There were thousands of people on the streets of the CBD, congregated at the three entertainment stages, and enjoying the amusement rides situated in Railway Parade.

Here’s some of the photos I took today:

The post Cabramatta Moon Festival Photo Gallery appeared first on johnalchin.info.

“Gazing is such a wonderful thing, and one we know so little about. In gazing we are completely turned outwards, but at the very moment when we are most outward-turned things appear to have happen within us that have waited longingly until they are unobserved, and whilst these things happen within us, without us, perfectly and strangely anonymously – their significance grows in the object outside, a convincing, strong name, their only possible name, in which we bissfully and reverently recognize what is happening within us without ourselves reaching out for it, comprehending it only very gently, from some distance, under the sign of a thing that just now was alien to us and in the next moment will be alienated again.”

- Rainer Maria Rilke in a letter to his wife, Clara Westhoff, dated 8th March, 1907. Quoted in Selected Poems with parallel German text, published in 2011 by Oxford University Press.

The post Rilke on Gazing appeared first on johnalchin.info.

Mental health advocate and Better Access campaigner Alison Fairleigh has posted this YouTube video featuring the faces of fellow Better Access campaigners, in an effort to draw attention to the real face of the cuts to the ‘Better Access’ scheme. Take a look:

The Alliance for Better Access

Here’s how you can help:

1. For more information on the campaign to fully restore access to psychological and allied health services. visit the Alliance for Better Access website at www.betteraccess.net.
2. Join our Facebook Group.
3. Sign our petition to stop the cuts to psychological services (Hosted by Change.org)
4. Write to your Federal Member of Parliament and the Federal Senators for your state.

The post Everyday people need Better Access to mental health care appeared first on johnalchin.info.

Program blurb:

“Dr Allen Frances Chair of the DSM-IV Task Force returns to discuss the confusion and concerns over the soon to be released DSMV. How will the changes impact your child? What do the changes mean for your child’s accommodations? Why are so many additions and revisions causing so much controversy?

The DSM is one of the most powerful manuals of our time. The criteria within determines not only the diagnosis and labels but the treatments and funding for our children.

Join the man who has been outspoken and steadfast in his beliefs about the state of the DSM and how it will impact our lives.”

Originally posted here.

The post Allen Frances discusses the confusion & concern about the DSM V appeared first on johnalchin.info.

Updated: February 14.

“…he’s being accused of blurring the distinction between science fiction and science, between informed fantasy and hard won proof – being driven by ambition and/or outside forces.” – Dr. Mickey Nardo.

Dr. Mickey Nardo has added further commentary regarding the growing criticism of Professor Ian Hickie. His blog post at 1boringoldman.com here.

My September 2011 post on the accusations of conflict of interest in the Australian mental health reform agenda against Professors Ian Hickie and Patrick McGorry can be found here.

A response to the The Australian article by an Australian mental health consumer can be found here.

A response to Professor Hickie’s recent claims by Ben Mullings of the Alliance for Better Access can be found here.

__________________

Ian Hickie in The Australian

The Australian newspaper has posted an article in which prominent Australian psychiatrist and recently appointed member of the newly-formed National Mental Health Commission, Professor Ian Hickie, accuses vested interests of targeting him in a personal campaign.

“This is part of a more concerted campaign, a reaction against our advocacy for new investment in mental health . . . against basically taking forward the mental health agenda in this country” – Ian Hickie.

It is, in many ways, similar to his ad hominem gripe published in the National Times in September last year where Professor Hickie attacked his critics as “..an odd mix of armchair critics, conspiracy theorists and a former chairman of the American Diagnostic and Statistical Manual taskforce, Dr Allen Frances,..” amongst others, such as the Church of Scientology. Fellow Australian psychiatrist, Dr. Tad Tietze provided an excellent primer on some of the background issues that have seen Professors Ian Hickie & Patrick McGorry become the focus point in a growing international backlash.

‘Campaign’ conspiracy theory

What has been most surprising is that Professors Hickie and McGorry have lashed out at the ‘conspiracy theorists’ who allege they have been acting in the interests of the pharmaceutical and private health insurance foundations who fund them by responding with their own cry of a conspiracy of vested interests composed of “the mental health establishment”, cultists, new world order advocates, etc. Seriously, WTF?! It’s disingenuous for Professor Hickie to suggest that he and Professor McGorry are not atop “the mental health establishment” in Australia given that they receive extensive media coverage of their work , have regular opportunities for comment, are supported in numerous articles written by colleagues that often get published at the same time as their media comments, they are regularly supported by the CEO of the Mental Health Council of Australia and have the full confidence of the Minister, the Hon. Mark Butler who regurgitates Hickie/McGorry PR despite being given much correspondence and evidence that should have him taking a more cautious approach to their lobbying.

Conflict of interest concerns remain

The level of concern grew in scope and size recently with the publication in The Lancet of a paper co-authored by Professor Hickie, six letters of criticism that were subsequently published, and a series of tweets from Richard Horton, the editor of The Lancet.

Editor of The Lancet, Richard Horton.

“This paper seems to break new ground for sponsored writing in medical journals, with conflicts of interest hidden in plain sight while bias continues.” – Bernard J Carroll

Pharma, pills and public policy

It’s not the first time that Professor Hickie has been embroiled in controversy over pill-pushing while having an active role in federal mental health policy delivery, nor is the Lancet article the first time that Jon Jureidini and Melissa Raven have felt the need to speak out against allegedly misleading claims.

In the late 1990s, with pharmaceutical company funding, Professor Hickie developed the SPHERE national mental health training program for GPs.

