Bruce Levine Blog

Confronting Bigots Intolerant of Alternative Mental Health Treatment

Huffington Post October 6th, 2010

“Webster’s Dictionary” defines bigot as “a person who is utterly intolerant of any differing creed, belief, or opinion.” Despite the success of alternative mental health treatments for many people, there still exists bigotry against these approaches. For many self-defined “ex-mental health patients,” “mental health treatment consumers,” and “psychiatric survivors” who attended Alternatives 2010 Conference (September […]

Psychologists Profit on Unending U.S. Wars by Teaching Positive Thinking to Soldiers

Huffington Post July 22nd, 2010

While U.S. military psychiatrists are prescribing increasing amounts of chill pills, America’s psychologists are teaching soldiers how to think more positively about their tours in Afghanistan, Iraq, and wherever else they are next ordered to kill the bad guys and win the hearts and minds of everyone else. The U.S. Army is planning to require […]

Psychiatric Drugs and Poor Kids

Huffington Post May 21st, 2010

Children covered by Medicaid are far more likely to be prescribed antipsychotic drugs than children covered by private insurance, and Medicaid-covered kids have a higher likelihood of being prescribed antipsychotics even if they have no psychotic symptoms. This is reported in the May19, 2010 Journal of American Medical Association (JAMA) article, “Studies Shed Light on […]

Are Psychiatric Drugs Contributing to Mental Illness Disability?

May 4th, 2010

Investigative reporter Robert Whitaker’s Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America (Crown Publishers, April 2010) is the most important book on psychiatric treatment in a generation. I have been in practice for over 25 years and have read hundreds of books about psychiatry, and I […]

Sharp Rise in U.S. Military Psychiatric Drug Use and Suicides

April 1st, 2010

One in six service members is now taking at least one psychiatric drug, according to the Navy Times, with many soldiers taking “drug cocktail” combinations. Soldiers and military health care providers told the Military Times that psychiatric drugs are “being prescribed, consumed, shared and traded in combat zones.” The Navy Times reporters Andrew Tilghman and […]

“Therapy” for Obama and His Demoralization by the Insurance Industry

November 12th, 2009

President Obama appears to have a serious case of demoralization induced by the financial power of the insurance industry. Obama has trapped himself with the same kind of thinking that initially demoralized his hero Abraham Lincoln, who ultimately rejected that kind of thinking, regained his morale, and fought against what was morally wrong. The sad […]

When Liberals and Conservatives Are Two Sides of the Same Oppressive Coin

July 30th, 2009

For many people I know — especially many young people, Native Americans, and others alienated from American dominant culture — the difference between liberals and conservatives is only in technique used to coerce conformity and gain control. My friend Roland Chrisjohn is a psychologist and a professor in the Native Studies Department at St. Thomas […]

The Wave of Evil: New Report on ADHD Drugs Blowback

July 16th, 2009

The wave of evil washes all our institutions alike.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson The wave of evil washes not only the financial-industrial complex, the military-industrial complex, the energy-industrial complex, and predatory executives at AIG, Citibank, Halliburton, Blackwater/Xe, Enron, and Exxon. The pharmaceutical-industrial complex has virtually annexed the mental health profession, whose all-star opportunist team is captained […]

Revolutionary Road, A Beautiful Mind and Truthfulness

March 25th, 2009

The films Revolutionary Road and A Beautiful Mind both portray mathematicians turned mental patients who create havoc for their families. But the similarity ends there. In director Ron Howard’s A Beautiful Mind (2001), the facts of the real-life recovery of Nobel prize winner John Nash are fabricated to create a politically-correct version of mental illness […]

Are We Really Okay with Electroshocking Toddlers?

January 30th, 2009

“Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive.” — C.S. Lewis Psychiatry’s “shock doctrine” is quite literally electroshock, and its latest victims are – I’m not kidding – young children. On January 25, 2009, the Herald Sun, based in Melbourne, Australia, reported, “Children younger than […]