Natural Medicine Guide to Schizophrenia or Your Child in the Balance

Natural Medicine Guide to Schizophrenia

Author: Stephanie Marohn

For those suffering with schizophrenia, the idea of returning to a "full participation in life" seems like nothing more than a far-off fantasy. Yet, many people with schizophrenia -- as well as those who love them -- are seeing positive results using the alternative therapies introduced in this book. The truth is, schizophrenia does not have to turn your life upside down; you can recover from this illness, be symptom-free, and take back your life. The Natural Medicine Guide to Schizophrenia offers invaluable information on ten ground-breaking therapies that have been shown to reduce the need for anti-psychotic medication. Drawing on the cutting-edge approaches of nine leading healthcare practitioners, health journalist Stephanie Marohn shows how alternative therapies have successfully reversed, reduced, and even cured the disease in many cases. Therapies discussed include orthomolecular psychiatry, biochemical medicine, homeopathy, and osteopathy. Marohn also documents the 21 factors that can trigger or worsen schizophrenia and provides an "action plan" to reduce these factors in your daily life. Marohn addresses the many falsehoods surrounding this mysterious disease and gives those suffering with schizophrenia a reason to hope for recovery. Hope that comes from real people who share their stories within these pages -- the onset of their schizophrenia, their history with anti-psychotics, and their astonishing successes with natural medicine.

See also: Could It Be Perimenopause or Herbal Remedies for Childrens Health

Your Child in the Balance: An Insider's Guide for Parents to the Psychiatric Medicine Dilemma

Author: Kevin T Kalikow MD

In Your Child in the Balance, child psychiatrist, Kevin Kalikow examines the highly topical and thorny question of whether and when to prescribe psychiatric medication to children. As parents, are we too ready to run to our pediatrician for Ritalin when our child shows the first sign of inattention at school? Or do we instead shy away from our doctor's recommendation to consider an anti-depressant for a chronically sad and withdrawn teenager? Among the ever-growing outcry that psychiatric medicines are over-prescribed to children and adolescents today, how is a parent to know whether medication is the right treatment for their troubled child?

Dr. Kalikow tackles these questions with the sensitivity and insight of years of experience helping families through the thicket of research and opinion to find the right answer for their child. Through many colorful vignettes, he explores our efforts to protect our children from the inevitable hurts and disappointments of childhood, and the role that medication can play in that attempt. On the other side, Kalikow shows us our determination to have our children succeed or fail on their own, the way we had to do, even to the point of refusing the medication that might help them overcome a serious and potentially chronic disability.

Dr. Kalikow guides readers through the maze of possible treatment decisions—the many different families of psychiatric medication, alternative treatments including Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and perhaps the most difficult decision of no treatment at all. He closes the book by examining one family's difficult journey to the decision to medicate their acutely anxious daughter.

Your Child in theBalance: An Insider's Guide to the Psychiatric Medicine Dilemma is an important and timely book that will hit home to every parent who has seen their child in pain and asked themselves, "I wonder if medication might help."

Library Journal

What kind of information do parents want when deciding whether to give their child psychiatric medicine? Presumably, they are looking for timely, accessible advice from experts, which is just what these books provide (Kalikow and Roberts are both experienced child psychiatrists). In addition, they want information that is specific to their situation. Someone struggling with a hyperactive or aggressive child probably doesn't have the patience or the energy to read about the symptoms and treatments of depression. Roberts's book is better on this count, as it is arranged into chapters devoted to particular disorders and medications. Much of the same material is covered in Kalikow's guide, but it is scattered throughout the narrative. Indeed, Kalikow states that his goal is to illuminate the thought processes of a doctor as he makes choices about medication, not to list the uses and side effects of drugs. Yet it's nice to have something interesting to read, and Kalikow's book is definitely the livelier of the two, containing numerous anecdotes and a more in-depth look at the parents of one patient, "Rosie," as they struggle to decide how to help their anxious daughter. Neither book is a crucial purchase, though even the smallest libraries should have a few more specialized titles-at the minimum, one on childhood depression, one on anxiety disorders, and one on ADHD. For larger public libraries needing more material, these current titles are good supplementary works, with the Roberts book more likely to be checked out regularly.-Mary Ann Hughes, Neill P.L., Pullman, WA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Table of Contents:

	Preface	xi
	Introduction: The "Can Do" Age of Psychiatry	1
Chapter 1	The Challenge of Change	7
Chapter 2	The Elusive Criteria for Changing Your Body	15
Chapter 3	Bring on the Brain	23
Chapter 4	Psychiatry Welcomes the Brain	29
Chapter 5	A Duty to Treat	43
Chapter 6	The Challenge of Children	49
Chapter 7	The Evolving Diagnoses of Children	59
Chapter 8	The Burden of Proof	69
Chapter 9	The Benefits of Medicine	75
Chapter 10	Let's Be Practical	97
Chapter 11	The Risks of Medicine	111
Chapter 12	Subtle Psychological Side Effects	121
Chapter 13	Concealed Consequences	131
Chapter 14	Medicine's Competition	139
Chapter 15	Oh, to Be a Parent!	155
Chapter 16	The Pressures on the Prescriber	161
Chapter 17	Too Many Prescriptions?	173
Chapter 18	Rosie	193
Chapter 19	The Time Is Now	237
	Appendices
	Are You Wise If You Try an SSRI?	247
	Recommended Reading	251
	Acknowledgments	253
	Notes	255
	Bibliography	261
	Index	269