mental health

Psychiatric drugs: A modern distraction

A new study out of Germany shows that only 6% of all psychiatric drugs show any added benefit (in a study which found that 58% of ALL drugs showed no added benefit).

As a child of the ’60s, it is peculiar to me that parents today are GIVING drugs to their kids. The use of drug stimulants for children exploded between 1991 and 1995, and antidepressant prescriptions nearly doubled during the same period – coinciding with the conjunction of Uranus and Neptune.  This is not surprising – Uranus rules electricity and radical behavior and is sometimes associated with mental disorders if afflicted in the natal chart.  Neptune presides over experiences that take us beyond the mundane, into spiritual bliss or addiction, and is also associated with consciousness altering substances.  By 2014, 7% of all children between age 6 and 17 were taking some sort of psychiatric drug, mostly for ADHD.  More than twice as many boys were prescribed as girls – not surprising since boys are often more active than girls.

I have no wish to minimize the danger of true psychiatric disorders which require ongoing medication such as bipolar or psychotic episodes, or a serious depression or panic disorder which requires short-term medication to help the patient move through a difficult time. But I am concerned about our tendency in the modern world to avoid our own emotions and medicate our children into subservience.

The astrological birthchart identifies certain predispositions in our personality and emotional makeup. Acting as a map, the birthchart identifies our strength and challenges, and shows the way to navigate through our difficulties. Often situations that we find devastating later bring us great joy and wisdom that we would never have gained […]

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By |2019-07-12T08:25:08-04:00July 12th, 2019|Health & Healing|6 Comments

Voices in our heads

While I am out of town I have selected some interesting articles to repost.

Nearly all of us hear voices of one kind or another. My mother hears the voice of her mother criticizing her in her head. Someone I know well hears music in his head – full orchestras. When I do readings, I hear voices describing aspects of the chart to me before I have a chance to notice them. Are we all crazy? Granted, this is nothing like the people whose voices urge them to murder and worse, but perhaps there’s more to this phenomenon than simply classifying people who hear voices as schizophrenics.

An article in the New York Times (thank you Ellie Crystal) asks the question, “Can you live with the voices in your head?” The article cites the work of a group in Britain called “Hearing Voices Network” whose purpose is to bring people that hear voices an opportunity to get together for mutual support. The Times article suggests:

Since the 1990s, a growing number of researchers and clinicians, predominantly based in England, have been comparing voice-hearing in psychotic patients with voice-hearing in nonpatients, measuring the incidence of hallucinations in the general population, and using cognitive behavioral therapy (C.B.T.), a popular, short-term treatment for depression and anxiety, to help them manage their responses to the voices they continue to hear. C.B.T. typically asks patients to scrutinize how they interpret their symptoms rather than focusing on an illness as an underlying cause. “The matter of whether it’s effective, and to what extent,” Lieberman says, is still being investigated. So far, the use of C.B.T. in the treatment of psychoses is much more prevalent in the […]

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By |2018-11-19T21:22:37-05:00May 29th, 2010|Life, Psychology|1 Comment

Are Psych Drugs the Answer?

Bliss Concealed” by Jackie, age 16, from www.dbsalliance.org

As a child of the ’60s, it is peculiar to me that parents today are GIVING drugs to their kids. Research from Dr. Julie Magno Zito, of the University of Maryland School of Pharmacy in Baltimore, indicates that as many as 1.5 percent of American children between the ages of two and four are already on such substances as Ritalin – as well as being medicated with antidepressants and other “psychosis” directed drugs. The use of drug stimulants for children climbed two-to-threefold between 1991 and 1995, and antidepressant prescriptions nearly doubled during the same period.

Many of these childhood personality disorders seem to me to be simply reactions to stressful situation. I am particularly interested in something called Oppositional Defiant Disorder, a pattern of defiant and disobedient behavior and resistance to authority, since this would certainly have been my own diagnosis when I was a child. My birthchart shows that Uranus (rebellious behavior) squares my Sun (my Self, or essence). I am a rebellious person with a radical nature, and I am not afraid of reacting with defiance in a situation in which I feel mistreated. My parents just thought I was a “bad kid.” But did I need medication?

I have no wish to minimize the danger of true psychiatric disorders which require ongoing medication such as bipolar or psychotic episodes, or a serious depression or panic disorder which requires short-term medication to help the patient move through a difficult time. But I am concerned about our tendency in the modern world to avoid our own emotions and medicate our children into subservience.

The astrological birthchart identifies certain predispositions in our personality and emotional makeup. Acting as a map, the birthchart identifies our strength and challenges, and […]

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By |2019-08-26T15:20:13-04:00March 27th, 2006|Health & Healing, Psychology|Comments Off on Are Psych Drugs the Answer?