The whole world is suddenly concerned about the mentally ill. Unfortunately, the concern is not due to compassion, but out of fear.

We fear what we don’t understand, so it is time to understand mental illness like never before. 

Here are four facts that you should know:
1. Forcing treatment upon the mentally ill has ZERO positive effect
With all the talk about forcing the mentally ill into treatment with legislation like Laura’s Law, it turns out that there is proof that forcing treatment upon the mentally ill nets ZERO positive effect.

Researchers actually tracked two large groups of patients who had been released from the mental hospital. One group had compulsory treatment for their condition. They did not have a choice but to remain in treatment and take their medication. The other group was left to themselves, with no clinical supervision whatsoever.

Both groups had identical amounts of regression and revisits to the hospital. If forced treatment were so beneficial, you’d think the compulsory group would have fared better.

Here is the comprehensive study’s conclusion:

In well coordinated mental health services the imposition of compulsory supervision does not reduce the rate of readmission of psychotic patients. We found no support in terms of any reduction in overall hospital admission to justify the significant curtailment of patients’ personal liberty.

The results were so astounding that England’s primary advocate of compulsory treatment, Tom Burns, MD, has changed his position on the matter. Forced treatment does not work!
2. The mentally ill population is no more violent than the general population
The kneejerk reaction of so many is to fear the mentally ill. If you fear the mentally ill, then you should fear everyone, as the mentally ill are no more violent than your average person. Check these facts:

“…the vast majority of people who are violent do not suffer from mental illnesses (American Psychiatric Association, 1994).”

“The absolute risk of violence among the mentally ill as a group is very small. . . only a small proportion of the violence in our society can be attributed to persons who are mentally ill (Mulvey, 1994).”

“People with psychiatric …

Google searches for mental health related issues drop dramatically during summer months. This is according to new research published in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine.

John W. Ayers, PhD of the Graduate School of Public Health at San Diego State University explains, “The Internet is a game changer. By passively monitoring how individuals search online we can figuratively look inside the heads of searchers to understand population mental health patterns.”

The research draws on Google’s public database identifying and following mental health questions in Australia and the United States between 2006 and 2010. All questions relating to mental health were recorded and categorized by type of mental illness.
All mental health searches in both the United States and Australia were 15-42% lower in summer than in winter.
This includes searches related to OCD, schizophrenia, suicide, ADHD, anxiety, eating disorders, depression, and bipolar. Read the specific statistics here.

It’s encouraging to note that John W. Ayers also speculated that the difference might be due to vitamin D!

“It is very exciting to ponder the potential for a universal mental health emollient, like Vitamin D (a metabolite of sun exposure). But it will be years before our findings are linked to serious mental illness and then linked to mechanisms that may be included in treatment and prevention programs,” said Ayers. “Is it biologic, environmental, or social mechanisms explaining universal patterns in mental health information seeking? We don’t know.”

At least they are speculating.

Summer months also inspire more physical activity, more fruits and vegetables, and more social activity. All of these are proven mental health boosters.

Why not incorporate the best of summer into your winter? Supplement vitamin D. Make sure you stay involved socially. Find winter-friendly physical activity and keep up with your veggies!

Of course, getting your vitamin D level checked is a good thing to do at any time of the year.

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This week on Mental Health Exposed I speak with psychotherapist Bobbi Emel of The Bounce Blog. Bobbi’s specialty is helping people build mental and emotional resilience so they can bounce back from life’s challenges.

I asked Bobbi to give me some of the essential keys to building resilience for people who feel like they need it. She laid it right out there and I was very impressed! We discussed the five essential keys to resilience, and we also called out the self-help industry for misleading people.

Misleading? Yes! The self-help and personal growth industry is famous for telling lies in order to sell products.

It’s a shameful practice intended to scrape the wallets of the naive. Tune in to hear the truth about happiness and personal development.

By the way, I’d recommend getting Bobbi’s free ebook called Bounce Back: 5 keys to survive and thrive through life’s ups and downs. Get it for free at The Bounce Blog (right hand side of main page).

