Let’s look at the biopsychosocial model of illness, shall we, and look at what are legitimate factors to a school shooting. Ready?
Biology: Start with Genetics. or, A family history of shooters. Is there a higher lead penetration in the family gene pool? Are there organic factors that play a role in heightening the propensity for antisocial traits, increasing suggestibility to violence. Do shooters have an adrenal tumor that increases the fight or flight response that leads to a predisposition to fight?
Psychology: Was the shooter raised in a family of violence. Was there a gun rack in every room in the house? Were family told to shoot first and ask questions later? From a behavioral cognitive perspective, did the shooting of guns have a calming effect, and was there cognitive distantsance to rationalize the value of shooting people as a form of population control, or, remove the enemy before the enemy could remove the assailant? Interpersonally, could the shooter not relate to the victim if the victim did not possess a firearm at the time of the confrontation?
Psychodynamically, was the firearm a phallic symbol, an Oedipal fantasy to kill all the males who resembled father to have mother, to only have to shoot mother for not providing the sexual satisfaction that the gun could provide at the end?
Finally, social model. Oh yeah, we’re pretty much debating those elements as a society now. Take the guns away, make the mentally ill the primary scapegoat, reframe the second amendment, redefine the antisocial element and make this the sole responsibility of mental health providers, because who is going to react to a shooting at a mental health clinic…
Oh yeah, that last thing happened in Pittsburgh last year, not much said about that after the fact, true?
You can blame the drugs. But, what happens WHEN the next shooter hasn’t been on them, then what, blame that the shooter wasn’t on drugs?
This antipsychiatry crap never can be neutralized, there is always an out, always an exception to reason and fairness.
What if the shooter just hates people and after the ego dystonic moment, just says F— it, better dead than use my head! Some people are just antisocial cretins, kill for the sake of death, maybe a little sensationalism for extra benefit, oh, and will get firearms whether legitimately accessible or not.
Nice try to blame the meds. What next, sequester is because too many congressmen and our President aren’t on antipsychotics and are out of touch with reality!?
I thought it was very calmly stated that drugs could cause adverse reactions in some people. To me, (not a medical professional), it’s no different from the fact that I can take one Benadryl and find myself immediately asleep and most people have that response. But some people take Benadryl and get agitated. To me, the important point here is not to discount the medication as a possible factor; I’d like to see us look at the whole picture and not just make assumptions. And not have some potential factors eliminated from consideration.
Well, I know from experience that an anti-depressant can make me think and behave in ways that are completely out of character for me. Fortunately, on my drug induced hypomania, I seemed to think I was an elf living amongst my kind elven kin. People were thanking me for my patience at every turn. I was so patient that I could have stood and waited until the sun went out because I had no judgement at all. I have never been in any state anything like that except on desipramine. I blanche to think how my life would have turned out (and who I might have hurt) had the effect been less lyrical and warm.
Clinging to doctrines of faith, whether professional, political or religious, is common – vielding power instead of freedom of thought and free inquiry, as Rxisk stories.
Questioning the most profitable empires/industries, Big Pharma, the Military, Big Oil, the Catholic Church, Scientologists, Stalinists… is always unwellcome by the presidents, popes, cardinals, generals, secretaries, lackeys, profiteers, handmaidens choosing stagnation instead of lifegiving changes – but always temporarily. The resisters crop up, here 1bom, there David Healy..
I wouldn’t worry too much. There has been no real research, and none at all federally into gun violence for almost 2 decades. I really don’t think anyone can say for sure what percentage of shooters were on psychotropic drugs.
There was actually legislation, presumably passed by gun lobbyists, that prevented federal research from occurring into gun violence. President Obama recently enacted executive actions that allowed gun violence research to begin again. The Washington post had a nice article on it.
It’s more common sense to say some patients will have adverse reactions to psychotropic drugs, most of which are listed in detail and in incidence of occurrence (with 6 week use) in the Drug Labeling information. This Information for the prescriber is to be presented to the patient in order to make a proper Risk to Benefit decision, and is legally required to be included with the drug (a short pamphlet) when it is picked up from the pharmacy. It is also found inside sample packs as legally required.
Psychotropic drugs produce their subjective effect by disrupting the nervous system. These drugs are at best, imprecise in mechanism of action and expected to produce “side effects”, and at worst (such as with antidepressants), inexplicably approved with negative efficacy. The clinical trials that got these drugs approved are extremely specific and generally do not represent a real world outcome – most of which are no longer then 6 weeks in duration. Their scientific integrity is also low/invalid, due to the use of primary subjective observations in place of Objective observations.
