Everything You Thought You Knew about Addiction is Wrong

Brilliant! Unfortunately the solution can't be only individual or familial - it has to be political and cultural as well - but the message and learnings here are clear: the opposite of addiction is attachment.

http://www.ted.com/talks/johann_hari_everything_you_think_you_know_about_addiction_is_wrong

Childhood Trauma linked to Obesity and Illness throughout the Lifespan

Check out this amazing slideshow by Kathleen Kendall-Tackett about the links among childhood trauma, race, size, and socioeconomic discrimination,  and later physical illness, sleep disturbances, depression and obesity. This goes beyond the ACE studies and to look at all forms of stress/trauma including cultural ones. The worse the developmental trauma (this includes poverty and social discrimination), the greater the impact on physical and mental health, insulin resistance and obesity. Time to stop blaming the survivors and start challenging the causes. 

HUGE news: Judge Rules Causal Link Between Sexual Abuse and Schizophrenia Must be Aknowledged by Insurance Company

This is HUGE! For those not from New Zealand, ACC (Accident Compensation Corporation) is a government-contracted insurance company that covers counselling and psychotherapy for those who can demonstrate  "mental injury due to sexual abuse." It's one of the many reasons I moved to New Zealand as I figured a country that not only recognises that: abuse exists, can be forgotten,and then return in memory; but that actually compensates the people who suffer because of this, can't be all bad. Two days ago...

"A judge has ruled in favour of an ACC claimant in a case expected to have "enormous" ramifications for the way mental health patients are treated.

In the decision, released recently, Judge Grant Powell in the Wellington District Court agreed with a psychiatrist who said a man's schizophrenia had been caused by trauma from sexual abuse in childhood.....

"(The) judge agreed with a growing body of research that says traumatic events can cause psychosis.

The research includes the work of clinical psychologist John Read, who has been at the forefront of research to show a relationship between childhood sexual and physical abuse and psychotic symptoms, including schizophrenia."  Thank you John Read for years of painstaking ground-breaking (and myth-busting) work. .Click here for more on this