Medicating Normal: Why Are Psych Meds Prescribed So Often?

Nicole Lamberson is a Physician Assistant residing in Virginia. She obtained a BS at James Madison University in 2000 and then went on to complete the Master of Physician Assistant program at Eastern Virginia Medical School in 2004. She practiced in Urgent Care and Occupational Medicine settings until severe illness from prescribed psychiatric medication polypharmacy and a subsequent protracted withdrawal syndrome left her unable to work. Aside from her role with Medicating Normal doing marketing, distribution and outreach, she co-founded The Withdrawal Project, an effort of the nonprofit, Inner Compass Initiative. She also serves on the Medical Advisory Board of Benzodiazepine Information Coalition and is a founding member of the Colorado Consortium's Benzodiazepine Action Work Group. She also founded and co-administrates a small support group for those injured by prescribed psychiatric medication. In the future, Nicole hopes to practice again with a focus on prescribed medication withdrawal management and also participate in education initiatives around psychiatric drug withdrawal for medical prescribers.Award-winning filmmaker, and co-director/producer of Medicating Normal, Lynn Cunningham produced, directed and edited films/TV for PBS and the History Channel in the 1980s and 90s (A Quiet Revolution: The Emergence of Alternative Education in Japan; Twenty Years of Co-Education; A Family in Progress; An Innovator’s Story, Behind the Scenes, Walter Reuther & the Birth of the UAW, Tadao Ando, Butoh: A Body on the Edge of Crisis, etc).Twenty years ago, as she was becoming a parent herself, Lynn witnessed with crushing despair the dramatic transformation of a beloved family member. Once a bright, high-functioning scholar/athlete having graduated from an elite college, Lynn’s relative had become in a few short years– a terrified, suicidal shell of her former self— diagnosed with serious mental illness. Putting their faith in the best psychiatric standard of care at the time in the late 90s, Lynn and her family were initially reassured by the relief and stability provided by medication and therapy. After a ten-year period, however, one medicine had become ten, and income from a vibrant, self-sufficient career was replaced with monthly disability payments. Unable to provide an answer to her relative’s persistent self-doubt, “Is everything going to be OK?”” Lynn began searching for answers. She joined with her filmmaking partner Wendy Ractliffe, embarking on five years of research into the complex world of mental health treatment. After discovering Robert Whitaker’s Anatomy of an Epidemic, they interviewed 100s of psychiatric patients and consulted with scores of experts across the country about their experiences. A personal quest to help one suffering individual turned into a mission to tell an untold story. In Medicating Normal, Lynn and Wendy began to piece together a stunning new perspective on the safety and efficacy of psychiatric drugs and society’s over reliance on them to relieve pain and suffering.https://medicatingnormal.com/http://withdrawal.theinnercompass.org/http://www.theinnercompass.org/http://www.benzoinfo.com/https://corxconsortium.org/work-groups/benzodiazepine/***********************************Please visit our podcast website at https://therehab.comAnd Dr. Leeds' professional website at https://drleeds.comThank you!