 
Reviewed by John M. Grohol, Psy.D. on July 20, 2010Â
New research suggests MDMA, aka Ecstasy, in combination with psychotherapy may help individuals with treatment-resistant PTSD.
A recent clinical trial reports that MDMA can be administered to subjects with PTSD without evidence of harm.
The intervention could reduce fear responses among individuals thereby creating an environment where psychotherapy could be more beneficial.
The results of the clinical trial are published in the Journal of Psychopharmacology.
Before MDMA became used recreationally under the street name Ecstasy, hundreds of psychiatrists and psychotherapists around the world administered MDMA as a catalyst to psychotherapy.
MDMA was criminalized in the U.S. in 1985 (it had been illegal in the UK since 1977).
Several decades later, this study is the first completed randomized, double-blinded clinical trial to evaluate MDMA as a therapeutic adjunct in any patient population.
Belmont, Mass.-based Rick Doblin, Ph.D., together with South Carolina-based psychiatrist Michael Mithoefer, MD and colleagues, conducted a pilot Phase II clinical trial with 20 patients with chronic PTSD persisting for an average of over 19 years.
Prior to enrolling in the MDMA study, subjects were required to have received, and failed to obtain relief, from both psychotherapy and psychopharmacology.
Read in Full:Â http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/07/20/therapy-plus-ecstasy-for-ptsd/15791.html
Â
 
By Nanci Bompey • July 19, 2010
ASHEVILLE — A study published by Dr. Adrian Sandler has been generating quite a stir in the medical community.
The study published in the June 14 edition of the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics found that children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder can do just as well on half their medication.
The researchers supplemented a lower dose of medication with a placebo with full knowledge of parents and children, suggesting that this conditioned placebo treatment allows treatment to be effectively treated on lower doses of medication.
“I’ve been getting a lot of calls and e-mails,†said Sandler, a developmental-behavioral pediatrician and the medical director of the Olson Huff Center for Child Development at Mission Children’s Hospital, who conducted the research with James Bodfish, a professor in the departments of psychiatry and pediatrics at UNC Chapel Hill School of Medicine, and study coordinator Corrine Glesne.
“People in practice are wondering ‘What do we do with this? How can we use this?’†Sandler said. “I don’t know the answer.â€
While it is unclear how the findings can be translated into a clinical setting, or exactly why it works, Sandler said it does further the emerging field of using placebos for therapy.
The idea of mind-body medicine could potentially transform the way certain conditions are treated, with placebos being used in a more deliberate way than they have been, he said.
“In the past, placebo effects have been regarded as a nuisance,†he said. “This really turns that somewhat on its head.â€
“It’s certainly the best research idea I’ve ever had,†he said.
Read in Full:Â http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20100719/LIVING/307190028
Â
By Nanci Bompey • July 19, 2010
ASHEVILLE — A study published by Dr. Adrian Sandler has been generating quite a stir in the medical community.
The study published in the June 14 edition of the Journal of Developmental and Behavioral Pediatrics found that children with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder can do just as well on half their medication.
The researchers supplemented a lower dose of medication with a placebo with full knowledge of parents and children, suggesting that this conditioned placebo treatment allows treatment to be effectively treated on lower doses of medication.
“I’ve been getting a lot of calls and e-mails,†said Sandler, a developmental-behavioral pediatrician and the medical director of the Olson Huff Center for Child Development at Mission Children’s Hospital, who conducted the research with James Bodfish, a professor in the departments of psychiatry and pediatrics at UNC Chapel Hill School of Medicine, and study coordinator Corrine Glesne.
“People in practice are wondering ‘What do we do with this? How can we use this?’†Sandler said. “I don’t know the answer.â€
While it is unclear how the findings can be translated into a clinical setting, or exactly why it works, Sandler said it does further the emerging field of using placebos for therapy.
The idea of mind-body medicine could potentially transform the way certain conditions are treated, with placebos being used in a more deliberate way than they have been, he said.
“In the past, placebo effects have been regarded as a nuisance,†he said. “This really turns that somewhat on its head.â€
“It’s certainly the best research idea I’ve ever had,†he said.
Read in Full:Â http://www.citizen-times.com/article/20100719/LIVING/307190028
 
