyprexa. For them, detailed accounts of how others came off these substances without ending up once again in the doctor's office are of fundamental interest. In this manual, 25 former psychiatric patients from Australia, Austria, England, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Japan, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Sweden, Switzerland and the USA - and for the first time, a relative - write about their experiences with withdrawal. Additionally, ten professionals, working in psychotherapy, medicine, psychiatry, social work, natural healing, on the Internet and even in a runaway-house, report on how they helped in the withdrawal process. Prefaces by Judi Chamberlin, Pirkko Lahti, Loren R. Mosher and Peter Lehmann

Peter Lehmann. Born in 1950. Education in social pedagogy. Living as independent publisher and author in Berlin. In 1989, co-founder of the Organisation for the Protection from Psychiatric Violence, running the Runaway-house Berlin. In 1991, co-founder of the European Network of (ex-) Users and Survivors of Psychiatry (ENUSP); from 1997-99, Chair of ENUSP; until 2010, board member. In 2010, awarded with an Honorary Doctorate in acknowledgement of"exceptional scientific and humanitarian contribution to the rights of the people with psychiatric experience" by the School of Psychology of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece, Faculty of Philosophy. In July 2011, awarded the Order of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany by the President of Germany. English publications include Alternatives beyond Psychiatry, edited together with Peter Stastny in 2013.

Prefaces


“There is no tyranny so great as that
which is practiced for the benefit of the victim.”—C. S. Lewis

This volume is devoted to a topic that is the subject of a great deal of misguided thinking these days. We live in the era of a “pill for every ill” but too little attention has been devoted to the pills given specifically to affect our psyches. What does it mean to medicate the soul, the self, and the mind? Webster’s dictionary defines psyche in all three ways. Are not these chemicals (“psychotropic drugs”) interfering with the very essence of humanity? Should not great care and thought be given to this process? If begun, should it not be continuously monitored? Since all three—soul, self and mind—are at the core of each human being should not he/she determine whether these drugs should be taken based on her/his own subjective experience of them? The answer is, of course, a resounding yes.

Now let’s get real. Since there are few objective indicators of the effects of these drugs the patients’ own reports are critical. Do the psychiatrists and other physicians prescribing psychotropic drugs listen carefully to each patient’s personal experience with a particular one? The answer to the question vries of course but if you speak a different language, are a member of a minority, poor, seen as “very ill” or forcibly incarcerated in a mental hospital the likelihood of being really listened to falls dramatically—although it is not very high for anyone.

Hence, the focus of this book—the stories of persons who were not listened to as they suffered torment of the soul, self and mind from psychotropic drugs—often given against their will, is very important. They are the stories of courageous decisions made against powerful expert doctors (and sometimes families and friends)—and the torment that sometimes ensued. Stopping medications began to restore their brains’ physiology to their pre-medication states. Most had never been warned that the drugs would change their brains’ physiology (or, worse yet, selectively damage regions of nerve cells in the brain) such that withdrawal reactions would almost certainly occur. Nor were they aware that these withdrawal reactions might be long lasting and might be interpreted as their “getting sick again.” They are horror stories of what might happen (but does not have to happen) when attempting to return brains to usual functioning after being awash with “therapeutic” chemicals. Unfortunately, the suffering was usually necessary in order restore soul, self and mind—the essence of humanity.

However, because the drugs were given thoughtlessly, paternalistically and often unnecessarily to fix an unidentifiable “illness” the book is an indictment of physicians. The Hippocratic Oath—to above all do no harm—as regularly disregarded in the rush to “do something.” How is it possible to determine whether soul murder might be occurring without reports of patients’ experiences with drugs that are aimed directly at the essence of their humanity? Despite their behavior, doctors are only MD’s, not MDeity’s. They, unlike gods, have to be held accountable for their actions.

This book is a must read for anyone who might consider taking or no longer taking these mind altering legal drugs and perhaps even more so for those able to prescribe them.

Dr. med. Loren R. Mosher (1933-2004)
Director, Soteria Associates
Clinical Professor of Psychiatry
University of California at San Diego
School of Medicine
August 26, 2002

Much of the conventional wisdom about psychiatric drugs is wrong. Psychiatrists and the pharmaceutical industry have successfully convinced much of the public, through the media, that psychiatric drugs are “safe” and “effective” in “treating” “mental illnesses.” Let us look at each of these words in turn:

Safe—generally accepted to mean that they cause no harm, despite many known negative effects such as movement disorders, changes in brain activity, weight gain, restlessness, sudden death from neuroleptic malignant syndrome and many others.

Effective—generally accepted to mean that they reverse or cure the symptoms for which they are prescribed, de