Welcome to From Insults to Respect.
Regular readers of this blog know that I have become disenchanted with the mental disorder/mental illness/medical model for addressing psychological concerns (see, for example, HERE). Today I describe how this came about, along with my reasons for preferring a psychological maturity approach.
My Disenchantment With The Mental Disorder Model
Let’s begin with my early education as a psychologist. At first, I was quick to adopt the medical model for dealing with the types of concerns that lead people to seek psychological services. This was because I was incredibly impressed with the medical model for dealing with physical illnesses.
You see, when I was very young, I had seen films of polio victims stuck in iron lungs. 
My generation was the first to benefit from the vaccine Dr. Jonas Salk came up with to prevent these awful infections, and he was hailed as a “miracle worker.” Later, I hurt my leg in a football game and to my extreme distress, I couldn’t walk on it. The doctor I went to took an x-ray and saw I had broken my fibula. He put a cast on my leg, and three months later, I was starring on my high school baseball team with absolutely no pain. Grateful for preventing polio infections and healing my leg, coupled with the respect others in my community had for medical doctors, I had become primed to think that the same model would be helpful for psychological concerns.
Then, in the early part of my undergraduate psychology courses at Brooklyn College, the various psychological concerns were all described as various mental illnesses, psychopathologies, and mental disorders. At first, this seemed to make sense. But then, in more advanced courses, doubts began to emerge.
In the courses that taught principles of science, I began to see that the definition of “mental disorder” and the various types of “mental disorders” are seriously flawed. Studies were coming out indicating that doctors looking at the same data about a case did not reliably come up with the same diagnosis. When reliability is low, so too must be validity according to well established principles of statistics. 
Meanwhile, the chemical imbalance theory that had been viewed as support for the notion that these concerns were illnesses just like physical illnesses proved to be unsupported by the evidence. In courses on the history of psychology, I learned that utilizing the medical model for psychological concerns led to lobotomies, shock treatment, and drug treatments that, from my scientific literature review, convinced me that they resulted in far more harm than good.
To be clear, I recognized millions of people that received drug treatments for their mental health concerns reported they found them helpful, but I also found that millions of others came to the opposite conclusion. I began to wonder if there was an approach that would be less likely to have people end up feeling they were harmed.
Meanwhile, I learned that many psychologists and counselors who provide mental health services also recognize the flaws in the medical model approach. 
Although they don’t prescribe drugs as a treatment approach, to their dismay, in order to have a viable professional practice, they are required to utilize the same invalid medical jargon as drug prescribing doctors because insurance companies require for reimbursement a mental disorder “diagnoses.”
Given this educational background, I began a search for an alternative model for providing psychological services.
Discovering a Developmental Psychological Maturity Model
In one of my classes I began to learn about Abraham Maslow, who had recently been elected president of the American Psychological Association. Rather than treating people as a bag of mental disorder symptoms, he focussed on identifying people who exhibited the most mature aspects of life, and he looked to see how these developed. He referred to those at this highest developmental level as self-actualized.
Maslow’s approach focussed on this highest level of maturity, but at about this same time period, I began to come upon other researchers who described various aspects of psychological development as a process of going through four or five stages. In these models, higher stage functioning is viewed as “better” than lower in the long run.
After graduating with a masters degree and getting a job in which I was to address various psychological concerns, having this developmental model in mind proved enormously helpful. The two most common concerns that I addressed were depression and anxiety. 
From Maslow’s model, a major impediment to reaching the highest level of maturity is not having one’s basic needs met. So, in addition to providing a safe place for my clients to get emotional support, which is one basic need, I also focussed on coming up with my clients plans that can better achieve their other basic needs. For example, when seeing someone who was dealing with poverty, and therefore was insecure about food and shelter issues, we would work on a career development plan.
At the same time, many clients had difficulties fulfilling their love and belonging needs. When I explored this issue with them, it became clear that the way they handled criticism was a major hinderance. They would describe nasty, attacking interactions which left a bad state of affairs for both parties. These began with either someone criticizing them, or they criticizing others. Further discussions led me to understand that when they made mistakes they utilized the same nasty, attacking criticism style directed at themselves.
With the developmental stages model in mind, I developed a five stage model for handling these criticism situations; the higher the stage, the more mature the approach (see HERE, HERE and HERE). To find out how people perceived the five stages, 
I made a lot of TV shows with a variety of actors, each one depicting a scenario in which someone responded to criticism.
When I showed these videos to students in conflict resolution classes that I had been teaching, they rated the actors who displayed responses to criticism in a style consistent with the higher levels as more likable, respected, and mature.
