Dr. Peter Breggin's
Center for the Study of Empathic 
Therapy, Education and Living
Bring Out the Best In Yourself!

  Dr. Peter Breggin's
Center for the Study of Empathic Therapy,
Education & Living Newsletter

 
  03/30/2011 - Volume 2, Issue 4  
       
  In This Issue

The Emerging Field of Empathic Therapy
by Peter R Breggin MD

Reporting Adverse Drug and Device Reactions to MedWatch

Dr. Bertram Karon Is Recipient of the First Empathic Therapy Award




Center for the Study of Empathic Therapy, Education & Living
EmpathicTherapy.org
1-607-272-5328








Center for the Study of Empathic Therapy, Education & Living
101 East State St. #112
Ithaca, NY 14850
607-272-5328
  Dear [Contact.First Name],

Many of you are preparing to travel to Syracuse, New York to join us at the Embassy Suites Syracuse for the first Empathic Therapy Conference.  We are looking forward to an exciting, inspiring and informative three days together.  I am eager to meet all our new friends and to visit with many of our 'old' friends, too!  Meanwhile, Dr. Breggin is continuing to formulate this emerging field of Empathic Therapy.  I am including his thoughts here.  Safe travels and see you next week!

Very best, Ginger Breggin, Editor


The Emerging Field of Empathic Therapy
by Peter R Breggin MD

Peter Breggin MDEmpathic Therapy is a big tent. Divergent views, cordially expressed and discussed, are welcome. However, the goal of the Center for the Study of Empathic Therapy, Education and Living is to study and to encourage genuine human engagement as the centerpiece of all good helping relationships. If you are only in partial agreement, come along. You will find the participants happy to engage and even to embrace differences of opinion, provided they do not oppress those who seek help.

Second, genuine empathy, as well as good science, lead to the conclusion that damaging the brain with drugs, electroshock and lobotomy is simply wrong, and should be actively opposed. Unfortunately, the leadership of the various divergent schools and critiques have rarely if ever dared stand up to organized psychiatry by criticizing the use of these brain-damaging treatments. Jung, Adler, Rogers, and nearly all the existential and humanistic leadership have always taken a "live and let live" approach to the most abusive psychiatric practices. Szasz was the first to clearly and meritoriously criticize involuntary treatment, but he and many of his followers have taken a hands-off attitude toward the actual physical abuses perpetrated by psychiatry.

Third, authoritarian viewpoints embedded in psychiatry, and in much of contemporary psychoanalysis and psychotherapy, have no place in empathic therapy. Diagnosing people with pejorative labels elevates the therapist to a superior position while diminishing those who seek help.

Fourth, unlike biological psychiatrists and unlike behaviorists, empathic therapy rejects a view of human beings that sees them as driven by their genetics and biochemistry, and instead emphasizes the choice-making and values, including ethical principles of living, empathy and love. As I have documented in dozens of scientific articles and books, including Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry, Second Edition (2008), there is no convincing evidence that so-called psychiatric disorders are physical diseases or genetic and biochemical in origin.

Fifth, empathic therapy rejects both polarized social viewpoints -- the one that says our personal freedom and happiness is all that matters and the other that says our personal happiness cannot be achieved until Utopia is created on Earth. Every human being has the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, and true satisfaction in life always involves freely chosen relationships characterized by genuine engagement and love. For many, this engagement will be mostly focused on more intimate and family lives, and for some others, it will involve taking on larger community and political concerns.

Sixth, unlike nearly all the well-known alternatives, empathic therapy encourages the inclusion in therapy of freely chosen spiritual and religious beliefs. The humanistic and existential approaches sometimes include "spirituality," but often reject a belief in God. Empathic therapy does not promote religion, and agnostics and atheists belong to the Center and support its efforts. However, empathic therapists understand that God is central to the lives of many, if not most individuals, and that a therapeutic approach will be most successful when it includes, as Alcoholics Anonymous does, an integration of recovery and healing with principles of living, higher values and with God according to the individual's choice.

Genuine empathy, sound ethics and science leads to the following conclusions: that genuine caring engagement is at the heart of all helping relationships; that biological psychiatry with its drugs, electroshock and involuntary treatment is anti-therapeutic, unscientific, unethical, and should be opposed; that authoritarianism and pretenses at superior knowledge have no place in therapy; that human beings should be encouraged to pursue their own happiness with the understanding that genuine satisfaction involves ethical, loving relationships with others and with life; and that the most effective therapy integrates an individual's highest values, humanistic or religious, into the process. 

