Mr. Robb is the person who dragged us into the 'free" trade deal with China, and went to work for them after he left politics. Very depressing.

What is also very depressing is the constant scaremongering about anything and everything in Australia these days. The idea seems to be 'control by fear'. A fearful population is an easily controlled population. Fear is the main tactic of totalitarianism.

The China virus isn't working well enough; people are sick of it, and they are now aware of the false and conflicting information put about by 'experts'. Now, the same 'experts' are trying to put the wind up us with hysteria about 'could be higher' results of autocratic lock downs and removal of freedoms. Frighten the mob, and they will plead to Big Daddy Morrison - 'help me Daddy. I'll do anything you say, Daddy, just save me'. And the socialist machine grinds on until we accept it as normal. Who needs China?

Depression is big business for Big Pharma. Antidepressants are worth more than gold; much more lucrative than getting to the bottom of mental problems; and if the patient gets unmanageable, up the dose, give him something stronger, turn him into a tractable zombie. As a last resort, lock him up, as happened behind the Iron Curtain and is happening today in China for people with 'incorrect' political opinions.

A "taskforce …. of frontline organisations and key stakeholder groups, such as psychiatrists, general practitioners, psychologists, addiction specialists and other mental health experts, as well as representation from key patient groups" is so 1984.

There is something much more evil than this pair's "deepening mental health crisis" going on in our society.

Dear Tania,

There is no mental illness crisis: it's an invention!

What is really happening, is the indication of referencing modern day data collection; its correlation and use by whomever has a wish to capitalise on its extensiveness, for their own ends.

Computers churn out huge bodies of statistics unparalleled in history.

Sensible people do not need to be directed towards the medicine cabinet, (or the local bottle shop), to cope with the slings and arrows of mental anguish posed by normal daily existence.

We are actually living in the most relaxed moment of history. Such moments do not make for an over abundance of nut cases: But drugs do!
Your proposal to extend the drugging of the population by legitimising their use is bound to fail. It will fail, because history tells us so.

The infamous Dr Timothy Leary is but one example of a failed adovacate for a drugged out life style. That didn't work out too well for him!

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timothy_Leary

And...what part Andrew Robb has in your advocacy, is troubling!

But then again, with his treacherous past, one can only wonder.

Dan

Innovation would seek to eliminate causes as opposed to treating symptoms!

Some of those cases are created by politicians and their pet policies or questionable allegiances?

And calloused indifference! Non more so than putting an age limit on love! If one of you is born overseas and the citizen of another country!

And or are unlucky enough to be born in or confined to a postcode poverty trap.

And where no matter how good you are or how hard you work or try, the dice are loaded against you as privileged protects itself from you and yours.

You want to help those who suffer from depression? Well, some of it is brain chemistry, the rest is down to addressable stress, fixed by the creation of inherent fairness/fair play and equal opportunity in a far more just and egalitarian society and by a government that has a heart and stop trying to legislate against love! And given they did so, reap a sizable economic outcome and savings!

Nothing more effective for deliberately creating age depression than the legislating against love and indeed a probable cause of the alarming suicide rate among older Australian males.

I get that age limiting Dutton would have us and those who critique that gentleman, who has an ego that's a danger to shipping, would have us Who would marry an older foreigner and carer, go visit the nearest taxidermist! Of that, I have no lingering doubt!

One of the things I'd change and first cab off the rank would be ending the quarantining of Ministers from that which they create for the rest of us.
Alan B.

Innovation? Another drug?
Drugs do nothing to correct the underlying metabolic disorder which increasingly commonly today manifests in mental health problems. All drugs do is mask the symptoms in an expensive, frustrating and invariably-doomed juggling act.
A more effective and long-lasting approach is to address the nutritional deficiency which over time has created the disordered metabolism. A genetic predisposition plays its part, but targeted and well-understood dietary measures can ameliorate its effects, especially in those experiencing endogenous depression. It can also greatly assist those having difficulty coping with adverse life events.
It's a win-win cure which unfortunately remains largely unrecognized by most conventional medical practitioners.

The real problem is of course that the saber tooth tiger went extinct.

If the average twit had to worry about the saber tooth tiger stalking them, as they searched for something to eat today, or slept in their none too secure cave, they wouldn't have time to worry about such minor dangers as the coronavirus, their mental health, or scams like global warming.

If people had real worries like like getting eaten, or starving, they wouldn't be so susceptible to scams like the global warming scare, or those generated by mental health "professionals" trying to promote a bit more business.

Life is just so safe & secure for westerners today, they have to have something scary invented for them in their bubble wrapped existence, to make their lives more interesting..