When I described these stages to my counseling clients in a way that did not claim they represented an absolute truth, but was a starting point to think about these issues, I found that there was something about the stages that seemed to them plausible. And then, after a few practice sessions in which we would rehearse using the highest level, the feedback that I got from clients was very rewarding. Long standing flareups with family members and others often completely disappeared, and criticism situations changed from being nasty to playful fun, and a valued learning experience. Clients also reported that this increased the amount of respect they received from others, as well as their own self respect. This led me to feel I was on to something that might be better than the medical model approach for dealing with psychological concerns.
I then went on to study for my PhD at the University of Minnesota.
There, one of my professors, Norman A. Sprinthall, published a paper in the American Psychologist that further validated my new way of thinking. It reviewed the research evidence demonstrating the value of reaching higher levels of maturity. Thus, Dr. Sprinthall wrote:
“By providing detailed information on the content and structure of the multiple domains of psychological development, contemporary theorists are filling in the gaps and advancing more accurate successive approximations to critical definitions of developmental stages and sequences.”
He then discussed several studies that found life skills and success after the completion of formal education are more closely related to psychological maturity than to scholastic aptitude or grade point achievement. For example, a Ford Foundation study followed for over 16 years a group of “at risk students” who had scholastic aptitude scores about 150 points below average for college students. Estimates of their psychological maturity by counselors and principals when these students were in high school were a more effective predictor of success than their academic record, not only for college itself, but also in the following years.
Finally, Dr. Sprinthall summarized six studies that provide support for the contention that certain education programs can be designed to successfully promote psychological maturity. In all of them, those in the experimental maturity promoting programs improved their level of psychological maturity; those who were not in these programs did not.
To be successful, Dr. Sprinthall argued, these programs must include a constant interplay between opportunities to learn some basic principles of psychological maturity, opportunities to apply the principles to one’s own actual, real world experiences, followed by readings to help illuminate the possible meanings of such experiences. More recent research suggests that certain narratives such as found in novels in which readers can identify with characters dealing with the types of situations requiring higher levels of maturity can also promote this type of development.
This body of research sometimes falls under the three headings of “emotional intelligence,” “social intelligence,” and “positive psychology.” When all three are taken together they cover much of the same ground as the more general concept of “psychological maturity.”
Given these findings, I found myself in recent years taking to heart something psychologist George A. Miller promoted in a classic 1969 paper. There he urged psychologists to give psychology away. What he meant by this was that elder psychologist professionals should create a new psychology that could be given away to the public. These professionals, he advocated, should select principles and practices that the public could use in their own behalf. He wanted a psychology not for the profession, not for the Library of Congress, and not for graduate student’s eyes only, but a psychology that everyone could use, a practical psychology that would help each person manage his or her own life with greater effectiveness and competence.
This blog, From Insults to Respect, aims to do exactly that. It is completely free, and I have been drawing on what I have found to be the most helpful principles and practices that, once learned, can be used by the average Joe or Jill in any way they might choose. Early posts, which can be retrieved by beginning HERE, introduce some basic ideas, and I then describe the following tentative description of psychological maturity:
Psychological maturity is “better” in the long run, it considers more variables, and represents more comprehensive cognitive problem solving. Individuals who tend to act at higher levels of psychological maturity can think more critically, logically, and scientifically while acting civilly to people with whom they disagree; they can graciously admit they are wrong when information comes in supporting such a conclusion; they welcome receiving criticism, respond without getting defensive, though they know it can be emotionally concerning for them; they are hesitant to provide uninvited criticism, only doing so when they can formulate it in a way that promises to be specific enough to be helpful, and they do so without insulting tones of voice or name calling; they can role-play and empathize with the emotions of a wide variety of human beings and can process moral dilemmas according to standards of democratic justice and the golden rule; they understand that melancholy and anxiety, rather than symptoms of mental disorders, are part of the natural process of addressing concerns about losses and fears; and they have the ability to puzzle through the tough problems of living, to take a stand, and yet to remain open to possible revisions and new information—thus demonstrating a capacity to make successive approximations toward more efficient, effective, economical, and beautiful accomplishments.
Such a description of maturity, in a general sort of way, can be a valuable aid to challenge each of us to begin to consider what psychological maturity means. It is not claimed that it is absolutely true for everyone and every conceivable situation. The paragraph is my personal best effort to summarize what respected theorists have written, and there is some preliminary evidence that it describes a type of functioning that is predictive of life success, and interventions can help to promote higher levels of functioning.
