Spellbinding

He was rather slight in build, said Mack. But he walked in a very relaxed and confident marmer as he approached the podium. Even the way he moved his hands was impressive. For some uncarmy reason, there was something spellbinding in the way he spoke. ... 

This charm, this spellbinding virtue, this power of fascination, can be— alternately or simultaneously—beneficent or maleficent. The pharmakon would be a substance— with all that that word can connote in terms of matter with occult virtues, cryptic depths refusing to submit their ambivalence to analysis, already paving the way for alchemy—if we didn t have eventually to come to recognize it as antisubstance itself that which resists any philosopheme. (Derrida 70)... 

Having been associated with flavonoid research for the past 40 years, and having witnessed the spellbinding changes that have taken place in the field during this time, it is too tempting by far not to take this opportunity to document for future researchers a brief personal perspective on developments in the flavonoid field over this period. I emphasize that this is... 

Breggin, P. R. 2006, Intoxicatrion anosognosia the spellbinding effect of psychiatric drugs, Ethical Hum.Psychol.Psychiatry, vol. 8, no. 3, pp. 201-215. 

The Brain-Disabling, Spellbinding Effects of Psychiatric Drugs... 

X. Patients subjected to biopsychiatric interventions often display poor judgment about the positive and negative effects of the treatment on their mental and emotional functioning, often causing intoxication anosognosia (medication spellbinding).4... 

Generalized brain dysfunction tends to reduce the individual s ability to perceive the existence or impact of the dysfunction. This incapacity lies at the heart of spellbinding effects of drugs and is one of the main reasons that patients continue to take psychiatric medications when the drugs are doing more harm than good. 

The following four characteristics of medication spellbinding are taken from this author s book Medication Madness (Breggin, in press) ... 

Fourth, extreme spellbinding produces medication madness in which the individual feels driven or compelled to behave in out-of-character and potentially disastrous ways—to murder her beloved mother like Emily Ashton or to drive his car into a policeman like Harry Henderson. 

To practice applying the four principles of spellbinding, the reader can simply recall how individuals act when intoxicated with alcohol. Typically, people intoxicated with alcohols do not realize how impaired they have become when they become emotionally distressed, they blame it on someone or something other than alcohol intoxication, often becoming depressed or belligerent they often think that they feel better than ever when they are in reality mentally impaired and behaving badly and finally, they can do stupid things and even perpetrate violence that is wholly out of character for them when sober. 

Owing to brain damage-induced spellbinding, even after a devastating series of shock treatments or psychosurgery, patients may fail to understand the iatrogenic source of their mental dysfunction and instead believe that they need repeated interventions. 

Some degree of spellbinding is characteristic of any compromise of frontal lobe function. Beer et al. (2006) noted that orbitofrontal damage is associated with objective inappropriate social behavior. The patients were aware of social norms of intimacy but they were unaware that their task performances violated these norms. The authors call this an impairment of self-monitoring and self-insight. Bach and David (2006) pointed out that self-awareness deficits are very common in patients with traumatic brain injury and key to the development of behavior disturbances Our research found that lack of social self-awareness predicts behavioural disturbance in acquired and traumatic brain injury independent of cognitive and executive function. ... 

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN MEDICATION SPELLBINDING AND IATROGENIC HELPLESSNESS AND DENIAL... 

The concept of medication spellbinding expands or elaborates on the concept of iatrogenic helplessness and denial. It specifically observes that... 

Brain damage and dysfunction from any cause, including accidents and illness, frequently produce helplessness and denial, but only in psychiatry is damage and dysfunction used as treatment to produce these disabling, spellbinding effects. 

Euphoria is unusual in patients treated with the neuroleptics because of the suppressive effects on the central nervous system (see chapter 2). It is more common among patients treated with antidepressants, stimulants, and benzodiazepine tranquilizers, especially alprazolam. Drug-induced mania is an extreme of medication spellbinding. 

The concept of medication spellbinding occurred to me when I was reviewing a lifetime of clinical and legal cases in the process of writing a new book, Medication Madness... 

Similarly, Stuss and Benson (1987) ascribed two basic functions to the anterior portion of the frontal lobes sequence, set, and integration and drive, motivation, and will (p. 241). The most common alteration is apathy (p. 242). Neuroleptic-induced impairment of the frontal lobes acts primarily by causing apathy, along with a profound degree of spellbinding. 

Since the hallmark of medication spellbinding is a lack of appreciation or concern about adverse mental effects, any substance that produces indifference or apathy is highly spellbinding. Patients taking neuroleptics can... 

Notice the nonspecific nature of these effects. Not only symptoms such as anxiety, but also desires and preferences, are aborted or buried beneath indifference or apathy. As Delay and Deniker put it, there is an apparent indifference or the slowing of responses to external stimuli and the diminution of initiative and anxiety (Jarvik, 1970). Once again, this is iatrogenic helplessness and denial with spellbinding effects. 

The zombie effect is the ultimate manifestation of medication spellbinding as a central aspect of the brain-disabling effects of psychiatric drugs. 

If a drug is sufficiently deactivating and spellbinding, it can be used on humans and animals alike under any circumstances where an authority desires to impose control. Thus the antipsychotic drugs are used in every kind of authoritarian or totalitarian institution. 

---