“In 2001 Pfizer Australia joined SPHERE as an implementation partner. This partnership saw the SPHERE project offered to all Australian GPs. Through the implementation of the SPHERE training modules, the Pfizer sales team gained regular, unprecedented access to these key GPs, who had significant interest in mental health. This activity assisted in restoring the market share and growth of the Pfizer antidepressant Zoloft®, restoring it to the Number One product in this market.” – SPHERE website 2007.

Says The Australian newspaper: The Lifeblood claim was made on behalf of SPHERE, a mental health program undertaken by 12,000 GPs since 1998. Pfizer has been a commercial partner of the program since 2001. The Brain and Mind Research Institute headed by Ian Hickie helped establish SPHERE and has an ongoing commercial relationship with the program.

In a National Times piece published last year, Sydney Morning Herald columnist and psychiatry registrar Dr. Tanveer Ahmed provided this critique of Professors Ian Hickie & Patrick McGorry:

“It was launched by Professor Ian Hickie, who has been rightly recognised for giving mental health a greater profile, but who has also played politics to do so.

Hickie has done more than any other clinician to promote tick-a-box diagnosis, particularly among general practitioners, who now regularly prescribe antidepressants through questionnaires alone. With former Australian of the Year Professor Patrick McGorry, Hickie has made overblown claims about the prevalence of mental health.

It is disingenuous to suggest, as McGorry has done, that there is no conflict of interest because their organisations are non-profit. Their bodies shared in $2.2 billion of funding in the federal budget. Their exorbitant claims – such as one in four people will suffer mental illness – are indicative of a blurring of the lines between illness and normal, human responses to adversity.”

Further, advocates within the ADD/ADHD community have raised concerns about Prof. Hickie’s numerous public statements that endorse stimulant use for the treatment of Attention Deficit Disorder but which minimise the benefit of non-pharmacological interventions; while many remain concerned that the man who oversees the guidelines for treatment for Chronic Fatigue Syndrome in Australia has stated that ME/CFS is a somatoform disorder to be medicated with antidepressants and who downplays the biomedical factors that have also shown some merit in defining CFS.

As I have previously stated, “Some critics may suggest a conspiracy in the close connections between these key advisers to government, the EPPIC/Headspace teams, and the redistribution of federal mental health funding to these & similar organisations. Such claims should not nullify the concerns of fellow psychiatrists, mental health workers, consumers and carers that have repeatedly surfaced surrounding allegations of conflicts of interest, failures to disclose an interest, etc.”

 Ian Hickie needs to put up and directly answer his critics

It is time for Professor Hickie (and McGorry for that matter) to answer his critics’ concerns given the level of interest in his conduct that has arisen internationally amongst academics and mental health professionals, as well as grassroots concern from consumers & their carers.

“Because he [Hickie] has enormous influence on Australian mental health policy (including being a member of the new National Mental Health Commission), and because he uses his academic publications (and media pronouncements) as lobbying tools, it has significant implications that go far beyond potential financial conflict of interest” – Melissa Raven.

Up until now, Professors Hickie and McGorry have characterised their critics as armchair critics, malcontents and Scientology cultists. The truth is that the majority of their critics are fellow psychiatrists, psychologists, allied mental health professionals, mental health consumer and carer advocates, and members of the general public who critical observe the  influence of private interests in public health policy.

Ian Hickie should shut up and let consumers speak

Ian Hickie should resign from the National Mental Health Commission

The post Time for Ian Hickie to put up and shut up appeared first on johnalchin.info.

Sign the petition to stop the cuts to psychological services.
Visit the Alliance for Better Access website.

The post Calls to restore cut Better Access program grow appeared first on johnalchin.info.

During February 2012, ARAFMI NSW are holding briefing sessions across Sydney on the new Mental Health Commission followed by consultations about how consumers and carers and other interested parties would like to be engaged by the Commission when it commences its work and to understand what they think should be its priorities.

Sydney Area Consultation Dates and Venues:
Macquarie Hospital, North Ryde (20 February, 11:30am-1:30pm)
St Vincent’s Hospital, Darlinghurst (22 February, 1pm-3pm)
Liverpool Library, Liverpool (24 February, 4pm-6pm)
Blue Mountains – venue to be advised (25 February, 11am-1pm)
Kirribilli Neighbourhood Centre, Milsons Point (29 February, 10:30am-12:30pm)

Please register here: https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MXPHDJ9

Backing information provided by ARAFMI NSWon the functions and priorities of the NSW Mental Health Commission can be found here.

The schedule of ARAFMI’s Mental Health Commission presentations and consultations has also been added to the Mental Health Events Calendar on this site.

The post ARAFMI to host NSW Mental Health Commission consultations appeared first on johnalchin.info.

The post Better Access cuts rolled back temporarily appeared first on johnalchin.info.

mothernaturenetwork:

The ‘most depressing day of the year’ may be on shaky scientific ground, but it does provide a rare spotlight for easily ignored mental health issues.

The post The ‘most depressing day of the year’ appeared first on johnalchin.info.

 

A letter written by Mr. Stephen Fry to a girl suffering from depression (Fry himself has diagnosed bipolar disorder).

Transcript:

Dear Crystal,

I’m so sorry to hear that life is getting you down at the moment. Goodness knows, it can be so tough when nothing seems to fit and little seems to be fulfilling. I’m not sure there’s any specific advice I can give that will help bring life back its savour. Although they mean well, it’s sometimes quite galling to be reminded how much people love you when you don’t love yourself that much.

I’ve found that it’s of some help to think of one’s moods and feelings about the world as being similar to weather.

Here are some obvious things about the weather:

It’s real.

You can’t change it by wishing it away.

If it’s dark and rainy it really is dark and rainy and you can’t alter it.

It might be dark and rainy for two weeks in a row.

BUT

Read more here at Mind Over Matter Zine.

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