Damn. This is brutal. She was abused as a child, later raped, then went through hell with psychiatrists, and then (!) Yensen exploited her and her therapist (Yensen's wife) failed her.

We prescribe drugs too casually (South Park's ritalin episode, the current opioid epidemic, young hiphop performers promoting Xanax) and at the same time the war on drugs is still going on, and the "establishment" doesn't really want to accept effective drugs that have "immoral" side-effects (eg. look at the story of how ketamine treatment for severe clinical depression went down, it passed FDA review, but it requires a separate clinic, it uses the "boring" version of the molecule, and thus might not even worth the cost).

That said, yes, every type of therapy has an enormous risk, because people lay their minds bare at someone's feet, expecting help, and this creates a situation with almost the vulnerability as a parent-child relationship. Abuse in these situations is terrible.

The rule of having a second therapist there (or just have a review session every half a year) is [ought to be] common sense. There's too much paperwork for drugs and too little real outside review/control. But that control factor has to be independent of the therapist. (For example in this case it was her husband. WTF. And yes, I know it's important to have someone the therapist can work with well, but that's exactly why it should be the other kind of control, where the patient gets debriefed in a 1-1 session.)

>We prescribe drugs too casually (South Park's ritalin episode, the current opioid epidemic, young hiphop performers promoting Xanax) and at the same time the war on drugs is still going on, and the "establishment" doesn't really want to accept effective drugs that have "immoral" side-effects (eg. look at the story of how ketamine treatment for severe clinical depression went down, it passed FDA review, but it requires a separate clinic, it uses the "boring" version of the molecule, and thus might not even worth the cost).

I was talking to someone recently about medical marijuana on our state. We have it, but it's supposedly a complex process. He brought up something about "having to exhaust all other treatments for a condition before trying for a medical card". I hope this isn't true, because it seems absolutely irresponsible to prescribe opioids or benzodiazepines for a conditon that could treated with a less dangerous drug.

The chemical balance of the brain is extremely complex and there is no way to know of the side effects. A lot of shootings in America can be linked to previous antidepressants usage for example.

I have the most critical eye towards psychiatry, but your claim about shootings being linked to previous antidepressant use would seem very difficult to prove true.

We would almost expect to see an antidepressants<>shootings correlation:

- mentally unwell people are given drugs

- mentally unwell people shoot other people.

That isn't causation.

There are plenty of studies where antidepressants are linked with increased aggression and violent behavior. Our brain is so complicated that what we call mental illness (e.g. depression, schizophrenia etc) usually is umbrella of different illnesses with different reasons with somewhat similar symptoms that are diagnosed under one label. That's why for one person one antidepresant is helpful, for another one different one. For some no drugs can help. He might also be depressed because he already has non-diagnosed cancer (one of cancer symptoms) or is poisoned with heavy metals. Or maybe something completely else. And it makes no surprise that if you throw antidepressants at someone who will react violently to it because of his current brain chemistry bad things will happen. Guns were available for long time in USA, would be interesting to see how antidepressant usage growth correlates with number of mass shootings over last 100 years...

Here is also interesting excerpt from the book "Nutrient Power: Heal Your Biochemistry and Heal Your Brain":

Most of the school shooters exhibited a unique and unusual history, compared to the thousands of behavior-disordered persons we have studied. A major difference is the absence of violent behaviors until the teen years, and many cases of excellent academics. Typically, the school shooters developed anxiety and depression after puberty and were treated with SSRI antidepressants. These drugs have helped millions of persons, but psychiatrists have known for years that a rare side effect involves development of suicidal ideation and in some cases homicidal tendencies. There is considerable published literature that indicates young males are especially at risk for this side effect. More than 90% of the school shooters we studied were treated with SSRI medications.

Mainstream psychiatry’s “treatment of choice” for depression is use of SSRI antidepressants aimed at increasing serotonin activity in the brain, perhaps coupled with counseling. However, as described in Chapter 6, depression is not a single condition but an umbrella term that encompasses several quite different disorders. Figure 6-3 shows the five major biochemical types of depression, including a low-folate phenotype that is associated with intolerance to SSRI medications. It seems likely that most school shooters had the low-folate form of depression and experienced an adverse reaction to antidepressant treatment.

These persons respond better to benzodiazepine medications, and also benefit from nutrient therapy to elevate folate levels. Another danger of antidepressant drugs is sudden non-compliance. There are several cases of school shootings in which the crime occurred soon after the offender stopped SSRI medication.

Recommendation: Doctors should perform blood tests prior to prescribing SSRI antidepressants for young males. Inexpensive blood testing for histamine, serum folate, and/or SAMe/SAH ratio can efficiently identify persons at risk for suicidal or homicidal ideation following use of SSRI antidepressants.