Mad in America recently ran a Webinar on Neuroplasticity as a way to manage one of our greatest challenges - Protracted Withdrawal Syndrome. The presenters, as described by Mad in America, included: Ben Ahrens, a chronic illness recovery expert, TEDx Speaker, and CEO of a brain retraining program Re-Origin. This program stemmed from his use of neuroplasticity concepts to … [Read more...] about Interoception or Neuroplasticity
Ghost, Cyborg or Mystery – Fidere Aude
Nearly 400 years ago Rene Descartes dramatically changed our view of ourselves in ways that have caused problems ever since. The change is caught in this famous image which illustrates what Descartes viewed as an obvious fact we could depend on. If our foot strays too near a flame, an image of the flame runs up the recently discovered nerve fibres to the pineal gland where … [Read more...] about Ghost, Cyborg or Mystery – Fidere Aude
Challenging My Media to Disclose
At the end of most articles in the Guardian newspaper you find this: This is what we’re up against. Teams of lawyers from the rich and powerful trying to stop us publishing stories they don’t want you to see. Lobby groups with opaque funding who are determined to undermine facts about the climate emergency and established science. Authoritarian states with no regard for the … [Read more...] about Challenging My Media to Disclose
Truth, Trust and Health
Geoff Wilson invited me to give this lecture in Lexington Kentucky at a Medicating Normal meeting in May to a group of healthcare professionals. Don Marks gave me the chance to repeat it a few days later at Kean University's Psychology Department. Both groups were also asked to comment on Challenging My Doctor to Disclose. Bill James helped produce this Truth Trust Health … [Read more...] about Truth, Trust and Health
Damsels Dying from Distress or Dysphoria?
This post, which opens with a photo of Noelia Voigt navigates between last week's Cass and Cassandra, which features Distressed Damsels and Dudes, and RxISK's post this week - Is Your Treatment Making you Suicidal, which features Dysphoric Damsels and Dudes - dying from drug induced dysphoria. Noelia was until this week Miss USA 2023. She has stepped down from the post, … [Read more...] about Damsels Dying from Distress or Dysphoria?
Cass or Cassandra: Doctors Bearing Gifts
CisMedicine – TransMedicine While The Once and Future Immunity about vaccines for RSV was being drafted last week, the Cass Review on Gender Medicine hit the news headlines. Cass trenchantly critiques gender medicine as it has been practiced in the Western world in the last decade. These 2 items intersect as hopefully this post will make clear. Trenchant though it was, the … [Read more...] about Cass or Cassandra: Doctors Bearing Gifts
The Once and Future Immunity
This post is mostly Peter Selley's. Covid flooded us with talk of immunity and vaccines. The word vaccine was redefined so mRNA agents could be called vaccines, even though they do not confer immunity or stop transmission as traditional vaccines do. The RSV vaccines are the latest. Given to older folk, they meet traditional definitions of a vaccine. Maternal RSV … [Read more...] about The Once and Future Immunity
The Creation Narrative and God Complex
This post continues Zen and Psychopharmacology and An Archipelago of Realities. I am going to rewrite a rewrite of Genesis. Here is the rewrite to be rewritten: The six days of Creation were divine and bright. But on the seventh day God broke down. On the seventh day he felt the unknown texture under his fingers and frightened he withdrew his hands from the world. In … [Read more...] about The Creation Narrative and God Complex
An Archipelago of Realities
The post follows on from last weeks Zen and Art of Psychopharmacology and links with Potentially Inappropriate Deprescribing PID on RxISK. Tullio Giraldi and I first e-met in 2009. Introducing himself, he painted an unusual background. He had been a pharmacologist but now his interests lay in Buddhism and psychotherapy. I learnt later that he was an enthusiastic sailor … [Read more...] about An Archipelago of Realities
Zen and the Art of Psychopharmacology
This post outlines an article that will appear in the next issue of Ethical Human Psychology and Psychiatry - Zen and the Art of MoodCycle Maintenance - borrowing from the title of a semi-philosophical book with Zen and MotorCyles in its title that was well-known when some of us were young. The full article with references and footnotes will be published imminently. It's … [Read more...] about Zen and the Art of Psychopharmacology