Charlie Rose

jpke  08/21/2012 03:52 PM Report

Mr (Charlie)Rose,

You've had a series on the brain, brain "science" and psychiatry with various guests discussing developments and "discoveries" in their field(s). How about doing a show (or even a series) on a growing number of groups and activists in the field of "mental health" and psychiatric reform? I (and a growing number of others) believe it would be of great public service to broadcast in the "mainstream" media the views and work of individuals such as Peter Breggin, MD(author,psychiatrist), Jim Gottstein (atty, mental health activist), Robert Whitaker(psychiatric researcher and author), David Healy MD (author, psychiatrist), Ann Blake-Tracy(International Coalition for Drug Awareness), and others.

There is increasing, documented evidence on the harm done by the use of psychotropic drugs which should be made more "public".

There are also mental health/ psychiatric consumer (and "insider expert") voices rising on issues related to: Informed consent, coercion, disclosure, misrepresentation, false claims, conflict of interest, corruption, ghostwriting, fraudulent practice, physical/mental abuse, and professional ethics and standards issues in the psychiatric and mental health field.

Your response would be appreciated.

Sincerely, Jim Keiser

PS: I'm adding the following statements (by others) for your consideration and comment:

RE. DIFFERENTIAL DIAGNOSIS: "The thing that bothers me the most about psychiatry (outside of the harm done by its so-called "treatments") is the fact that psychiatrists almost NEVER look for underlying medical disorders. They just use their "Bible," the DSM, which is merely a collection of symptoms that could be caused by MANY THINGS. By not using differential diagnosis, psychiatrists are failing to practice actual medicine. Joe Blow off the street, with no medical training, could come up with a diagnosis after listening to someone describe their symptoms once he has flipped through the pages of the DSM. If I can accomplish one thing (and I have no idea of how to do this), I would like to create a standard that forces psychiatrists to do a thorough battery of medical tests before any medications are prescribed or labels given."~unk

___________________________________

STANDARD PRACTICE IN PSYCHIATRIC "DIAGNOSIS" AND TREATMENT (valid from my, and others' experiences):

"...Most people would agree that people need to (be) told accurate information about the validity of a diagnosis; including whether or not it is Biological in nature; or if this is a belief based on nothing more than a yet to be validated Hypothesis. Saying that a psychiatric diagnosis is a disease/chemical imbalance/neuro-biological in nature is a story told to 'bust the stigma' and to get people to take their meds; not because it is based on fact.

...Fraud is a crime, and also a civil law violation. Defrauding people or entities of money or valuables is a common purpose of fraud, but there have also been fraudulent 'discoveries', e.g., in science, to gain prestige rather than immediate monetary gain. ...

...Most people would agree that people need to given accurate, unbiased information about the drugs prescribed to them and their children. Most of us would agree it would be wrong to tell people that they in fact have a disease/chemical imbalance or a neuro-biological condition requiring drugs to treat it; when no imbalance, disease, defect or neuro-biological condition has been identified. These claims are being made without any physical, neurological or medical examination taking place. A conversation with the person and gathering information from others about their personal opinions and subjective observation of the patient or 'client' is not an examination; and even a consensus of informed opinions does not make the weakest of 'evidence' scientific or valid; it does not make the psychiatric diagnosis a medical condition either. ...

The fact is: no genetic condition, chemical imbalance, or neuro-biological pathology has been identified ever--in any human being alive or dead; that causes any mental illness, or psychiatric diagnosis. ...

...Failing to give people the very information which is necessary to protect their children and themselves is particularly heinous; despicable really, all things considered. ...

...For professionals to ignore their ethical duty to fully inform patients and parents of children about the nature of psychiatric diagnoses, about the potential for harm involved in taking psychiatric drugs is criminal; not just 'unethical.' It is, in reality fraud...

...This being the case, it is an unethical claim for any psychiatrist or mental health professional to make. It is dishonest, it is disrespectful and it is evidence of an utter lack of professional integrity. ...