When, in my posts, I offer suggestions for dealing with specific types of situations, I aim to stay consistent with the summary, while providing additional details for handling such situations. In many of them, I describe a little assignment that provides an opportunity for readers to apply what they have just read to some event in their own personal life. Moreover, to get a deeper sense of handling specific situations, readers are encouraged to access my three novels (see HERE).
So, in conclusion, I invite readers to give this free approach a try.
Assignment: If you will, reread the paragraph in italics that describes, in summary form, psychological maturity, and then write a paragraph or two about how the various phrases in the description relate to your own way of dealing with life.
Some people will enjoy reading this blog by beginning with the first post and then moving forward to the next more recent one; then to the next one; and so on. This permits readers to catch up on some ideas that were presented earlier and to move through all of the ideas in a systematic fashion to develop their emotional and social intelligence. To begin at the very first post you can click HERE.
As you might imagine, people who are viewed as wise tend to be more respected than people who are viewed as foolish. With that in mind, let’s take a look at a few suggestions for improving our wisdom.
“Much better…if our companion views a thing in a light different from what we do, to leave him in quiet possession of his view. What is the use of rectifying him if the thing be unimportant; and if important let it pass for the present, and wait a softer moment and more conciliatory occasion of revising the subject together.”
So, when deciding whether to acquiesce to the opinions of others, remaining silent, or taking up the challenge of presenting your alternative views, consider the wisdom of first assessing if the person you are interacting with has an “open minded” or “close minded” personality.
Therefore, when with people you don’t yet know whether or not they are open minded and you hear them express an opinion with which you disagree, you might want to first assess where they are on this open minded-close minded continuum. This can be easily done by you by first summarizing their opinion, showing an interest by asking a few clarifying questions, and then saying something like, “I heard a different opinion about this topic, and I’d like to get your reaction.” Then, after briefly describing the alternative view, see if the person indicates an openness to discuss this. If he or she starts to get defensive by saying something like, “That’s stupid,” and, “Only idiots think that way,” it may be wise to take the discussion no further.
Notice that with this approach, you don’t initially claim that the alternative position is correct, or that it is something you firmly believe, thus avoiding leading people you are talking with to feel you have attacked them for their belief.
In many social situations, if you find that you don’t enjoy them, it is a simple matter to avoid them in the future. Not so in many workplace situations, or at school where attending is mandatory. Also, when invited to a social party, you may want to keep getting invited to future parties with these folks even if some of the attendees are not your cup of tea. This may be so because you enjoy most of the attendees, or your regular participation at attending provides valuable information about what is going on in the neighborhood.
Then, over the next few days, search on the internet, or go to the library to find some well thought out views on each of the topics by some respected writers. Seek to find some great writers who have different views on the same topic.
When this research is complete to your satisfaction, write out what you want to say about the topic with an eye of balancing short term and long term goals, and how different situations might call for different approaches. Your opening paragraph is best framed as something you can say in a couple of minutes. Finally, have someone you respect critique what you wrote. By doing this, your comments at your social gathering will tend to be far wiser than if you just jump into expressing your opinion without utilizing this technique.
When you do provide your opinion, begin by noting that you have found that different respected authorities have come to very different conclusions on this topic. Be prepared to be able to summarize these different views, but your opening statement is best kept to the one or two minute paragraph that you crafted when you wrote out your entire position, because typically people don’t appreciate a long lecture. If people you are talking with are really interested in delving into the topic, they will make some reply, perhaps presenting an alternative view.
After giving others an ample opportunity to comment, you can then provide more of your opinion in a two or three minute segment. Then, once again, let others respond, and continue in this give and take manner. Present your own conclusions in a humble, tentative manner, while remaining open to hearing critiques of what you offer. Avoid, getting defensive, and if someone raises a good point that you have not yet considered, reply humbly with a statement such as, “I think there is some merit in what you have said.” Then summarize it, and say, “I’d like to give this some thought and then I’ll get back to you.”
Wisdom is a prized characteristic. Avoiding angering close minded people for no substantially good reason is one technique that can raise the estimate of your wisdom. Utilizing the “Summarize and Delay” technique will not only increase how others view your wisdom, it may also very well actually increase your wisdom. In your discussion, avoid coming off like you are trying to humiliate those with different views. Rather, empathize with them, and above all, be kind.
On this blog, we have been exploring the various characteristics that help people earn self-respect and respect from others. Today we focus on one of these–staying in physical and emotional shape by taking a daily walk. It is, of course, true enough that some good people have earned an enormous amount of respect even without bothering to stay fit, but let’s not have such cases deter us from at least considering the value of enhancing our respectability by engaging regularly in this financially free activity.