As long as this "Mental Illness" is allowed to run up handsome rewards for the mental illness experts bandwagon & the people pretending to have "mental issues", people will continue to hang onto this excuse for year years to come !
Mental Illness is a sickening excuse for people not wanting to put in an effort to pull their weight !
Stress is allowed to be dished up by insipid bureaucrats & people then claim Mental illness and, the silly system backs them to the hilt !

Well, there you have it, folks ... there's no such thing as 'mental illness' ... all you malingerers out there just need to pull up your bootstraps and get on with it!
How lucky are Diver Dan, Hasbeen and Individual to never have suffered the curse of mental illness. And how arrogant of them to assume that just because it's not part of their reality that it's nothing more than a figment of people's imagination.
I too am cynical about the industry that has built up around mental health and I think a lot of what they recommend is fairly useless, but I would never deny the reality of the condition. Mental illness is real. You guys need to develop a bit of empathy.

Dear Bronwyn.

Maybe your attitude is the problem. At times, the truth hurts.
Obviously, there are people with a genuine mental discrepancy.
But I'm over it!

Who pushes the barrow for the tsunami of issues we are barraged and deluged with currently?

I'm over it because, starting with three years of misinformation from the gay rights campaign, which was a traumatic experience to the normally healthy majority.
Then along came climate change and windmills which destroyed the otherwise beautiful landscape panorama we once took for granted: And upward ever upward electricity prices climbed.
Then the BLM lies and fabrications, with the close memory of how it's all the white mans fault. Another total lie!

Now... mental a health epidemic . I don't believe there is a crisis of mental health issue outside those created by the above mentioned issues. It just doesn't exist!

I default to hasbeen who pretty much nails it all up. Toughen up! There is a good remedy.
I set an example for my own advice; a bit like the hasbeen and his reference to sabre tooth tiger encounters.
I battled off two male bullsharks at a hundred feet, with the sharpened end of half a bean stick a few days back...and survived it.
That'll sort out your mental problems real quick.
You will be very happy to be still alive after climbing back into the boat I can assure you!

Best of luck with this latest "stupid" of mental illness, and drawing equally stupid conclusions that we're all ruined by an excess of nut cases.

Regards Dan

when you see so many deranged media reports that support school kids throwing tantrums over the gw fraud its no wonder you have such heightened mental health issues. Then you have the debauched 'safe schools' program sexualising and perverting young kids mind and the abc's relentless attack on the natural father and the insisting that everyone is a victim except those wicked white males. Prevention from the Marxist indoctrinators of society would of prevented and could solve much 'mental health' issue. Like education of the last 40 years the more money you throw at it and the more 'experts' you have the worse the problem becomes.

You guys need to develop a bit of empathy.
Bronwyn,
We have empathy, plenty of it in fact when it's warranted !

In a professional capacity I have interviewed thousands of criminal offenders, I would say that most had some sort of mental health issue. What I found was that many people turn to illicit drugs to self medicate and mostly their crimes were related to their drug habit. Unfortunately the most available and cheapest illicit drug around is methylamphetamine, long term use of meth will and does cause psychosis in 100 percent of users. My self polling of offenders also found that over 90 percent of young offenders were meth and poly drug abusers. I dont think its any accident that increased mental health issues in our society are correlated with the widespread use of illicit drugs such as meth. Im prepared to have a decent debate on this but dont come up with this crap that people just somehow need to "harden up", it is a complicated issue and is getting worse , something needs to change. Our current approach is not working.

Good onya Bronwyn.

You are the only one who has spoken sense in this thread of "real men"
- who are in ignorant denial.

Cheers

Jimmy2shoes

Ok Jimmy, since it was myself made the " harden up" quote I'll reply.

You seem to fail to recognise the absurdity of the message in this article. Or from my reading, failed to acknowledge their advocating illegal drugs as self treatment, and I conclude, advocating illegal medications and practices designed to treat patients with mental disorders (sic).

The pair of clowns admitting to authoring this article, are herein advocating the use of illicit drugs as (self) medication for mental illness.
The drug they advocate is LSD. And a collection of other amphetamines.

Since you step up and condemn a spokesperson such as myself and a couple of other posters to the a article, for suggesting an holistic remedy of toughening up to life's often less than enjoyable personal circumstances, the question for you then is, what is your remedy and alternative to the use of illicit drugs as an "excuse" for treating mental illness?

It can be safely concluded, ( even from your own admitted observations) the problem is actually drug use which causes psychotic episodes of mental illness. Self induced mental illness.

I reiterate there is no mental illness epidemic, but what we actually have is a serious epidemic of illicit drug use in Australia. Mostly a situation caused by boredom and lack of achievements in youth.

