Margot Kidder Pushes Alternative Mental Health

Americans Have New Options for Their Own Mental Health

(Los Angeles, California): With the growing concern nationwide about violence, drug abuse, illiteracy, and other pressing social ills, people turn to their friends, their church, their doctors, school counselors and often, as a last resort, to the psychiatric industry for answers. But a new movement is rapidly developing. Similar to the popular trend to choose natural healing over orthodox medicine, people are doing the same for their mental health.

Actress Margot Kidder of Superman fame decided this week to lead the campaign to introduce a new voice for mental health care. On April 10, Ms.Kidder was appointed as the national spokesperson for AlternativeMentalHealth.com, the world's largest Internet site on non-drug mental health treatments.

"The number of people looking for help without medication is staggering, she said. Sometimes I am on the phone three to four hours a day with people asking me how I did it. Now I can refer them to AlternativeMentalHealth.com.

After years of searching for answers to her own health problems, Kidder finally resolved her troubles through nutrient therapy. I got a hold of a 900-page medical book on manic depression, sat down with my dictionaries and worked it out for myself, said Kidder.

Among other things, it said that certain amino acid deficiencies were common in manic depression. But the recommended treatment was drugs! Kidder continued. I thought, ~Heck, why not just take the amino acids? I did and that was the starting point on my road to wellness.

The actress, who has appeared in 55 feature films and over 100 television shows and continues to work steadily, has since become a passionate spokesperson on behalf of people seeking nutritionally oriented drug-free mental treatments. She was in Los Angeles in January of this year to receive the Courage in Mental Health Award from the California Womens Mental Health Policy Council.

AlternativeMentalHealth.com is a much needed presence on the internet, she said. It has a directory of alternative mental health practitioners around the world and many, many articles on the various causes and drug-free treatments for mental problems.

A recent Harvard study confirms a dramatic increase in the public's interest in non-drug mental health treatments. Reporting in the February 2001 issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry, the study authors claim, Complementary and alternative therapies are used more than conventional therapies by people with self-defined anxiety attacks and severe depression. Most patients visiting conventional mental health providers for these problems also use complementary and alternative therapies....Use of these therapies will likely increase as insurance coverage expands.

AlternativeMentalHealth.com is sponsored by Safe Harbor, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization dedicated to educating the public, the medical field, and government agencies on drug-free alternatives for mental health problems. They emphasize the role of physical causes such as medical problems, allergies, toxic conditions, and nutritional imbalances.

Safe Harbor was founded by L.A. businessman, Dan Stradford, who saw his father crippled by electroshock therapy and heavy medication in the late 1950s. He was unrecognizable after that, Stradford says. But 42 years later, through nutrient therapy, we have been able to free him from taking antipsychotic drugs. He regained dignity by getting that part of his life back.

A wide variety of physical ailments can cause mental upheaval, yet these often are not looked for by physicians, who can be quick to prescribe antidepressants or other medications. Even when a full physical exam is done, many causes, such as a zinc deficiency or copper excess, could remain hidden because few doctors consider looking for them, usually due to a lack of education in the area of nutrition or a limited understanding of the dangerous effects of the psychotropic drugs they prescribe.

AlternativeMentalHealth.com includes numerous informative articles on specific symptoms and possible natural remedies. Ms. Kidder has recently included an article on amino acids, a natural substance research has shown to have powerful benefits without non-optimum side effects.

The simple fact, says Kidder, is that an extraordinary number of people dislike the effects that psychiatric medication has on them. It can dull the senses and cause all kinds of emotional and physical reactions. I know I was very upset to find out that very simple and logical alternatives existed but no doctor ever told me about them.

Psychiatric drug use has increased sharply in recent decades. In the 1960s, when tranquilizers first came on the market, Valium rapidly became the most prescribed drug in medical history.

Antidepressants and anti-anxiety agents are still widely in use. The Family Research Council estimates that 6 million American children are currently taking psychiatric drugs, primarily for Attention Deficit Disorder. Newsweek reports that prescription drug sales have doubled to $145 billion in the past five years.

The use of nutrient therapy for mental disorders has been around since the 1940s. Double-Nobel-prize-winner Linus Pauling was a champion of it and referred to it as orthomolecular (correct molecule) treatment. Research concentrates on extensive lab testing of subjects to determine what metabolic abnormalities they have in common.

One pioneer of nutrient therapy, Dr. Abram Hoffer of Canada, has used a nutrient protocol on schizophrenia, which has proven highly effective in six double-blind studies. The protocol is available free at AlternativeMentalHealth.com.

AlternativeMentalHealth.com. is here to give Americans of all ages a choice through education and access to doctors nationwide who are experts in fields such as nutritional deficiencies, hormonal and metabolic disorders, and other things that can cause mental suffering, said Stradford. Many people are seeking alternatives to the often devastating effects of electroshock therapy or years on drugs. If we help one of them, then we have accomplished our goals.

For further information on http://alternativementalhealth.com/ contact Dan Stradford at 818-890-1862 or Christie Communications at 805-969-3744.

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