Just this past week the 
Welcome back to Theme Time Radio Hour, and you will have to forgive me if I sound a little out of breath. I just got back from my morning constitutional. A good walk is important for both body and soul. 
Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “All truly great thoughts are conceived by walking.” Aldous Huxley said his father considered a walk among the mountains the equivalent of church going. And the father of democracy, Thomas Jefferson, was known to say, “Of all exercises walking is the best.” 
All the world, and all through history, people have known the benefits and joys of walking. So today we’ll be walking on the air, but we will not be walking on eggshells. If you’re walking the dog, or you can walk on water, or walk on clouds, or walk in rhythm, or just walk and not look back, you are going to enjoy the next hour as we play a musical accompaniment to your perambulations. So, get ready to walk the walk, and talk the talk.
Immediately after this delightful intro, Bob plays us a Jack Scott rockabilly song called “The Way He Walks.” There’s some fine harmonizing on this one.
The average person takes between 8,000 and 10,000 steps a day, and walks about 115,000 miles in their lifetime. Wow, that’s more than four times around the world. 
And then he launches into a great hit by Fat’s Domino, “I’m Walkin.’” Here are some of the lyrics:
The next song Bob plays for us has a similar theme, “Walking by Myself” by Jimmie Rogers.
Some of my blog posts are designed to help readers improve their skill at providing negative criticism. In them, I present a system of rating the maturity of each incident (see 
Below you will find preliminary descriptions of how people at five developmental levels of maturity provide negative criticism, that is, criticism that points out what we don’t like about someone’s actions, beliefs, or appearance. Level one is conceptualized as the most immature and uses observations of babies as its starting point. Each successive level is viewed according to this system as more mature.
In an August 16, 2021 tweet, given shortly after President Biden gave a speech explaining how the withdrawing of U.S. military forces from Afghanistan was going, Rep. Liz Cheney, who has on numerous occasions argued that we should remain in Afghanistan, wrote:
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, on August 16, 2021, which was squarely in the middle of the withdrawal process, called the events unfolding in Afghanistan “the worst foreign policy disaster in decades.” He went on from there to say:
My personal rating of this type of criticism is a 1, the lowest possible rating, because McCarthy never acknowledges the actual role that Biden has in this withdrawal process. Biden had simply decided to back the position of the vast majority of Americans that after 20 years it was time to end the war. Once this was decided, it was up to the generals who were actually in Afghanistan, knew best what the situation was there, had the best U.S. training on how to withdraw from a war zone, had ample time to come up with a withdrawal plan, and had the responsibility to implement the plan.
Well, there you have it, a little practice session utilizing the rating system. I hope it has helped to clarify for you how to formulate mature negative criticism, and when to remain silent. By improving these skills, I’m guessing it will improve the respect others have for you, and help you to avoid needlessly creating hard feelings.
Today, most people conceptualize the main issues of the conflict pretty much like the independent, nonpartisan think tank 
The biblical story of Moses describes a narrative that is helpful for understanding this theory. After struggling to survive for forty years in the desert that lies between Egypt and Israel, Moses’ weary followers come to view, off in the distance, the “land of milk and honey.” Moses then tells his Jewish people that God has declared that this land can belong to them if they kill all of the people currently living there. Even though the inhabitants of this desirable land had never done the desert wanderers any harm, they choose to engage in the brutal slayings.
The Pulitzer Prize winning historian, David McCullough, has acquired a set of relevant information.
And then George Washington, with the support from others, opened the vast Northwest Territory to pioneers who were willing to face incredible risks, hard work, and, like Moses’ followers, kill the natives of the region so they could gain ownership of a piece of property that had an ample water supply and fertile land.
We had landed sick among strangers, with no well-known friend to meet us with kindly greeting, and myself destined to be confined to bed from which, for a time, there seemed little hope that I should ever rise in health. Such was our introduction to pioneer life. 
To risk your own life along with that of your wife and children would typically be viewed as terribly wrong under most situations. Typically viewed as terribly wrong is the willing killing of fellow human beings because you want the land they are living on. To choose to do all of this while also knowing that the life you are heading toward involves backbreaking work may seem crazy to most of us, but such was the decision made by the hundreds of thousands of pioneers, all of this for a piece of rich land they could call their own. Please note that these pioneers were not Muslims, but Christians. For those who think the cause of the current Middle East is due the Muslim faith, please keep this in mind.
