The Dr. Peter Breggin Hour

Brilliant and caring British child psychologist Dave Traxson and I engaged each other around the best and the worst in child therapy and education, from innovative approaches to understanding and helping children to analyzing what Dave calls “psychopharmaceutically-induced isolation” and “the chemical colonization of the minds of children.” Listening to Dave is always an entertaining learning experience.

My guest, psychologist Michael Cornwall, and I discuss candy-coated amphetamines!  Yes, the FDA has approved sweetened amphetamines for children to melt in their mouths.  You will hear me as  outraged as I’ve ever been on the radio!  We also talk about the essentials of what parents really need to do to help their children have better, more effective and happier lives.

The scientific results are in:  Antidepressants do not work.  Premier researcher Irving Kirsch, PhD brilliantly explains the facts. Then we have a friendly debate about why psychiatry and medicine have continued to escalate their prescription of antidepressants despite the over overwhelming facts. I have the darker view on human motivation. 

A profound, thoughtful and moving  hour about mindfulness with psychologist Donna Rockwell, PsyD. Listen carefully to her words and her spirit, and I believe it will add to your life as it has to mine. You will find yourself refreshed and reminded of what it means to create the kind of life, work, love and friendships you really want to have.

Peg Haust-Arliss is a holistic psychotherapist from Seneca Falls, NY, who brings enormous enthusiasm and wisdom to her work and to this hour. Peg describes liberating herself from disabling anxiety, and becoming a therapist who brings together a variety of therapeutic, health, and spiritual approaches. She exemplifies the direction increasingly taken by many of the best therapists.

With a passionate condemnation of psychiatric “euthanasia”--that's how I begin. Then my guest Bob Nikkeltalks about pioneering programs in mental health and their funding by theFoundation for Excellence in Mental Health, including a US family-oriented therapeuticintervention with an 80% success rate in returning people with acute psychosisto community, school, work, and ultimately to a better and happier life. Psychosocial therapies work; drug therapiesmake people worse. This is what scienceis confirming.

Andrew Almazan PhD (age 17) and MD (age 21) specializes in helping gifted children, and in protecting them from those who would level them with drugs and oppressive social policies. He sounds an international alarm! He also has important ideas about IQ testing and why we should not give it up, as California has done. Via interactive video, I will address his First International Conference in Mexico on Gifted Children May 30, 2016. An important event!

The CDC has recently published warnings against doctors over-prescribing opiates for pain. Is there more to this than meets the eye?  Richard A. Lawhern discusses how the CDC is causing doctors to abandon their patients, and doing more harm than good. Most pain meds are not nearly as profitable as drugs like Eli Lilly's Zyprexa. I offer evidence that drug companies like Lilly are trying to open a new market in pain patients who are finding it harder to get opiates that cost less and work far better.

Kelly Brogan MD is a shining star of a psychiatrist!  You will want to know her!   Coming through the establishment, she broke free to treat patients the way she would want to be treated, and from there, to a deeper understanding of life from the menace of the psychopharmaceutical ideology to the worth of what we both call psychospirituality. You are guaranteed to benefit from spending time with her.

Robert Whitaker, one of the great critics of modern psychiatry, examines how the partnership between the pharmaceutical industry and psychiatry has corrupted psychiatry, done extraordinary injury to our society,  and created a cultural outlook devoid of intellectual and spiritual depth.  Bob unravels the historical details of how this tragedy came about and concludes with a profound critique of its consequences.  It’s a fascinating master class masquerading as talk radio.

MY MOST IMPORTANT SHOW EVER! I spend the hour by myself talking to you about psychiatric drugs and rational psychopharmacology. Learn basic principles like the brain-disabling effect of psychiatric drugs, medication spellbinding, and chronic brain impairment. For every category of psychiatry drugs, learn how their good effects are falsified and the bad ones covered up. Finally get an overall understanding about how this multi-billion dollar industry stands on feet of quicksand, and we're the ones sinking into it. This is the basic introduction to my decades of clinical and scientific work, with directions for where to find the background scientific information. Please listen to this and pass it on to others. It is literally lifesaving information.

Marvelous Krista MacKinnon, founder ofFamilieshealingtogether.com, deserves everyone’s attention.  She comes from her own “lived experience”with biopsychiatry. Now she has an online program for healing through loving family without emphasis upon diagnoses and drugs. A pioneering approach in healing individuals in the context of a more loving family life.

Andrew Almazan, MD PhD, a 21-year-old child prodigy, provides one of the best interviews ever.  Learn about senile ADHD in the US.  Learn how Mexico purposely dumbs down students to make them “equal.” Full of shocking surprises and also inspiration from an extraordinary professional.     

Orly Wahba so inspires me, I hardly say a word.  Do not miss this! With amazing energy and creativity, joy and pathos, she goes to the heart of both bringing people together and living a good life.

An important hour. Australian psychiatrist John Jureidini describes how primary care doctors and others can really help children who are in distress, on training people to help others in emotional difficulty, on being a minimalist when trying to help, and the limits of psychiatric drugs.