Later in the show I speak with Debora Wayne of Healing with Debora. Debora is a unique energy worker located in Del Mar, California. Debora shares her own ideas about how to build resilience by working with your own body. A flexible, tuned-in body supports a flexible mind, which puts you on a direct path toward resilience.

Debora also has a new meditation mp3 that you can get for free at her website. Just sign up for her newsletter (at very top of main page) and you’ll get access to the free download “Instant relaxation audio”. Debora understands that not all meditation techniques work for everyone and she has designed a program to help you discover which style works for you. It’s a revelation!

All this and more on the April 3, 2013 episode of Mental Health Exposed. Join us!

You may be just eight weeks away from greater compassion, according to new research by Northeastern University’s David DeSteno. The new study, published in Psychological Science, sheds light on what is possible.

“We know meditation improves a person’s own physical and psychological well-being,” said Condon. “We wanted to know whether it actually increases compassionate behavior.”

Meditation and compassion study summary:

•Two forms of meditation were used.

• Compassion was measured by observing the tendency to help someone in physical pain when others nearby were unwilling.

• 15% of non-meditating participants were willing to help the person in pain.

• 50% of meditating participants were willing to help.

• Among the 50%, it did not seem to matter which form of meditation they were using.

“The truly surprising aspect of this finding is that meditation made people willing to act virtuous – to help another who was suffering – even in the face of a norm not to do so,” DeSteno said. The fact that others were ignoring the person in pain creates a ‘bystander-effect’ that normally tends to reduce helping.

Meditation as a general discipline has enough positive evidence to back it that it should be considered a no-brainer for anyone interested in living a conscious life. Among the benefits of meditation are: stress reduction, reduced inflammation, increased compassion, more energy, more personal discipline and a greater overall sense of well-being.

Is there a risk in becoming more compassionate?

A lot of people resist the idea of compassion because they believe they would be more likely to let people off the hook. A client once told me, “If I were more compassionate, I’d get run over. People would take advantage of me all day long.”

This fear is not based on compassion, but on a misunderstanding of compassion. In fact, allowing people to take advantage of you is the opposite of compassion.

If you care about someone, why would you indulge their bad behavior?

When this particular client “got it” he confessed that he already felt taken advantage of daily. When he realized that he wasn’t doing anyone, including himself, any favors by allowing them to use …

Modern psychiatrists stand on the shoulders of the mobile lobotomist, Dr. Walter Freeman (1895 – 1972). Good ole Dr. Walt pioneered the lobotomy, relieving thousands from what he called “the burden of consciousness.”

My radio show guest for March 13, 2013, is psychiatrist Peter Breggin, MD, who battled Dr. Freeman in court. Dr. Freeman passed away before the case was settled. Listen to the amazing history of modern psychiatry on this episode of Mental Health Exposed.

Dr. Freeman’s weapon of choice was an ice pick, which he hammered into the eye socket of his patients. Once the ice pick hit home, he would slash it back and forth, destroying the tissue of consciousness or frontal lobe. Many of his victims were children.

Better yet, if you couldn’t get to the brain-scrambling doc, no worries. He was mobile. Dr. Freeman traveled the country in his recreational vehicle, dubbed the “loboto-mobile,” demonstrating his methods and spreading psychiatry’s good news to his colleagues.

The doctor did the stabbing and scrambling without anesthesia. Rather, he used electroshock to induce a seizure before going in for the brain kill. Dr. Freeman did his deed on children as young as 12 years of age, and also managed to kill at least one housewife.

Of course, anyone else who went around stabbing innocent people in the eye and destroying their brains would be charged with criminal assault and put into prison for life.

Dr. Freeman performed 3500 assaults without as much as a slap on the wrist. In fact, he is recognized as a pioneer and major contributor to the field of psychiatry.

Eventually, the massive overuse of the ice pick lobotomy drew “concern” and even criticism from some. So, the practice was ended after only a few thousand people were maimed. Who else but a psychiatrist can go on such a massive crime spree, destroying thousands of lives – one by one – and only draw concern?

These days, psychiatry has given up the ice pick in favor of scalpels, electrodes and chemical intervention. Of course, their actions are still …