In the land where Israelis and Palestinians are living, there are regions where we see land beside the beautiful Mediterranean Sea. There, many people are thriving. Their jobs support seafood harvesting, international trade, and tourists arriving on ships. There are a few other regions where the inhabitants do very well, such as where the religious sites are. There, tourists flock, and by engaging in the restaurant, tour guide, and hotel industries, many in the region make out very well. 
There are also regions where the land is relatively fertile, and life on farms can be rather fulfilling. Regions in which universities and other educational institutions that have sprung up tend to be laid out on fairly attractive grounds. Earning a living by supporting these facilities tends to lead to a reasonably comfortable way of life.
The rest of the area is dominated by the Negev desert and the Judean desert. More than half of the region’s total land area is desert.
The other area where most Palestinians live is the West Bank, which is mostly rugged dissected upland, with some vegetation in the west, but somewhat barren in the east. In springtime, the khamsini, a dry, warm easterly wind, often blows from the extensive deserts of Jordan, Syria, and Saudi Arabia. This continues for a period of roughly fifty days. The khamsini carries fine desert sand that lends the sultry air an ominous yellow hue during the day. The desert sand falls to the ground as a result of short rain showers. The fine sand is a health hazard for people suffering from bronchitis, and is detrimental to vegetation, motors, and machinery.
The water situation in Palestine (the West Bank and Gaza Strip) is dire and it affects the quality of life, health and economic situation of every Palestinian. In some rural areas the water supply is far below the amount recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO). Where most of the Israelis live, the water situation is somewhat better, but it is far more expensive to keep it flowing than what most Americans and Europeans have to deal with.
After World War II, no nation was willing to take any but a tiny few of the Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. Where could those now living in Israel go if they are pushed out of Israel? The answer leads them to hold on to the land they currently possess for dear life.
Add to all of this, the fact that these Palestinians are living in one of the most densely populated regions in the world. Moreover, they know the population there is rapidly growing. So, it is pretty clear to everyone living in this region that life for their children is likely to get worse.
Although different reasons are given for these violent conflicts, according to my theory, the real central reason was that the have nots who were being pushed out toward the more desert parts of this region could readily see from views up in the hills those who were living in the dramatically better lands; this aroused violently strong desires to obtain what they did not have–fertile land with ample water.
There we find a vibrant neighborhood officially known as Bay Ridge, but it has been given the nickname “Little Palestine.” Thousands of Arab-Americans live there. They have their share of rally’s advocating the freeing of Palestine, but they are peaceful. Another neighborhood, Bensonhurst, is an easy walk from Bay Ridge. Thousands of Jews live there, and yet there are no rockets being fired from Bay Ridge into Bensonhurst. Nor do we find any of the Arab-Americans flinging rocks at anyone. 
Recently, these Jews and Arabs marched shoulder to shoulder with one another and with their Black brothers in support of Black Lives Matter.
Then there are the numerous tree-lined streets and green, wooded Prospect Park with rowers enjoying its lovely lake. If these people want to grow some vegetables or fruit trees in their back yard, there is plenty of rich soil that can be brought to the task and rain is normally sufficient. However, for brief dry periods, if these people want to water their garden with a hose, that is perfectly permitted. For those folks who don’t live in a house with a backyard, they typically have jobs that put the purchase of such a home within reach, if not for themselves, then at least for their children.
If these people happen to fall on hard times and can’t afford to continue to live in Brooklyn, they know they could move across the Hudson River onto the New Jersey side where it is a bit more affordable. If Jersey is a little too densely populated for their taste, there are a total of fifty states that they can freely move. Throughout the US are numerous regions sparsely inhabited, and no passport is required to go there. In my view, this knowledge takes the edge off of any disagreements Arab-Americans and Jews might face.
It is now over seventy years since the United Nations General Assembly declared its majority recommendation that Palestine be partitioned into separate Jewish and Arab states, and both sides have been violently fighting over this ever since. It is not that there is something inherently evil about Palestinian or Jewish people. When Jews were seeking to establish the Israel lands as theirs, a group of them organized a terrorist organization. Palestinians have found that sections of their population are willing to carry out terrorists acts. Why can’t this be settled peacefully? If my theory is correct, it doesn’t matter if you are Palestinian, Jewish, Christian or anything else. When any people find themselves living on lands that is too hard to thrive, some of them will act violently to seek a better life. Blaming such groups, viewing them as being entirely evil serves nothing but to further hate and distractions.