Dan

Its meth thats the major issue in our society at the moment, not LSD, not heroin or anything else. We as a society are failing to address the fact that different drugs have different effects and some currently illicit drugs can be therapeutic. Obviously a drug like cannabis will have a vastly different effect to heroin. But I reiterate since you didnt seem to get this point, many illicit drug users self medicate, mainly for depression.

jimmy2shoesit is you that highlight that the problem has been caused by the mental health professionals.

It was their crazy idea to remove any real testing from schools, to avoid the petals likelihood of self esteem damage if they failed.

It was your idea to make everyone able to play on the team, so to avoid hurt to those not selected.

It was your idea to not have winners in junior sport, so there were no losers.

It was your idea to have kids bubble wrapped right through their youth, to protect their self esteem that developed a generation of petals, totally unready for the rejection & failure bound to come to all of us in the big nasty world. You set them up to be unable to handle a bit of failure & rejection, so it is fair to blame you for the fact so many turn to drugs at the first sign of difficulty.

After being mostly responsible for the problem you want us to let you loose with your idea of a cure. When we call you on this, you start with the put downs.

Then plantagenet offers his "real Men" jibe to prove he has no idea at all. It is that real men, were prepared to handle all the failures & rejections of life, by having lots of little failures in youth school & university.
Continued

Continued
We accepted it when the soft little bloke, who couldn't make the football team swept the tennis court with us a few months later.

We understood when we were loaded with extra homework when we failed the history test, & were thankful the math master gave us an hours detention, which was actually a tutorial when we couldn't grasp a concept.

All these little failures prepared us for when we didn't get the great job, or the promotion we expected. We were ready to suck it up, & try harder, rather than start crying & look for a drug dealer.

Youth should be a training ground for what can be a pretty rough world out there, not a time of all sweetness & light, with never a ripple to disturb our equilibrium. It is this kid glove treatment of youth causing these problems, & nothing particular about the kids themselves.

Sure Hasbeen, maybe we should put our children outside as newborns to see who will survive. This isnt Sparta. Life isnt easier for our kids than it was for us, thats a myth. This planet has undergone the biggest sociological change in human history in the last 50 years. The industrial revolution took 200 years, the technological revolution has taken a quarter of that. Our children have grown up in the middle of it, like many uneducated people all you are doing is condemning behaviour you dont understand.

More of the superiority complex there jimmy2shoes.

We are educated enough to be able to see that all these problems started escalating dramatically, just after the new trendy child rearing & educating techniques were introduced. Guess you are too "educated" if that is what you call brainwashing today, to be able to see simple facts.

This planet has undergone the biggest sociological change in human history in the last 50 years.
jimmy2shoes,
Due to what & whom ? Because of people with Leftist mentality that's why !

Jimmy2shoes.

*...But I reiterate since you didnt seem to get this point, many illicit drug users self medicate, mainly for depression....*

Your lost in space mate!

You don't get the drift. I'm personally familiar with many drug users, past and present. Since we're in the midst of an epidemic of drug users swiftly turning themselves into addicts for life...as short as they invariably turn out, it's not difficult locating one.

Drugs are a lifestyle choice young Jimmy.
You and those with similar warped thinking, can delude youselves into believing the self medicating line, but it's simply a myth.

Drugs are a currency.
Buying and selling illicit drugs is a lucrative business.
Dispensing legal drugs is a lucrative business.

Drugs are always abused:
especially psychotropic varieties.

Drugs as a decoy:
A decoy for failed society. Read hasbeen. (and in myself in tandem).

The authors and their like, have a serious need to navel gaze for some honesty on this subject.

Society has already failed. It failed by providing a genuine outlet, particularly for boys,
It is not acceptable suggesting through mass media campaigns of gay rights and its consequences, that being a boy necessitates the ability to lose sight of the fundamental necessity of normality.
Society has failed to offer acceptable alternatives to lack of meaningful employment for the whole spectrum of youth: Not just the fortunate from the top pecking order.

Youth in our failed society is effectively a discarded group. It is also most unhelpful suggesting obviously stupid alternatives to a normal balanced life, such nonsense as posed in this article by Robb, who should know better, we as a society are in anyway other than lost for direction with genuine meaning for living, as the problem necessitating drug use.

Dan

The real change came about with the arrival of the birth control pill ! It was meant to prevent unwanted & un-needed pregnancy however, as was the case with many inventions for good intentions, it became a Super train bandwagon for nilly willy debauchery !
In earlier times, those in hierarchy simply did away with the babies but since the pill there was no more waiting for more.
Humans desperately need birth control to save humanity but it can't be done via inhuman/inhumane behaviour ! Perhaps ss is an option ? Not my cup of Tea but the way things are ?