Objectively speaking, each time a patient puts a drug in their mouth, it’s an experiment. The nervous system is typically not monitored in any way, so predicting adverse events is limited to subjective observation, which has low repeatability. This is a very bad system to ‘treat’ millions of people, certainly it is statistically predicted a certain number will suffer psychosis and other specific adverse events. There is almost no data on gun violence to make a real connection to mass shootings or other violence however.
The video was acceptable information, and certainly did not qualify as ‘antipsychiatry’. If a psychiatrist has not witnessed drug dependency syndromes or withdrawal syndromes, it may indicate subjective observation makes it difficult to tell drug induced symptoms apart from symptoms of ‘mental illness’ and the physician has not yet improved their deficit.
Given the drugs produce an effect by disrupting the nervous system, it should be self evident disrupting the nervous system may also produce these symptoms – as indicated in the drug labeling information. Amphetamine psychosis has between a 5% and 1 in 800 incidence in children, for example. With millions of children on amphetamines, probably gonna see some murders which occurred while a child was in that state.
Interesting, Dr. Hassman, as I recall many of your comments at Furious Seasons as being more open-minded to the negative effects of psychiatric drugs, and to the point you called for Seroquel to be a controlled substance…. oh–therapy first, right? 😉
I think I am being very consistent, as are the commenters who do not like what I write. Well, better to stand for something than fall for anything, eh?
It is fairly disingenuous to spout off about how meds cause shoooting incidents, because it is easy to vilify a drug than vilify a society, a mindset, the role of media and other screen activities that dumb down social skills, perhaps just lump antisocial behaviors into mental health agendas.
No, I am not interested to watch a known dissenter to all meds spout off how yet again meds are ONLY a failure. Good luck with rigid inflexible systems.
Oh, and it is about therapy first. Even that treatment intervention gets attacked by some who reply here repeated.
Sorry i don’t fit into the agenda…
Sort of like the Democrat process of late. Yeah, sequester will destroy society.
HA HA HA.
I did a little bit of research, and I found there is a significant evidence base that violent adverse events are associated with specific groups of drugs – such as Varenicline, which increases the availability of dopamine, and serotonin reuptake inhibitors were the most strongly and consistently implicated drugs. These adverse events are reported to the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting system.
As far as I can tell, specific information on the degree of involvement of psychotropic drugs in the past 20 years of Mass Shootings is not really available for anyone other then a federal study.
Well see where requesting federal funding for the CDC goes, i guess. Hopefully they’ll get it and once again begin to research gun violence.
Hassman is no doubt a consistent example of the disassociation disorder that the vast majority of psychiatry suffers from today….I happen to find his rhetorical babble somewhat amusing in it’s naive acceptance of his profession’s corrupted principles, unapologetic stance regarding it’s crimes against humanity, it’s unscientific psychobabble, it’s non-evidenced proclamations, and it’s well documented record of abysmal failure that has been demonstrated over and over again throughout the past several decades.
Selling fantasy, offering opinionated guess work, defending the indefensible, and attacking those that are asking the necessary hard questions appears to be all this cottage industry of psychiatry has left to offer up.
Hassman can’t seem to extrapolate how he wants to be defined with his knee jerk nonsensical tirades; is it as your run of the mill average crack pot, or as just another unhinged voodoo practitioner with no other viable employment options…
Disclaimer, I am not the “S” crowd commenter above, though that gave me a laugh.
http://ssristories.com/ This is a link for readers to see hundreds of cases of psych med induced violence and I believe that Rosie who runs the site was interviewed by Healy….
I would suggest that psychiatry has been the “rigid, inflexible system.” Especially with its historic use of force and coercion on some very vulnerable people.
Also, re: sequester…
A good place to start would be federal research with psychiatric drugs…
The newer atypicals were a scam – no better than the older ones.
Taxpayers ought not to be forced to pay for any more research in this area (the drugmakers are bowing out (they know failure when they see it).
Also, Medicaid money should no longer be used to provide psychiatric drugs to kids, especially foster children. Medicare money should not be used to drug “disruptive” elderly in nursing homes. And VA money should no longer be used to put war-traumatized troops on dangerous drug cocktails.