...Many believe the drugs are treating a disease, because of the erroneous belief that doctors don't lie to patients. People take neurotoxic drugs believing that the drugs treat a brain disease they have. The drugs cause iatrogenic, or 'physician caused' diseases, neurological impairments, and can disable them; and even cause their untimely death. ...

...It is fraud. It is Standard Practice. It is criminal. "~from article in Systems of Care Yakima

Nannie  01/22/2012 04:38 AM Report

This page was really knowledgeable.. It helps me answer the questions that burdens in my head. This was perfect for what i have been searching.

TonyC  10/29/2010 09:27 PM Report

To imdateach:

I was wondering about your question - about how your visual cortex is adapting to loss of vision - but from the opposite point of view.

To use a different form of perception, I was born, or at too early an age for me to recall I became, severely hyposmic. In layman's terms, I'm almost completely smell-blind. I've recently been researching my condition, and I learned people who become hyposmic or anosmic (completely smell-blind) at adulthood often suffer lack of libido and/or lack of appetite. (Interestingly, some even report losing certain childhood memories.) This is almost never true of childhood hyposmics like me. In fact, I usually have what can be considered a healthy appetite and a healthy libido.

So clearly, my brain adapted to this gap in my perception - the ability to easily perceive minor variations in food odors or human pheromones - so that I might survive to adulthood with the ability to perform two key biological functions, eating and reproduction. What I wonder is, how did my brain adapt differently? What did it do to work around this problem? Some things seem obvious. In food, I have a marked preference for salty, minty and spicy tastes - the first of which requires no sense of smell, and the latter two are powerful and overwhelming enough to provoke a response even from my weak nose. But how did my brain develop those preferences and codify them? In what ways did it develop differently? How is my perception of the opposite sex different? Do I respond to more subtle visual or aural or tactile cues - acute variations in the female voice, for instance, imperceptible to others, which might indicate her sexual attraction or stimulate her attractiveness to me? On the most basic level, how is my brain differently hard-wired than someone who can smell normally?

And then again, how much of that is permanent, and how much is plastic? Were my sense of smell fully restored tomorrow, would these two appetites change? To what extent and by what method would my brain start to develop and codify and process information differently than it has my whole life?

It's a fascinating series on a really interesting subject, and I'm glad I can finally watch the whole series. Thanks.

tammyreyno  04/24/2010 07:29 PM Report

I wanted to thank you for presenting this series in your forum. It's truly fascinating and extremely informative.

I wanted to comment on episode II with specific reference to the visual examples that were presented by members of your panel. These individuals are so accomplished that it hadn't entered my mind to question the insights and research facts that have been presented however, when the professionals refer to perception as it applies to the visual examples, I'm stumped.

Not only could I decipher the dog sniffing the ground in one image but when the image of a persons face was explained to be inverted, I could see it while it remained upside down. More confusing was the Necker (?) cubes which were instantly obvious not only because the background lines were shades lighter than the lines in the foreground suggesting the 3-dimensional direction of the cubes but because the foreground and background lines did not intersect, one was very clearly in front of the other. The centre image which was presented in a consistent grey scale also could be viewed from either prospective.

The only reason why I am mentioning this is the suggestion of differences in the creative and analytical brain and the affect that this might have on visual perception. I was waiting for one of the panel members to suggest that these images might be perceived differently by each individual depending on the creative ability of the test subject but they seemed to agree that perception was identical straight across the board.

Just wondering.

imdateach  03/28/2010 03:14 AM Report

Dear Charlie and distinguished guests:

BRAVO!!!!

Although my discipline is Mechanical Engineering, I find the electrophysiological aspects of non-primates most fascinating. Over the past twenty years I have gradually compensated from the total loss of vision OD and a degradation OS from 20/20 to 20/80. I often wonder the effect this has had on my visual cortex.

