MENTAL HEALTH

THE PRESENT MENTAL HEALTH SYSTEM


People who are seriously mentally ill have a hypomanic episode (nervous breakdown) will not seek help, yet the first requirement to get help is to ask for help.


Should you seek therapy, this is the procedure in Alberta.

- You go to the mental health area of a hospital to ask if you can get therapy.

- You are handed a piece of paper with a 1 (800) number.

- When you call the number you get an answering machine reply to leave your number. - Then you play telephone tag until you finally get to talk to a live person.

- They ask you many questions, and if they feel you might qualify for therapy, you get permission to ask for therapy.

- You then return to the hospital and tell them you have permission to get therapy.

- They don't ask you if you have a history of suicidal or homicidal thoughts but may ask you if are presently considering suicide or homicide.

- If you say no, not right now, then the receptionist looks in the appointment book, and finds a date for a therapy session six weeks later.

- If you can wait for six weeks, you can get a number of sessions.

- If you do not need to return for three months your file is closed, and you start from the beginning again. In my opinion, you could not design a better system to fail!!

When are Alberta residents going to demand a system that actually works?


I would estimate that 50% of individuals that are diagnosed as being mentally ill actually are not. That 50% of individuals who are not mentally ill fall into several categories:


These are mental health conditions that can successfully be treated with a variety of methods:

- All those who suffer from Anxiety Disorders are not mentally ill.

- People who suffer from Post Traumatic Stress are not mentally ill.

- People who suffer from ADD are not mentally ill.

- People who suffer from the Fight or Flight Symptoms are not mentally ill.


Medication may help to deal with the symptoms of these conditions, but medication will never fix a learned behavior. My Plan For Mental Health Treatment: 1. Set up an independent oversite committee to monitor the mental health system.

2. There should be a tremendous increase in the number of mental health therapists, and an improvement in their training regarding learned behaviors, diet, exercise, and mental illnesses. Access to therapists has to be greatly increased.

3. We also need a tremendous increase in the number of psychologists. Their training needs to include the same things as the mental health therapists, except in much greater depth. Their job description should be to evaluate and direct their patients to the appropriate method or methods of treatment.

4. Psychiatry is the only discipline in medicine where the doctor does not look at the part of the body they are treating, according to Dr. Amen, a child psychiatrist who has done over 90,000 spec brain scans.


Psychiatrist’s training needs a complete overhaul for significant change to occur. Their training should include; diet, food allergies, exercise, talk therapy, spec brain scan imaging, flight or fight response emotion evaluation, and treatment. The use of supplements for brain health, street drugs, the use of prescription drugs for the control of the symptoms of the mental illnesses, and lastly how to successfully get off highly addictive drugs with the minimum of side effects.


Psychiatrists should start by taking the history of all the patient’s treatment options that have partially succeeded or failed to date, and followed up by a spec brain scan.


If the brain scan indicates that the patient has a learned behavior, a brain injury, a dietary issue, lacks exercise, etc., the patient should be directed to the appropriate treatment option or options.


As a last resort, prescription medication targeted specifically at reducing the symptoms of the illness. It should be noted that visits to psychiatrists are covered by Alberta Health Care, but appointments with psychologists are not, but definitely should be, in my opinion.

Bipolar Disorder (Illness)

Manic depression, formerly known as bipolar disorder, is a mental health illness that results in sharp mood swings with emotional highs (mania or hypomania) and lows (depression). When you experience bipolar you could feel melancholy or hopeless and stop enjoying or being interested in most activities. You will experience mania or hypomania, making you feel euphoric, energised, or excessively irritable. These mood changes can all impact the ability to think, energy levels, activities, judgment, and behaviour. Mood swing episodes can happen infrequently or repeatedly each year. Bipolar illness is a lifelong illness. Before the mid-1950s pyschiatrists used talk therapy along the medication to treat bipolar disorder. Since the SSRI medication were introduced in the mid- 1950s they stopped talk therapy, and have relied soley on drugs to treat bipolar disorder.

Bipolar disorder has unknown root causes, according to experts. However, they think a variety of factors may be at play. It appears to be a family disease. If a close family member, such as a parent, grandparent, brother, or sister, has it, your child is more likely to contract it.