As each school year begins I like to once again post this discussion of how I would rate a school district’s handling of an incident in which a bus monitor was taunted by some middle school children during their bus ride home.
Nevertheless, when I heard the district say, “The Greece Central School District has a clear Code of Conduct and all staff and students have been fully trained,” I found myself cringing. In my opinion, if a bus monitor makes a referral about tormenting and bullying on the bus, if the monitor is left feeling that nothing is done, something is seriously wrong.
Feeling depressed? If so, you may decide to consult with a psychiatrist or other medical doctor. By doing so, chances are your description of your feelings will be translated into a language of symptoms, diagnosis, and mental illness, and you will leave the doctor’s office with a prescription for pills marketed as “antidepressants.” Unfortunately, this medicalization approach is so inconsistent with scientific evidence that many people view it as a remarkably successful flimflam funded by the enormously wealthy pharmaceutical industry.
To throw light on this, today’s post briefly summarizes the scientific theory that runs counter to the mainstream psychiatric pathologizing “antidepressant” approach. Then, it addresses the question, Are doctors and the pharmaceutical industry supporting the pathologizing of depression really engaging in deliberate deception?
A few weeks ago I presented a 
Moreover, our findings suggest that these relationships are at least partly mediated by negative self-evaluations that people have when they experience undesired emotions. Attempts to promote the value of feeling good over the value of feeling bad by emphasizing social norms for these emotions may therefore have the effect of making people feel bad more often.
Psychologist William James, back in 1902, in his classic book, The Varieties of Religious Experience, provides us a ton of such examples. Most of them involve a religious conversion experience, but James also provides examples that appear to be a result of “…the eruption into the individual’s life of some new stimulus or passion, such as love, ambition, cupidity, revenge, or patriotic devotion.”
A recent 
Depression is an adaptation that evolved because it keeps organisms focused on (ruminating about) complex social issues until they can be resolved and that medications work not so much by addressing a nonexistent deficit in neurotransmitters in the synapse as by perturbing underlying regulatory mechanisms to the point that they reassert homeostatic control over those systems. If the latter is true then medications may work to suppress symptoms in a manner that leaves the underlying episode unaddressed and patients at elevated risk of relapse whenever they are taken away. 
For example, he describes studies that demonstrate depressed individuals who are treated to remission with cognitive therapy are less than half as likely to relapse following treatment termination as a matched group of depressed folks treated to remission with antidepressant medications. He goes on from here to argue that some people have trouble working through their depression efficiently because they misinterpret life events in a negative fashion and that cognitive therapy helps them examine the accuracy of their beliefs, and by so doing it relieves their distress more quickly. Prof. Hollon goes on to say, “it 
Although Prof. Hollon focusses on the benefits of cognitive therapy, other research has found that counseling that focusses on resolving interpersonal problems, and humanistic approaches to therapy that empathetically values what each person is going through, are also often helpful. Such approaches avoid the numerous side effects of “antidepressants” and the awful withdrawal reactions that occur upon ending one’s reliance on drug treatment.
As long as the drug has been approved by the FDA for depression, then I’m willing to give it a try with my patients. In time, I carefully monitor whether or not the drug is being helpful. With the antidepressants most of my patients have done well on them, and several have told me it has saved their life. I also want to add that the leading experts in the field support the use of these antidepressants as first line treatments for depression and argue that it would be malpractice to not prescribe them to depressed patients. Even if I was to agree with your research analysis, I could not risk getting sued for malpractice.
As far as the pharmaceutical industry engaging in a flimflam, here I have little first hand knowledge to draw any firm conclusions. My knowledge chiefly comes from reading The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us And What To Do About It. It was written by Marcia Angell, M.D., the former editor in chief of the prestigious medical journal The New England Journal of Medicine and she is currently a member of Harvard Medical School’s Department of Social Medicine. I came away from reading her book thinking that the enormous profit motive in the industry does lead to substantial bias in how research is carried out and the information they provide to medical doctors.
I do think the FDA does serve a valuable function for evaluating treatments for diseases that have clearly objective criteria for identifying their existence. For example, when patients who have a cancerous tumor, it can be objectively seen by doctors with the use of an imaging device. How large each of the patient’s tumor is can be assessed objectively by measuring its circumference. In a clinical trial that has half of the patients randomly assigned to a group that gets a placebo, and the other half to a new drug, if, after three months, the placebo group’s subjects tend to have tumors that grew larger, while those getting the new drug have shrunk, this shows a clear benefit for the drug treatment.
