Irving Kirsch to Speak at ISEPP 2012 Conference in Philadelphia

Aug. 29, 2012 - PRLog -- Philadelphia, PA:  Do you have good information about the benefits and risks of using psychotropic drugs to treat persons who are diagnosed with mental disorders?

Are you aware that the antipsychotic drugs which are being given to our children in droves cause Parkinson-like symptoms, brain shrinkage, cognitive impairment and early death in people?

Have you heard that the benefits of antidepressant drugs are completely attributable to the placebo effect?

Do you know about the non-drug approaches which are much more safe and effective than the drug approaches?

If these questions interest you and if you are thirsting for more knowledge and understanding about them, you may want to attend the 15th annual conference of the International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry.  The conference, entitled "Alternatives to Biological Psychiatry: Treatments That Work" is scheduled for November 2 and 3, 2012 at the Philadelphia Airport Marriott Hotel in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

One of the main speakers is Dr. Irving Kirsch.  Dr. Kirsch looked at hundreds of studies of antidepressant drug effectiveness, including the studies which had negative results and which the drug companies don’t show to the Food and Drug Administration.  What he found was that, except in the most severe cases of depression, the improvement which patients experienced was entirely caused by the placebo effect.  In other words, in the great majority of studies, the patients who were getting sugar pills reported as much improvement as the ones who were getting the antidepressants.  And those patients didn’t have to suffer the “side effects” of the drugs which include sexual dysfunction, agitation, restlessness, mania, increased risk of violence and suicide and heart problems.

Dr. Kirsch was recently interviewed by Leslie Stahl on Sixty Minutes.  She said “but many people say (the antidepressants) work.”  Kirsch replied “Oh yes, they work, but they work almost totally because of the placebo effect.”  Dr. Kirsch is the author of The Emperor’s New Drugs: Exploding the Antidepressant Myth.

For information on the conference and to register please go to www.psychintegrity.org, or to www.isepp.info, or call Al Galves at 575-522-8371.


http://youtu.be/Zihdr36WVi4