Harvard-trained psychiatrist and former full-time consultant at NIMH, Peter R. Breggin, MD, is the author of dozens of scientific articles and more than twenty books. In the first half, he discussed how many young patients taking prescribed psychiatric medication can experience abnormal behavioral reactions, including suicide, violence, emotional breakdowns, and criminal acts. Recently, he testified on behalf of Michelle Carter, who was convicted of encouraging her ex-boyfriend to follow through with his suicide. Both Carter and her boyfriend Conrad Roy had been on antidepressants for a long time, and Roy had in particular suffered from psychological issues for over two years. While most of the press coverage about the controversial case was negative about Carter, Breggin felt this unwarranted, and that she was a sweet girl who was misunderstood. Her conviction, he noted, was based on a text she sent to a friend two months after Roy killed himself.

Breggin was particularly critical of prescribing psychiatric drugs to kids and teenagers. These pharmaceutical products have not been adequately tested on this population, and in the long run they often make children worse off, he said. Studies going back to the 90s, he reported, show that between 10% and 50% of kids on Prozac will develop antisocial personality traits, including aggressiveness and hostility. What's more helpful for distressed young people, he continued, is a social intervention, with a good support system, family involvement, and therapy. "They need guidance, and the drugs interfere with that and make them worse, and often agitate and cause violence," he lamented.

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Psychic/medium and author, Matt Fraser, has conducted thousands of readings around the world, reconnecting friends & family with the spirits of those who are no longer with us. In the latter half, he talked about his communications, as well as the dark side of psychic phenomena, and why some departed spirits are helpful while others are destructive. At a young age, when Fraser first began to see spirits, his mother (who was also a medium) told him "never be afraid of the dead. The dead can't hurt you." The difference between ghosts and spirits, he noted, is that ghosts are strangers to you, while spirits are loved ones and friends.

There is not a dark side to Other Side, Fraser commented, but rather it's earthbound spirits who haven't crossed over that can project negativity to us. To get over to the Other Side, it's like going through TSA at the airport, but instead of removing your shoes and laptop, spirits have to release all their negativity, he explained. A lower force may purposefully try to reach out to you to meddle in your life, to scare you, or decrease your spirituality, he cited, but added that these lower entities or attachments will not have any effect on us unless we open the door to them in some way.

News segment guests: John M. Curtis, Steve Kates

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