Not Crazy

I have been reading lately a book by Charles Whitfield,  "Not Crazy:  You May not be Mentally Ill".   For anyone who wants to see all the sides of the MI debate,  it seems to me required reading.  He is an M.D. who first came into the public eye with his book "Healing the Child Within".   I recently was introduced to this book about a month ago and it is having a very real,  and very positive influence on my life.   

I liked Whitfield's book "Healing the Child Within" so much that I ordered a few of his more recent books.     He paints a very different picture of treatment for mental illness than what I have learned so far in NAMI.   In fact,  he's pretty critical of NAMI's emphasis on the genetic components of MI and strong focus on pharmaceutical treatment.   

Whitfield has written several other books on the topics of recovery and whether today's medical mental health community is doing a good job.   Let's just say that his critique is scathing.   Basically,  he posits that MI is often diagnosed and treated using drugs when what a person may actually have going is PTSD and unresolved grief.     He says that, in many cases, these unresolved PTSD issues, coupled with other factors such as substance abuse,  can easily present as MI.

Furthermore,  he says that once people start taking pharmaceuticals that they can be subject to serious withdrawal symptoms by stopping or being sporadic in taking the pills.   

What resonates very deeply for me is how Whitfield starts with the premise that each human being is spiritual in nature.

He seems to be steeped in a spiritual path called A Course in Miracles and to be joining his spiritual understandings with his decades as a doctor and psychotherapist.     Something that has really struck me as I've read his book involves what I would term the "spiritual individuality" of a person.   I understand this as the being at the core of who we are,  the essential  part of each of us which existed before we were born and will exist after we die.   

The question I am considering has to do with a healing modality and how that is affected by pharmaceutical treatment.   

1)  We heal ourselves through being increasingly in touch with our spiritual identity.

2)  Drugs which treat MI make it harder for people taking them to be in touch with their spiritual identity.

3) Therefore,  are the drugs really healing?

My reading of Whitfield is that he sees the drugs as causing way more problems than they solve.   He references the side effects,  withdrawal symptoms and the the deeply faulty screening process by clinicians as being very significant flaws in treatment for people with psychological problems.   He states that often MI is diagnosed by a clinician who has never asked a client for a detailed health history which includes traumas a person may have suffered in the past.    He posits that many people with a diagnosis may not, in fact,  be mentally ill,  but may be suffering from PTSD.   If the person finds a context where s/he can work through unresolved trauma,  the "symptoms" which presented as MI begin to fade and the spiritual identity is strengthened.

Whitfield does not claim this process is easy.   He says typically it is a multi-year process of recovery for someone who is highly committed to transforming their issues.

What stands out to me about this book is that it is not at all "airy-fairy".   This is a person who has been a psychiatrist for over 30 years.  has worked with countless clients,   and who writes with great clarity and conviction.

As a teacher I have thought for years that the drug, Ritalin,  was spectacularly over-prescribed.   I can clearly see how the environment a child is in plays a fundamental role in how s/he may present as ADD or ADHD.   If we look at the environment (at home, at school, etc.) and make changes,  the child does not need the Ritalin to be able to pay attention in school.   Parents can and do make changes to how they are raising their kids.   There are tried and true methods for  raising a child that, I believe,    completely eliminate the chance that child would ever need such a drug as Ritalin.

Furthermore,  Ritalin is a powerful drug,  a stimulant which alters a child's consciousness.   If a child is not used to his/her own natural consciousness,  it seems like s/he may have a steeper grade to climb in looking for his/her spiritual identity.     

The movie "Garden State" is one I really like.    It is a story of a young person who was traumatized as a child by the death of his mother.   His father,  a psychiatrist,  has prescribed for him drugs (presumably anti-depressants) ever since that trauma which have put him in a permanent calm,  subdued state.   The movie is about the young person realizing that the drugs were keeping him from knowing who he was.   So he stops taking the drugs.    And he starts finding his way out of the state the drugs were imposing on his consciousness.   And towards an experience of his own true thoughts,  feelings and impulses.   

To my eye,  this is a movie which brings artistically what Charles Whitfield is talking about.    

1)  The protagonist is lost in the confusion of life and the fog of anti-depressants.

2)  He decides (spiritual identity is talking here) to stop taking the drugs.

3)  He realizes that he still has deep issues of trauma and grief which he has never dealt with (and neither has his father,  the psychiatrist)

4)  Life becomes more scary but also more real and interesting,  and it is much more about his evolution as a being.   

Now how would this person do if he had the active support of a skilled therapist or therapy group to help him reach those traumas, cognize them,  and grieve all of the pain he'd never been given the opportunity to?  (In the movie he has friends who are very helpful in that regard.)

As I read Whitfield's book I am coming to some realizations.   What seems likely to me is the following:   

1) Some psych drugs are useful in some cases.

2)  They are massively over-prescribed in general.

3)  They are harmful in many cases.

4)  There is a better way.

Your comments are welcome.

Warmly,  Ben