Read more here.



Reporting Serious Adverse Drug and Device Reactions to the US Food and Drug Administration via MEDWATCH


The FDA MedWatch is an online database where users of psychiatric drugs as well as healthcare providers can report adverse drug reactions (side effects) and research any harmful effects reported by others. Submitting a report is easy for the average consumer.  Only an Internet connection is required.  When a patient suffers a serious adverse reaction to a drug or device (such as an electroshock machine), the patient provides a public service by sending in a report to MedWatch.


This FDA database, known as the Adverse Event and Reporting System (AERS), allows anyone to report injuries and/or deaths caused by medical products, including psychiatric drugs. Of course physicians, pharmacists and other medical practitioners are encouraged to make the effort to report, but reporting is not required.  Professionals send only a tiny percentage of serious adverse drug reactions to the FDA, so patient reports are very important.   


MedWatch data can be helpful to both professionals and consumers when evaluating a drug before it is prescribed or after it has caused possible side effects.  This collected data provides valuable information for the FDA, for researchers and for consumers concerning the adverse effects of drugs that are on the market.   Additionally, the MedWatch information service provides comprehensive, current information on drug alerts, recalls, and labeling changes by a variety of delivery methods including RSS, email, and a Current News section on the Website, which is updated regularly.


Here is the FDA's MedWatch reporting page: https://www.accessdata.fda.gov/scripts/medwatch/medwatch-online.htm


Dr. Bertram Karon Is the First Recipient of the Empathic Therapy Award


Bertram Karon, PhD is the first recipient of the Empathic Therapy Award from the Center for the Study of Empathic Therapy, Education & Living.  The award will be presented at the Center’s first international conference, April 8-10, 2011 in Syracuse, New York State.

 The Empathic Therapy Award honors Dr. Bert Karon’s unique combination of humanity and scientific discipline.  Throughout his career he has touched and enhanced many lives and influenced many professionals for the better as an educator, therapist, researcher, writer and leader.  Because of Dr. Karon, psychology and indeed the world are more caring and rational places.

In a very thoughtful and informative paper Dr. Karon said “if you look at all the data we have and all the case studies... schizophrenics are very sick human beings. What it really is, is primarily, a chronic terror syndrome. We're supposed to feel terrified for a minute, maybe for half an hour when there's a danger but if you feel you are in danger of being destroyed and you have to live that way for days, weeks, months, or years... the toll on you is terrible. All of the symptoms of schizophrenia are either aspects of the terror syndrome or defenses against it. And that includes, the catatonic state where people become rigid which we've demonstated in animals occurs when they seem they are on the verge of dying. The hallucinations and delusions which all human beings are capable of doing but most of us will never have to do...”  Read more about Dr. Karon’s comments here.

Dr. Karon endured a serious automobile accident in November 2007 and then on February 11, 2011 he lost his wife Mary whom he described to Dr. and Mrs. Breggin as “a part of everything good I have done.”  He is less active now but wants his friends and colleagues to know that he has started to write again.  Dr. Karon will not be able to personally attend the First Empathic Therapy conference next week to personally receive his award, but he has filmed his acceptance speech which will be shown at the conference.  Dr. Karon’s friend and colleague Richard Gottlieb, will receive the award on Dr. Karon’s behalf.  


Dr. Breggin and I are both looking forward to seeing many of you at our conference, one week from now!

Very best regards,
Ginger Breggin, Executive Director
Center for the Study of Empathic Therapy,
Education & Living



WARNING -- Most psychiatric drugs can cause withdrawal reactions, sometimes including life-threatening emotional and physical withdrawal problems. In short, it is not only dangerous to start taking psychiatric drugs, it can also be dangerous to stop them. Withdrawal from psychiatric drugs should be done carefully under experienced clinical supervision. Methods for safely withdrawing from psychiatric drugs are discussed in Dr. Breggin's books, Brain-Disabling Treatments in Psychiatry: Drugs, Electroshock and the Psychopharmaceutical Complex (New York: Springer Publishing Company, 2008) and Medication Madness: The Role of Psychiatric Drugs in Cases of Violence, Suicide and Crime (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2008).


Peter R. Breggin, MD is no longer affiliated with the
Center for the Study of Psychiatry, informally known as International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology, which he founded and led from 1972-2002,
and Dr. Breggin is no longer involved in its conferences.

Copyright 2011

Peter R. Breggin, MD