Unlike these types of objectively identifiable conditions, with depression doctors rely on a subjective indication of effectiveness, that is, a conversation. Moreover, the studies that the FDA looked at to approve the “antidepressants” were done with patients who took the actual drugs for a mere few weeks, even though doctors regularly advocate that their patients take the drug for far longer, often for the rest of their life. It is the long term studies that came out after the FDA approval process that has begun to indicate that these drugs are likely to be worse than non-drug approaches.
Recall that doctors often will defend their use of “antidepressant” by saying, “With the antidepressants, most of my patients have done well on them, and several have told me it has saved their life.” The problem with this, as noted earlier in this post, is that people with depression spontaneously recover at a high rate even without treatment. It is this fact that leads to the doctor’s misattribution.
Consider another example. Dr. Smith has prescribed an “antidepressant” for depressed patient Marc. Not feeling any better despite taking the drug for several weeks, Dr. Smith tells Mark, “It takes time for the drug to have an effect, so give it a little more time.” A few more weeks go by with no improvement, so Dr. Smith tells Marc, the dose of the drug needs a little adjustment because some folks need a little more than others. When a few more weeks go by with no improvement, Dr. Smith responds by prescribing a different “antidepressant.”
I have presented the case that medical doctors typically genuinely believe their prescriptions for”antidepressants” are effective, and therefore are not deliberately seeking to mislead their patients in order to make more money. Their process of coming to their belief about the effectiveness of these types of drugs is indeed deeply flawed, but a quality evaluation appears to be a too arduous process for each doctor to perform. I have heard that in my area doctors in medical practice for a medical company find their company advocates each patient be seen for a mere few minutes. I do think medical doctors must understand that their drug information is coming from people selling the drugs. Although I respect doctors for their life saving efforts, I would respect them more if they would ban together and hire a team of epidemiologists to provide an independent evaluation of the risk and benefits of these treatments.
When I discuss problems with the “antidepressant” approach for dealing with depression, some folks who are currently taking such drugs sometimes decide to stop taking their pills. Suddenly stopping them all at once can be risky because of a variety of distressing withdrawal reactions possibly including waves of suicidal feelings. For help in deciding on the safest way to go about the withdrawal process, I recommend tapping into Mad In America’s “Drug Withdrawal Resources” page (see 
We have all experienced name calling, insults and teasing, even the greatest presidents, the most talented athletes, and every member of your favorite band. If someone insults you, calls you names, or teases you, it does NOT mean that you are a bad person.
Now, as I was wondering what to write about for this week’s post, I noticed C-SPAN had just announced the results of its 
“Did Stanton say I was a d–d fool?” asked Lincoln at the close of the recital.
he inference is erroneous. Lincoln, so far as I could discover, was in every respect the actual head of the administration, and whenever he chose to do so, he controlled Stanton as well as all the other Cabinet ministers.” Fry related a conflict between President Lincoln and Secretary Stanton which concluded with the following dialogue in Stanton’s office. Stanton said: “Now Mr. President, those are the facts, and you must see that your order cannot be executed.” The President cordially replied: “Mr. Secretary, I reckon you’ll have to execute the order.” Stanton objected: “Mr. President, I cannot do it. The order is an improper one, and I cannot execute it.” The President stared down the shorter Stanton and firmly issued an order: “Mr. Secretary, it will have to be done.” And indeed it was.
As for the Gettysburg Address—one of the most powerful speeches in human history, one that many American schoolchildren can recite by heart (Four score and seven years ago, our fathers brought forth …) and a statement of national purpose that for some rivals the Declaration of Independence—a Pennsylvania newspaper reported, “We pass over the silly remarks of the President. For the credit of the nation we are willing that the veil of oblivion shall be dropped over them, and they shall be no more repeated or thought of.” A London Times correspondent wrote, “Anything more dull and commonplace it wouldn’t be easy to produce.”
I think Alexander Hamilton Stephens, who had served as the Vice President of the Confederacy, well expressed what many who had an opportunity to get to know Lincoln came to feel about him. Thus, in a speech several years after the war, Stephens recalled getting to know Lincoln when they both served together in the House of Representatives prior to the war. “He was warm hearted; he was generous; he was magnanimous, ‘with malice toward none, with charity for all.'”
If you can keep your head when all about you 
A couple of years ago I wrote a post titled, “
Don’t you dare start with this crap or I’ll give you a real reason to cry! You’re acting like an infant!!! Now you stop this instant and get to bed!!!”