My curiosity was further piqued when my sister suffered from a ruptured (left) PCA aneurism with extensive bilateral subdural hemorrhage in the subarachnoid space. Neurosurgeons clipped the PCOM and MCA berries by craniotomy. She emerged unscathed.

Yes, the non-primate body is truly a remarkable work of art!

Oh, and what follows is some advice for REMscam:

I am glad that you have navigated back to the cartoon channel.

You will not be missed.

It is ignorant to make unsubstantiated claims.

Before you attempt to defend yourself, learn to construct complete sentences.

Look up these two words: physiological, psychiatric.

Don't be a fool. You are out of your league in this forum.

Good day!

Neuro4953  02/28/2010 07:37 PM Report

To arenaud333: well said.

arenaud333  02/16/2010 12:08 AM Report

to the individual who calls himself "REMant";

five (5) basic remarks which should have gone unspoken but unfortunately, because of people like you, ominously warrant repeatition here: 1) if you don't have anything not negative to put forward as a matter of relevant commentary, keep your derogatory observationss to yourself; 2) when speaking of so distinguished a researcher as Dr. Eric Kandel, let alone a Nobel-prize winning one (which he is & you're undoubtly NOT) the commonly polite use of the distinguishing prefix "Dr" is mandatory and indicated among civilised company; 3) you could well have used a repeat listening of the program, since you obviously (willfully, blindingly or deafly) misheard what Dr KANDEL said about autistic children: namely, you have the choice to not look at peoples' faces... they don't - which is the whole point of his curiosity for inquiry; 4) as a matter of general rule, a typical viewer of the Charlie Rose show has too busy a schedule to envision registering for a university course at the undergraduate level for the purpose of general learning on so specific a subject as the neurobiology of vision or the psychology of perception; or to afford her- or himself (se farcir) the luxury of generic PBS programming... hence the timely justification for a commendable series such as the one most of us take a great interest in following along the weeks (even though - personally, for instance - most notions broached along the way are part of my casual knowledge of the subjects broadly covered as an enticement to further reading... 5) lastly (but not in the least), your own generalisation (which obviously it is) about a purported "sloppiness" on Dr Kandel's part is impolite, irrelevant, unwarranted and unwelcomed in a public forum, & should be the subject of a face-to-face conversation between you & the professor; since (obviously also) you have a personal axe to grind with him, of which "we" know nothing about and have ziltch interest in or time for.

so do us all a favor and get off the "net-waves" (for lack of "air" to transmit our written speech) where some of "us" (Charlie's viewers) are trying to conduct a

courteous and genteal conversation among consenting, respectful adults. & i'll volunteer to second the motion myself... (granted)

kylewallace69  01/21/2010 02:53 PM Report

I'm puzzled by these programs getting only 3 stars! Given the paucity of sophisticated tv (Michio Kaku-exception), surely one knows better than that.

ShalomFreedman  01/19/2010 11:54 AM Report

I greatly appreciated this program, and feel I learned much from it. The idea of the brain as 'synthesizer' which takes limited knowledge and reconstructs it to provide us with our picture of reality, was the concluding remark of Eric Kandel. But there were many insights of value on the way. I especially appreciated Nancy Kanwisher's presentation on the various areas of the brain devoted to very specific operations. She indicates there is an even an area which enables us to think about what others are thinking about us. Her question is why there are designated areas for certain visual skills and not for others. Pawan Sinha's observations on how those who only begin to see when some physical obstacle removed perhaps as late as in their teens was also interesting. Tony Movshon gave a sense of how complex the middle-level world of vision is. All in all this was a rich informative discussion. Charlie Rose is to be highly praised for doing this kind of educational series.

REMant  01/12/2010 07:05 PM Report

This has been done far more intelligibly by several PBS programs, and is taught to undergrads in Psych 101, probably even to AP high schoolers. BTW, I rarely look ppl directly in the eye either, but this is not a simple physiological question, but very much one of personality. Another instance of Kandel's sloppiness and overgeneralizing and I doubt I'll watch anymore of this.