Diver Dan , you can accept the opinion of a professional based on extensive real life experience or you can can keep your own opinion based on nothing except the need to put labels on something you have little knowledge and experience of. Your call, some of us spend our life learning and understanding and others remain ignorant. A smart person would be asking me questions , not denouncing my experience.

AN APOLOGY - TO COMMENTERS

The article part written by a self-described "social entrepreneur."

(noting http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/entrepreneur.asp defines entrepreneur as "an individual who creates a new business, bearing most of the risks and enjoying most of the rewards.")

is possibly unhelpful for anyone discussing the usefulness of substances for mental illness.

To say medications, as prescribed by psychiatrists, have a low success rate and then suggest usually-illegal-psychedelic drugs should be tried instead, possibly conflates a whole lot of issues.

The authors, rather than commenters, possibly do the matter a disservice.

Hmmm http://www.investopedia.com/terms/s/social-entrepreneur.asp

"What Is a Social Entrepreneur?

A social entrepreneur is a person who pursues novel applications that have the potential to solve community-based problems. These individuals are willing to take on the risk and effort to create positive changes in society through their initiatives.

Widespread use of ethical practices such as impact investing, conscious consumerism, and corporate social responsibility programs facilitate the success of social entrepreneurs.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

A social entrepreneur is interested in starting a business for greater social good and NOT JUST THE PURSUIT OF PROFITS..."
______________________________________________________

On FURTHER EXAMINATION:

http://www.google.com/search?q=social+entrepreneur&rlz=1C1CHMO_enAU570AU570&oq=social+entrepreneur&aqs=chrome..69i57&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8

"Is ELON MUSK a social entrepreneur?

Through Tesla Motors, SolarCity, and SpaceX, Musk has become a pioneer of social entrepreneurship in the modern age, as he seeks to build accessible solutions to renewable energy and push the limits on space exploration for mankind. In the past, many entrepreneurs focused their activity on growing private businesses. Jul 9, 2016."
_______________________________________

Almost all business beings FROM HENRY FORD ON could consider themselves "social entrepreneurs", possibly.

Jimmy2shoes

*...you can accept the opinion of a professional based on extensive real life experience or you can can keep your own opinion based on nothing except the need to put labels on something you have little knowledge and experience of...*

At the least, Plantagenet backed down on his criticisms of posters who have obviously more experience, which shows in their opposition to the offerings of the two authors, with their vague and unrealistic, untested and illegal drugs as a remedy towards depression.

The police should round this pair up.

Goodbye Jimmy2shoes. Best of British with your own version of ignorance!

Dan.

accept the opinion of a professional based on extensive real life experience
jimmy2shoes,
Well, that's open to debate for experience of a professional in real life may not fit the term real life for others.
It is a well-known fact that professionals live in their own world somewhat distanced from yhe real world of everyday people.

Im fairly sure you cant get more "real world" experience than actually interviewing and case managing the individuals concerned. Im guessing offering your opinion from an armchair with no direct experience is your version of knowledge. Some of you posters on this forum appear to be a little threatened .

jimmy2shoes,
I once witnessed an 'expert' at a health facility interviewing my friend's daughter because she apparently had mental issues.
What it was, her boyfriend gave her the flick because everything was about her & so, when he left she threw a tantrum.
Her mother asked me to accompany them & so I did & listened in. The waffling on became too much for me & I stood up & told my friend's daughter to stop putting on an act & also told the 'expert' to stop playing into her hands & I left the room.
Ten minutes later, the women came out & the mother said thank you for seeing through the nonsense & the daughter apologised for putting it on.
The expert apparently went all flustered & told them the consultation was over.
I'm not saying all incidents are like that but I'm convinced a great number of them are !

We all have stories about so called experts who turned out not to be so, this can occur in any field. Im not denying that there are plenty of psychologists with University degrees and little real life experience who can easily be manipulated. Im not one of them.
Some of the comments in this thread are quite facile, denying the fact of mental illness for example. Does anyone really think that someone blows their own brains out with a shotgun because they arent depressed? Really? Clinical depression is very real and is getting worse in our society, denying the existence of it is simply contributing to the problem.

Well said jimmy2shoes (where you say directly above):

"Some of the comments in this thread are quite facile, denying the fact of mental illness for example."

Serious mental illnesses often involve LIFETIME PHYSICAL IMBALANCES OF CHEMICALS IN THE BRAIN.

At the minimum these need to be handled by targeted medications prescribed by a psychiatrist and then a GP is required to keep the prescriptions going for as long as needed.

Pschologists have a role to - in making the patient recognise the patient has a serious problem that needs fixing.