Those ideas ought to save several billion dollars.
As I have said before, penicillin has it poisons, chemotherapy is no satisfying experience, and talk to chronically institutionalized schizophrenics who tolerated clozaril, and pay attention to WHERE you are talking to them today.
Demonize, marginalize, and minimize progress, sorry it is not 100% effective, but, last I checked we are still on earth, not some fairy land like OZ. People aren’t going to have the luxury of getting up at 12, start to work at 1, take an hour for lunch and then at 2 they’re done.
Have any of you commenters noted the rise of mental health disability claims in the past 6 years, and how many work their way off it within 5 years time? Ain’t gonna like the numbers!!! They are inversely proportional!
Also, again, careful what you wish for, should the lie that psychiatric drugs are only detrimental get bought by the masses, what then WHEN people are ill with mental health problems? Leeches, skull burr holes, reading the crystals?
Sorry mental health care failed some people here on the web. It hasn’t failed everyone. But, that doesn’t fit the agenda, eh?
I KNOW, focus the 80 billion sequester cuts all on mental health care by the feds!
Duane, went to the link, looks familiar to me, but it has some validity.
I have never argued against the overprescribing of antipsychotics, but, I also will not buy into some commenters who just rail that they have NO place in the process.
There are people who are grateful to have taken them, many also grateful I weaned them off. And for schizophrenia, well, as I said above, talk to people who had no positive results with the older drugs but were able to regain function with the new ones, the second generation ones.
I watched 47 seconds and heard enough.
Let’s look at the biopsychosocial model of illness, shall we, and look at what are legitimate factors to a school shooting. Ready?
Biology: Start with Genetics. or, A family history of shooters. Is there a higher lead penetration in the family gene pool? Are there organic factors that play a role in heightening the propensity for antisocial traits, increasing suggestibility to violence. Do shooters have an adrenal tumor that increases the fight or flight response that leads to a predisposition to fight?
Psychology: Was the shooter raised in a family of violence. Was there a gun rack in every room in the house? Were family told to shoot first and ask questions later? From a behavioral cognitive perspective, did the shooting of guns have a calming effect, and was there cognitive distantsance to rationalize the value of shooting people as a form of population control, or, remove the enemy before the enemy could remove the assailant? Interpersonally, could the shooter not relate to the victim if the victim did not possess a firearm at the time of the confrontation?
Psychodynamically, was the firearm a phallic symbol, an Oedipal fantasy to kill all the males who resembled father to have mother, to only have to shoot mother for not providing the sexual satisfaction that the gun could provide at the end?
Finally, social model. Oh yeah, we’re pretty much debating those elements as a society now. Take the guns away, make the mentally ill the primary scapegoat, reframe the second amendment, redefine the antisocial element and make this the sole responsibility of mental health providers, because who is going to react to a shooting at a mental health clinic…
Oh yeah, that last thing happened in Pittsburgh last year, not much said about that after the fact, true?
You can blame the drugs. But, what happens WHEN the next shooter hasn’t been on them, then what, blame that the shooter wasn’t on drugs?
This antipsychiatry crap never can be neutralized, there is always an out, always an exception to reason and fairness.
What if the shooter just hates people and after the ego dystonic moment, just says F— it, better dead than use my head! Some people are just antisocial cretins, kill for the sake of death, maybe a little sensationalism for extra benefit, oh, and will get firearms whether legitimately accessible or not.
Nice try to blame the meds. What next, sequester is because too many congressmen and our President aren’t on antipsychotics and are out of touch with reality!?
I thought it was very calmly stated that drugs could cause adverse reactions in some people. To me, (not a medical professional), it’s no different from the fact that I can take one Benadryl and find myself immediately asleep and most people have that response. But some people take Benadryl and get agitated. To me, the important point here is not to discount the medication as a possible factor; I’d like to see us look at the whole picture and not just make assumptions. And not have some potential factors eliminated from consideration.
Well, I know from experience that an anti-depressant can make me think and behave in ways that are completely out of character for me. Fortunately, on my drug induced hypomania, I seemed to think I was an elf living amongst my kind elven kin. People were thanking me for my patience at every turn. I was so patient that I could have stood and waited until the sun went out because I had no judgement at all. I have never been in any state anything like that except on desipramine. I blanche to think how my life would have turned out (and who I might have hurt) had the effect been less lyrical and warm.
