(Newswire.net — March 14, 2018) — The Citizens Commission on Human Rights (CCHR) of Florida, a non-profit mental health watchdog organization that investigates and exposes abuses in the mental health industry, is hosting an open house in observance of Self Harm Awareness Month in order to increase public understanding that the use of antidepressants in children and adolescents have been shown to increase the risk of self-harm events as well as increased suicidality, suicidal ideation and suicide attempts, reports CCHR International.
Self Harm Awareness Month is an internationally recognized campaign, which is highlighted annually in March by mental health advocates. Self-harm is a term that encompasses any type of self-injury which is not suicidal but nonetheless, harmful to an individual — such as cutting, head hitting or banging (against surfaces), and burning oneself for the purpose of trauma and even self-punishment, as defined by Mental Health America.
Approximately 4% of U.S. adults engage in self-harm, with rates occurring higher in adolescents (15% of cases reported). However, college students are even more prone to self-injury at rates ranging from 17%-35%, reports Journal of American Board of Family Medicine. Mental health professionals may turn to suicide prevention tactics to treat individuals prone to self-harm, but a 40-year study from Scientific American proves that suicide prevention may actually increase the possibility of suicide which could explain why suicides have risen in direct correlation to psychiatric suicide prevention measures, as re[prted by CCHR Florida.
CCHR’s Self Harm Awareness Month open house runs throughout March and is being held in the downtown Clearwater location at 109 N. Fort Harrison Avenue. Open to the public, including educators, medical professionals, parents and children, attendees are invited to walk through the center’s museum which, through a series of interactive video displays, shows the truth about the history of psychiatry including the connection between violence, self harm, and psychiatric drugs.
For more information on self-harm, psychiatric drugs or the open house, please call CCHR Florida at 727-442-8820.
Initially established by the Church of Scientology and renowned psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Szasz in 1969, CCHR’s mission is to eradicate abuses committed under the guise of mental health and enact patient and consumer protections. It was L. Ron Hubbard, the founder of Scientology, who brought the terror of psychiatric imprisonment to the notice of the world. In March 1969, he said, “Thousands and thousands are seized without process of law, every week, over the ‘free world’ tortured, castrated, killed. All in the name of ‘mental health.’” For more information visit, www.cchrflorida.org.