“I see you are feeling sad. That’s understandable. You were enjoying the game so much, and you’re disappointed about having to stop. You know, when we feel sad, it’s to help us figure out how to better handle what we do in the future. I wonder how we can better handle the going to bed situation. Any ideas, Carl?”
A team of researchers (Brock Bastian, et al.) published an article in the peer reviewed journal Emotion titled, “Feeling Bad About Being Sad: The Role of Social Expectancies in Amplifying Negative Mood.” The authors begin by summarizing previous relevant research, then describe four studies they carried out to throw light on this subject, and then present their conclusions. The entire article can be viewed for free 
Daily we are reminded of the value of happiness, from TV advertising that highlights the hedonic pleasures of consumption, to national campaigns designed to improve happiness and well-being.
Meanwhile, commonplace emotional experiences such as sadness, depression, or anxiety are pathologized and medicalized, viewed as deviant from desired norms…. Negative emotions are touted as bad for our health… and can be “cured” with an array of drugs and interventions designed to quickly and efficiently return us to normality. On the other hand, the many benefits of negative emotions, such as their creative potential…, importance for interpersonal relations…, and role in achieving a rich and meaningful life… are rarely prominent in current social discourse. 
[T]he importance placed on happiness and the devaluation of sadness is not as apparent in Asian cultures. In Japan, acceptance, emotional balance, and even hardship are highly valued, and the pursuit of happiness often has “immoral” connotations.
Among the findings, there was a clear tendency for Australian individuals to feel worse about themselves when experiencing negative emotions than the Japanese individuals who were more likely to view sadness as normal and helpful.
Emotions are fundamentally social phenomena. Our research provides the first evidence that people’s generalized beliefs about how others expect them to feel may play a central role in their emotional experience and well-being. Our work shows that the more people hold beliefs that others expect them not to experience negative emotions, the more frequently and intensely they are likely to experience those negative emotions. Such ironic effects also relate to indicators of well-being, such as satisfaction with life and depression. 
Now, relevant to this discussion, there does exist some evidence that sometimes people who experience depression end up hurting themselves, or lapse into periods in which their functioning diminishes. This evidence is used by many psychiatrists to urge people to take psychiatric drugs. But, is it really the depression that leads these people to hurt themselves, or is it how they respond to their sad feelings that lead to various undesirable outcomes?
During an early part of my psychological services provider career, I was hired as a school psychologist in Rochester, New York. There, students were regularly referred to me because a teacher or parent had become concerned about how a student was doing at school.
When I met individually with these students, I first introduced myself, and then I’d say something like, “I was asked to meet with you to see if we can figure out how to make school better for you.” Then I’d spend a little time trying to see if we had some common interest, such as some music stars, baseball players, TV shows, etc. By connecting with students in this pleasant way, it lightened up our exchange. Next, I got down more directly to the business at hand, seeking to find out, from the student’s perspective, how school was going.
Early in my tenure in this job, this meant that I would just ask the question, “Say, by the way, how’s school going for you this year?” Typically, I would get just a very brief answer, such as, “OK,” or, “I hate school.” Naturally, I wanted to explore more deeply this issue, so I would clumsily begin to ask followup questions and too often I wouldn’t get much that was helpful. However, in time, I developed a psychological interview that really managed to be insightful in figuring out ways to improve a student’s school experience. So, today I thought I would share it with you, for I think it would be helpful, not only for other school psychologists, but for teachers and parents as well.
Well, there you have it, an outline for a psychological interview that will help to draw out important information regarding a student’s school experience. Why might this be a useful thing to do? I found, when using this approach, that students very much appreciate an adult really taking the time to see how they are doing. Moreover, discussing the results of the interview with people I respect and the parents and the educators working with the student often led to some helpful ideas for improving the student’s school experience
To take one example, I once interviewed a student we will call Bobby. He indicated that this school year was going very bad for him by circling a 1 on that question. On further questioning, Bobby indicated he found school had him sitting way too much, he had no friends, and he enjoyed and thought he was good at playing chess.
Bobby had learned to play chess when he was younger. His older brother had taught him, and they had enjoyed playing against one another, but in recent years his brother preferred playing with some guys his own age. With no one to play with, Bobby would read some books on chess, and he also watched a lot of TV. On the questionnaire, it became clear that he got no exercise other than two times per week when he had his physical education class.
To address the issue of a lack of exercise and that Bobby felt uncomfortable sitting so long at school, he and his whole family began to take an hour walk after supper twice a week, and on the weekend they would take an even longer hike. This added walking each week made it much easier for Bobby to sit for long periods during school hours, and it no doubt is supportive of a healthier lifestyle.