Appears that Joel Hassman, MD forgot his Thorazine dose today… Don’t you just hate it when the mad men are running the institution
Joel,
The drugs increase the rate of violence.
Period.
Take a couple of deep-breaths.
Your profession, with all its myth, half-truths and outright lies was bound to die sooner or later.
Duane
discoverandrecover.wordpress.com
Clinging to doctrines of faith, whether professional, political or religious, is common – vielding power instead of freedom of thought and free inquiry, as Rxisk stories.
Questioning the most profitable empires/industries, Big Pharma, the Military, Big Oil, the Catholic Church, Scientologists, Stalinists… is always unwellcome by the presidents, popes, cardinals, generals, secretaries, lackeys, profiteers, handmaidens choosing stagnation instead of lifegiving changes – but always temporarily. The resisters crop up, here 1bom, there David Healy..
Re: The sequester
A society cannot spend itself into prosperity, anymore than a person can drug their brain into health.
It’s called common sense.
Duane
Joel Hassman wrote, “I watched 47 seconds and heard enough.”
LOL
How ironic Joel.
I read the first paragraph of your rant and had enough too.
@ Joel Hassman, MD
I wouldn’t worry too much. There has been no real research, and none at all federally into gun violence for almost 2 decades. I really don’t think anyone can say for sure what percentage of shooters were on psychotropic drugs.
There was actually legislation, presumably passed by gun lobbyists, that prevented federal research from occurring into gun violence. President Obama recently enacted executive actions that allowed gun violence research to begin again. The Washington post had a nice article on it.
http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2013-01-17/national/36409939_1_gun-violence-injury-prevention-and-control-gun-control
It’s more common sense to say some patients will have adverse reactions to psychotropic drugs, most of which are listed in detail and in incidence of occurrence (with 6 week use) in the Drug Labeling information. This Information for the prescriber is to be presented to the patient in order to make a proper Risk to Benefit decision, and is legally required to be included with the drug (a short pamphlet) when it is picked up from the pharmacy. It is also found inside sample packs as legally required.
Psychotropic drugs produce their subjective effect by disrupting the nervous system. These drugs are at best, imprecise in mechanism of action and expected to produce “side effects”, and at worst (such as with antidepressants), inexplicably approved with negative efficacy. The clinical trials that got these drugs approved are extremely specific and generally do not represent a real world outcome – most of which are no longer then 6 weeks in duration. Their scientific integrity is also low/invalid, due to the use of primary subjective observations in place of Objective observations.
Objectively speaking, each time a patient puts a drug in their mouth, it’s an experiment. The nervous system is typically not monitored in any way, so predicting adverse events is limited to subjective observation, which has low repeatability. This is a very bad system to ‘treat’ millions of people, certainly it is statistically predicted a certain number will suffer psychosis and other specific adverse events. There is almost no data on gun violence to make a real connection to mass shootings or other violence however.
The video was acceptable information, and certainly did not qualify as ‘antipsychiatry’. If a psychiatrist has not witnessed drug dependency syndromes or withdrawal syndromes, it may indicate subjective observation makes it difficult to tell drug induced symptoms apart from symptoms of ‘mental illness’ and the physician has not yet improved their deficit.
Given the drugs produce an effect by disrupting the nervous system, it should be self evident disrupting the nervous system may also produce these symptoms – as indicated in the drug labeling information. Amphetamine psychosis has between a 5% and 1 in 800 incidence in children, for example. With millions of children on amphetamines, probably gonna see some murders which occurred while a child was in that state.
Interesting, Dr. Hassman, as I recall many of your comments at Furious Seasons as being more open-minded to the negative effects of psychiatric drugs, and to the point you called for Seroquel to be a controlled substance…. oh–therapy first, right? 😉
I think I am being very consistent, as are the commenters who do not like what I write. Well, better to stand for something than fall for anything, eh?
It is fairly disingenuous to spout off about how meds cause shoooting incidents, because it is easy to vilify a drug than vilify a society, a mindset, the role of media and other screen activities that dumb down social skills, perhaps just lump antisocial behaviors into mental health agendas.
No, I am not interested to watch a known dissenter to all meds spout off how yet again meds are ONLY a failure. Good luck with rigid inflexible systems.
Oh, and it is about therapy first. Even that treatment intervention gets attacked by some who reply here repeated.