Case of a man with severe learning disabilities, who the court of protection ruled was deprived of his liberty, highlights the need to ensure authorities do not escape public scrutiny
Posted by Siobhain Butterworth Wednesday 14 July 2010
The Court of Protection keeps a low profile: its default setting, prescribed by statute, is privacy; its hearings take place behind closed doors and when its decisions are published the parties are not usually identified.
The very strong, it has to be said, justification for this secrecy is that people who don’t have the mental capacity to make choices about their day-to-day affairs are entitled to the same degree of privacy as those who do. The unfortunate byproducts of this system are an alphabet soup of obscure judgments and an absence of public scrutiny of some important issues of wider concern. The case of E, which was spotted by the Press Association’s legal editor on the Bailii website, is a case in point.
At a hearing in March, the court ruled that E, a 19-year-old with severe learning disabilities, was unlawfully deprived of his liberty, in breach of Articles 5 and 8 of the European court of human rights, when an unnamed local authority removed him from the family home of a woman (F) who had fostered him for more than a decade. The local authority neither complied with legislation nor sought an order from the court of protection, as it should have done, when it placed E first in emergency respite care, then in a residential care home owned by a company referred to in the judgment as X Ltd.
Mr Justice Baker described E’s removal from F’s care as “an arbitrary act” and said the local authority’s “deplorable failure” to take into account the close relationship between E and F and its failure to arrange any contact between them for several months constituted a serious breach of E’s Article 8 rights to a home and family life.
The facts of E’s case twist this way and that. For various reasons the local authority did not believe that F was a suitable carer, despite the fact that she had looked after E for several years. Neither the local authority nor X Ltd’s director believed that E was unlawfully detained and both thought the care home improved his quality of life.
Read in Full:Â http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2010/jul/14/court-protection-privacy-rights
Â
Case of a man with severe learning disabilities, who the court of protection ruled was deprived of his liberty, highlights the need to ensure authorities do not escape public scrutiny
Posted by Siobhain Butterworth Wednesday 14 July 2010
The Court of Protection keeps a low profile: its default setting, prescribed by statute, is privacy; its hearings take place behind closed doors and when its decisions are published the parties are not usually identified.
The very strong, it has to be said, justification for this secrecy is that people who don’t have the mental capacity to make choices about their day-to-day affairs are entitled to the same degree of privacy as those who do. The unfortunate byproducts of this system are an alphabet soup of obscure judgments and an absence of public scrutiny of some important issues of wider concern. The case of E, which was spotted by the Press Association’s legal editor on the Bailii website, is a case in point.
At a hearing in March, the court ruled that E, a 19-year-old with severe learning disabilities, was unlawfully deprived of his liberty, in breach of Articles 5 and 8 of the European court of human rights, when an unnamed local authority removed him from the family home of a woman (F) who had fostered him for more than a decade. The local authority neither complied with legislation nor sought an order from the court of protection, as it should have done, when it placed E first in emergency respite care, then in a residential care home owned by a company referred to in the judgment as X Ltd.
Mr Justice Baker described E’s removal from F’s care as “an arbitrary act” and said the local authority’s “deplorable failure” to take into account the close relationship between E and F and its failure to arrange any contact between them for several months constituted a serious breach of E’s Article 8 rights to a home and family life.
The facts of E’s case twist this way and that. For various reasons the local authority did not believe that F was a suitable carer, despite the fact that she had looked after E for several years. Neither the local authority nor X Ltd’s director believed that E was unlawfully detained and both thought the care home improved his quality of life.
Read in Full:Â http://www.guardian.co.uk/law/2010/jul/14/court-protection-privacy-rights
 
Published on July 18, 2010
“There can be no rainbow without a cloud and a storm.” John H. Vincent
In order to explain and understand emotions, we can divide them into two groups: The emotions we term ‘positive’ and those that we term ‘negative’. On this issue, there are two major claims that appear to be contradictory: (a) that negative emotions are more noticeable, and (b) that, because people typically consider themselves to be happy, the average person considers herself to be happier than the average person. How can this apparent paradox explained?
Before examining these claims, let me clarify that in speaking about positive and negative emotions, I refer to their psychological, rather than moral nature.
From a psychological viewpoint, a positive emotion is one that involves a positive evaluation of the object, a positive type of motivation, and an agreeable feeling. From a moral viewpoint, a positive, or rather good, emotion is one that is positively evaluated in the light of moral values. The two perspectives may conflict: for example, pleasure-in-others’-misfortune is a positive emotion from a psychological viewpoint, but negative from a moral one; compassion is a negative emotion from a psychological viewpoint, but positive from a moral one. Love is positive from both perspectives.
Read in Full:Â http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-the-name-love/201007/are-negative-emotions-more-important-positive-emotions
Â
Published on July 18, 2010
“There can be no rainbow without a cloud and a storm.” John H. Vincent
In order to explain and understand emotions, we can divide them into two groups: The emotions we term ‘positive’ and those that we term ‘negative’. On this issue, there are two major claims that appear to be contradictory: (a) that negative emotions are more noticeable, and (b) that, because people typically consider themselves to be happy, the average person considers herself to be happier than the average person. How can this apparent paradox explained?
Before examining these claims, let me clarify that in speaking about positive and negative emotions, I refer to their psychological, rather than moral nature.
From a psychological viewpoint, a positive emotion is one that involves a positive evaluation of the object, a positive type of motivation, and an agreeable feeling. From a moral viewpoint, a positive, or rather good, emotion is one that is positively evaluated in the light of moral values. The two perspectives may conflict: for example, pleasure-in-others’-misfortune is a positive emotion from a psychological viewpoint, but negative from a moral one; compassion is a negative emotion from a psychological viewpoint, but positive from a moral one. Love is positive from both perspectives.
Read in Full:Â http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/in-the-name-love/201007/are-negative-emotions-more-important-positive-emotions
 
