Mainstream psychiatry is becoming more biology-based in practice and today uses medication as a major form of treatment. The problem with this, say some, is that psychiatric medication is dangerous or over-prescribed. Alternative medicine offers other therapeutic choices for people who are against biological psychiatry. What is alternative medicine, when applied to mental illness? This is indeed a perplexing question. The alternative methods of treatment for various types of mental illness include as many as 300 different therapies in this growing and diverse field, such as: Read more →

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is characterized by a pattern of unstable relationships, a self-image that is always changing, and poor impulse control. The person suffering from BPD fears abandonment and will go to any lengths to prevent this, including threats of suicide. Self-harm is a characteristic.

There may be no other psychiatric diagnosis more laden with stereotypes and stigma than Borderline Personality Disorder. People who live with this label — the majority being female — often have problems accessing good mental health services. Read more →

Who wants to admit that they need to see a psychiatrist? There is often an inner sense of shame and disgrace when people seek psychiatric consultation, yet the pain of mental illness compels many people to seek help from family doctors or psychiatrists.

Most people who suspect mental illness initially go to their family doctors. However, it is valuable if the ill person knows the pro’s and con’s of consulting their family doctor about their mental symptoms as opposed to a psychiatrist or who specializes in diagnosing and treating mental illness. Read more →

It has only been within the past decade or two that we have begun to better understand the biochemical causes of mental illness. Although there is still much to be discovered, it is now known that mental illnesses are similar to physical illnesses, since they often have biochemical causes and medical treatments.Most cultures view or have viewed severely mentally ill persons as crazy, lacking will-power, possessed, frightening or violent. One universal element of this stigmatization and discrimination against the mentally ill is the traditional belief that severe mental illness is caused by something supernatural or paranormal, such as possession by spirits, curses or sorcery attacks, influence by the moon (“lunacy”), divine punishment, karma, or is the result of a moral transgression. Read more →

The power of stigmatization of the mentally ill is so strong that it keeps mental health low on the list of public priorities for spending. One of the barriers to treatment for the mentally ill is the inability to pay for it, and another is how to access it. Policy-making and funding decisions for mental health by federal, state and local legislators result in inadequate government-funded mental health care facilities, insurance reimbursement, community programs and treatment specialists available. Read more →

There is a time when a mentally ill person may realize that they need help. Symptoms worry them or others enough that they consider getting treatment. But the White House Conference on Mental Health identified stigma as the most important barrier to treatment for the mentally ill. (1) More than any other reason, stigma, or fear of the consequences of being labeled “mentally ill”, prevents a person–who realizes he or she may need help–from reaching out for that help. Powerful and pervasive, the stigma of mental illness makes it hard enough for a person to personally admit that he or she has a mental illness, much less talk about it to others. Read more →