Sorry i don’t fit into the agenda…
Sort of like the Democrat process of late. Yeah, sequester will destroy society.
HA HA HA.
I did a little bit of research, and I found there is a significant evidence base that violent adverse events are associated with specific groups of drugs – such as Varenicline, which increases the availability of dopamine, and serotonin reuptake inhibitors were the most strongly and consistently implicated drugs. These adverse events are reported to the FDA’s Adverse Event Reporting system.
an example:
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0015337)
As far as I can tell, specific information on the degree of involvement of psychotropic drugs in the past 20 years of Mass Shootings is not really available for anyone other then a federal study.
Well see where requesting federal funding for the CDC goes, i guess. Hopefully they’ll get it and once again begin to research gun violence.
http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-18563_162-57564599/nra-congress-stymied-cdc-gun-research-budget/
Hassman is no doubt a consistent example of the disassociation disorder that the vast majority of psychiatry suffers from today….I happen to find his rhetorical babble somewhat amusing in it’s naive acceptance of his profession’s corrupted principles, unapologetic stance regarding it’s crimes against humanity, it’s unscientific psychobabble, it’s non-evidenced proclamations, and it’s well documented record of abysmal failure that has been demonstrated over and over again throughout the past several decades.
Selling fantasy, offering opinionated guess work, defending the indefensible, and attacking those that are asking the necessary hard questions appears to be all this cottage industry of psychiatry has left to offer up.
Hassman can’t seem to extrapolate how he wants to be defined with his knee jerk nonsensical tirades; is it as your run of the mill average crack pot, or as just another unhinged voodoo practitioner with no other viable employment options…
Disclaimer, I am not the “S” crowd commenter above, though that gave me a laugh.
http://ssristories.com/ This is a link for readers to see hundreds of cases of psych med induced violence and I believe that Rosie who runs the site was interviewed by Healy….
Psychiatry is in denial.
Both suicides and homicides take place with these drugs:
http://www.woodymatters.com/
http://video.foxbusiness.com/v/2156410132001/are-drugs-the-culprit-behind-tragic-mass-shootings
Duane
Joel,
I would suggest that psychiatry has been the “rigid, inflexible system.” Especially with its historic use of force and coercion on some very vulnerable people.
Also, re: sequester…
A good place to start would be federal research with psychiatric drugs…
The newer atypicals were a scam – no better than the older ones.
Taxpayers ought not to be forced to pay for any more research in this area (the drugmakers are bowing out (they know failure when they see it).
Also, Medicaid money should no longer be used to provide psychiatric drugs to kids, especially foster children. Medicare money should not be used to drug “disruptive” elderly in nursing homes. And VA money should no longer be used to put war-traumatized troops on dangerous drug cocktails.
Those ideas ought to save several billion dollars.
Duane
As I have said before, penicillin has it poisons, chemotherapy is no satisfying experience, and talk to chronically institutionalized schizophrenics who tolerated clozaril, and pay attention to WHERE you are talking to them today.
Demonize, marginalize, and minimize progress, sorry it is not 100% effective, but, last I checked we are still on earth, not some fairy land like OZ. People aren’t going to have the luxury of getting up at 12, start to work at 1, take an hour for lunch and then at 2 they’re done.
Have any of you commenters noted the rise of mental health disability claims in the past 6 years, and how many work their way off it within 5 years time? Ain’t gonna like the numbers!!! They are inversely proportional!
Also, again, careful what you wish for, should the lie that psychiatric drugs are only detrimental get bought by the masses, what then WHEN people are ill with mental health problems? Leeches, skull burr holes, reading the crystals?
Sorry mental health care failed some people here on the web. It hasn’t failed everyone. But, that doesn’t fit the agenda, eh?
I KNOW, focus the 80 billion sequester cuts all on mental health care by the feds!
Oh yeah, they already did that! Damn!!
Joel,
Re: Neuroleptics (antipsychotics)
You first. –
http://www.madinamerica.com/2011/11/%EF%BB%BFtimeline/
Duane
Duane, went to the link, looks familiar to me, but it has some validity.
I have never argued against the overprescribing of antipsychotics, but, I also will not buy into some commenters who just rail that they have NO place in the process.
There are people who are grateful to have taken them, many also grateful I weaned them off. And for schizophrenia, well, as I said above, talk to people who had no positive results with the older drugs but were able to regain function with the new ones, the second generation ones.
thanks for your reply.
Joel H