A third of Britons think people with learning disabilities cannot live independently or do jobs
Rachel Williams
Wednesday 14 July 2010 11.18 BST
Discrimination against people with learning disabilities and misconceptions about their lives is still widespread in the UK, despite a string of high profile hate crime cases, a poll reveals today.
A third of Britons think those with such disabilities cannot live independently or do jobs, while almost a quarter imagined they would be living in care homes. Nearly one in ten (8%) expected them to be cared for in a secure hospital out of town.
There was however also a high awareness of the challenges facing the learning disabled. Nine out of ten of those questioned for Turning Point, a leading health and social care provider, thought they experienced discrimination, and more than half (51%) thought they were the most discriminated against group in society — coming above other groups often perceived to experience discrimination, including gay people (44%), overweight people (43%) and ethnic minorities (40%).
Hate crime against those with learning disabilites — of whom there are 1.5 million in the UK — has hit the headlines repeatedly in recent months.
Last autumn an inquest heard how Fiona Pilkington killed herself and her teenage daughter Francecca — who had a mental age of four — after apparently being driven to despair by the continued abuse her family had suffered.
The survey of 1,100 adults also revealed a lack of knowledge about what constitutes a learning disability. A third thought mental illness was a learning disability, and a quarter classified dementia as one.
Read in Full:Â http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jul/14/discrimination-learning-disabilities
Â
A third of Britons think people with learning disabilities cannot live independently or do jobs
Rachel Williams
Wednesday 14 July 2010 11.18 BST
Discrimination against people with learning disabilities and misconceptions about their lives is still widespread in the UK, despite a string of high profile hate crime cases, a poll reveals today.
A third of Britons think those with such disabilities cannot live independently or do jobs, while almost a quarter imagined they would be living in care homes. Nearly one in ten (8%) expected them to be cared for in a secure hospital out of town.
There was however also a high awareness of the challenges facing the learning disabled. Nine out of ten of those questioned for Turning Point, a leading health and social care provider, thought they experienced discrimination, and more than half (51%) thought they were the most discriminated against group in society — coming above other groups often perceived to experience discrimination, including gay people (44%), overweight people (43%) and ethnic minorities (40%).
Hate crime against those with learning disabilites — of whom there are 1.5 million in the UK — has hit the headlines repeatedly in recent months.
Last autumn an inquest heard how Fiona Pilkington killed herself and her teenage daughter Francecca — who had a mental age of four — after apparently being driven to despair by the continued abuse her family had suffered.
The survey of 1,100 adults also revealed a lack of knowledge about what constitutes a learning disability. A third thought mental illness was a learning disability, and a quarter classified dementia as one.
Read in Full:Â http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/jul/14/discrimination-learning-disabilities
 
Fiona and Georgina Le Roy are moving back to the UK due to poor autism funding in Victoria. Picture: Craig Sillitoe
NATALIE CRAIG
July 18, 2010
GEORGINA Le Roy, 11, is mathematically brilliant, but the world around her does not add up.
She has Asperger’s syndrome, an autism spectrum disorder (ASD). But like many children on the spectrum, she is ineligible to attend one of Victoria’s specialist autism secondary schools because her IQ is within the normal range.
She and her mother Fiona are leaving Melbourne this weekend for the UK, saying Australia does not have the support services they need.
delayedAds.push(function(){ FD.addExternalReferralsAd($merge(FD.baseAd, { id: “adspot-300×250-pos-3”, iframeId: “adspot-300×250-pos-3-iframe”, params: $merge($merge(FD.baseAd.params, { pos: 3, aamsz : “300×250” }),getAdParams(“300×250”)) ,addSmall: true ,smallText: “Advertisement: Story continues below” }) ); } );
”I’ve only got five more years to educate this child, and I’m worried that if she goes to a mainstream school here she will fall through the system and become delinquent,” said Ms Le Roy, a single parent who moved with Georgina from her native Britain 10 years ago. Both are Australian citizens. ”I’m absolutely dreading moving back … I’ve got no family there, the economy is shot.”
Parent and autism groups say Georgina is among a growing number of students who are not adequately supported in their education by the state government.
Meredith Ward from the Autistic Family Support Association said about half of ASD children were ”high-functioning” but struggled socially, and were ineligible to attend special schools or get assistance at mainstream schools – especially at a secondary level.
”Most of the kids in the mainstream setting don’t receive any support at all – and that is one of the biggest issues for the autism community at the moment,” she said.
The Sunday Age has reported that several parents in this position are suing the government for failing to provide appropriate assistance at school. But Education Department spokesman Nick Higgins said that all students with ASD in Victoria had access to support services and specialists such as psychologists and speech therapists, regardless of their eligibility for a special school.
Ms Le Roy, a solicitor, said she was fortunate she could afford to pay for extra therapy for Georgina at the government primary school she attended, but there were no such options for high school. Georgina will attend an expensive specialist Asperger’s school in the UK.
Half a million Australian families are estimated to be affected by autism. Parents have started a Facebook page to protest against the lack of an autism school for secondary students in Melbourne’s west.
Source:Â http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/autistic-children-failed-by-education-system-20100717-10fcn.html