Bipolar disorder risk factors include unfavourable life events (trauma), hazardousor unstable situations, and negative experiences. This being said it is my belief that the meditation tape method developed by Dr. Dispenza, where the patient can treat themsilves by connecting with their subconscious mind while they sleep can go a long way to controlling the symptoms of bipolar illness (disorder). On this website you will find free medtation tapes written by John Moyer, which are endorsed by Dr. Dispenza. Although I do not personally suffer from a mental illness I listen to one of his tapes every night. For many years I took a sleeping pill every night to get six hours of sleep of disturbed sleep. I now fall asleep easily and get 8 to 9 hours of sleep every night without sleeping pills. About ten years ago I read Dr. Dispenza's book: "Breaking The Habit Of Being Yourself" and learned that the learned habit of being fearful could be overcome using directed meditation. Then why are psychiatrists not telling their patients how to cure themselves of fear? The answer, I believe is simple, there is no money to be made thoughtout the system if patients are told how to cure themsleves, but millions of dollars are made from the drugs that simply work on the symptom of fear, but do not cure the learned behavior of fear.

What is the best medication for bipolar disorder? I believe the best medication is the mood stabilizer lithium carbonate. It is a mineral that is mined. It cannot be patented, and therfore there is no money to be made in prescribing it, so psychiatrists often use anti-psychotic, anti-depressant, and anti-convulsant medications, such as valproic acid (Depakene), divalproex sodium (Depakote), carbamazepine (Tegretol, Equetro, others) and lamotrigine which often have serious side effects, to control manic or hypomanic episodes. When I went on the internet to check out these medications and this is what I found.

What are the 9 drugs linked to memory loss?

Acetazolamide (Diamox), carbamazepine (Tegretol), ezogabine (Potiga), gabapentin (Neurontin), lamotrigine (Lamictal), levetiracetam (Keppra), oxcarbazepine (Trileptal), pregabalin (Lyrica), rufinamide (Banzel), topiramate (Topamax), valproic acid (Depakote) and zonisamide (Zonegran

Is Lamictal a high risk medication?

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has issued a warning that Lamictal has a risk of immune system problems. The drug may activate or trigger the body's immune system and cause severe inflammation in the body. Lamotrigine often causes the patient to gain weight significantly, have significant short term memory deficit, slurred speech and significant somnolence." Sadly community treatment orders (CTOs) are legal tools that allow a person who, if misdiagnosed as being mentally ill, and who actually suffer from a learned behavior such as fear, be forced to get inpatient psychiatric care. Governments are increasingly using CTOs. There is the worry that they violate the human rights and freedoms of the mental health client even though there is some evidence of their potential benefits in encouraging treatment compliance. The ethical and practical ramifications of using CTOs must be considered. Sadly, when a patient suffering from a learned behavior sees a psychiatrist and is misdiagnosed as being mentally ill, when the patient actually has a learned behavior, such as fear. The patient is simply prescribed medication for the symptom of the condition, rather than recommending that the patient get help in learning how to overcome the condition with meditation


Alzheimer's Disease

A degenerative neurologic condition called Alzheimer's disease results in the death of brain cells and brain shrinkage. The most frequent cause of Alzheimer's disease, a steady deterioration in mental, behavioural, and social abilities that impair a person's capacity for independent functioning is Alzheimer's disease. Changes in the brain, such as amyloid plaques and neurofibrillary, or tau, tangles, which cause the death of neurons and their connections, are its defining features.

There is currently no known medication for Alzheimer's disease that can stop the illness progression in the brain. Symptoms may momentarily get better or progress more slowly with medication.

The disease's early symptoms include forgetting recent conversations or experiences. A person with Alzheimer's will have severe memory loss as the condition worsens, and they lose the capacity to do basic tasks.

Researchers still don't fully comprehend why most people develop Alzheimer's disease. Age-related brain changes and genetic, environmental, and lifestyle variables are likely contributing factors. In extreme stages of the disease, significant loss of brain function-related problems, such as dehydration, hunger, or infection, lead to death.