In The News

When Placebos Beat
Active Treatment

May 24, 2013

U.K. researchers find, in a systematic literature review and meta-analysis of medical (not only psychiatric) treatments that when bias is ruled out and effects are considered on a continuous rather than binary basis, the effect of placebos can be superior to that of active treatments. Results appeared online in PLoS on May 15, 2013.

(more…)

Robert Whitaker & Allen Frances on Al Jazeera TV:
“Redefining Mental Illness”

May 23, 2013

Robert Whitaker notes on Al Jazeera’s “Inside Story” that a helpful diagnostic text must be both reliable and valid, and the DSM is neither – resulting in a harmful expansion of diagnosis and medication. Allen Frances says that experts “always expand, they never reduce” their authority over a domain. 5% of the population has a psychiatric disorder that can be diagnosed and effectively treated, Frances says, but the DSM is misused such that more than 25% of the population is so diagnosed and a “ridiculous” 20% of the population is taking medication. (more…)

“DSM-5: Caught between Mental Illness Stigma and Anti-Psychiatry Prejudice”

May 21, 2013

Jeffrey Lieberman, incoming president of the APA, responds to criticism of the DSM and psychiatry, saying “it’s important to understand the difference between thoughtful, legitimate debate, and the inevitable outcry from a small group of critics – made louder by social media and support from dubious sources — who have relentlessly sought to undermine the credibility of psychiatric medicine and question the validity of mental illness.” (more…)

Obesity in Men Diagnosed With ADHD as Children

May 20, 2013

A 33-year controlled, prospective study conducted as a collaboration by researchers in New York, Mexico, and Verona, Italy found that men diagnosed with ADHD as children had significantly higher rates of obesity as adults. The causal link, however – whether a common neurobiological dysfunction underlies both ADHD and obesity, or a tendency toward impulsiveness, or an effect of ADHD medication – is unclear.

Article → Discuss →

Schizophrenia Subtypes Disappearing From the Literature

May 20, 2013

Schizophrenia Bulletin publishes a review of published articles that finds the use of schizophrenia subtypes (Catatonic, Disorganized, Paranoid, Residual & Undifferentiated), “while widely used in the past,” has declined over the last 20 years to the point that they should be eliminated from research and “evolving knowledge” on the topic.

Article → Discuss →

APA President-Elect Proclaims “Our Time is Now”

May 20, 2013

As demonstrators outside the Moscone Center in San Francisco protested the invalidity of the just-released DSM-5, and the harm they assert has been done in its name, the APA’s incoming president proclaimed psychiatry’s imminent legitimacy as a medical specialty, saying (paraphrasing John F. Kennedy), “‘On this day let the word go forth from this time and place,’ to consumers to clinicians, to policymakers and providers, to advocates and stakeholders, and to all the members of the APA, that for the field of psychiatry and for the patients that we serve, ‘our time has come.’”

Article → Discuss →

NPR’s Marketplace on DSM-5′s Problematic Rollout

May 18, 2013

NPR’s Marketplace covers the DSM-5′s rollout, with Allen Frances noting that “financial pressures – like dwindling membership – are forcing the APA to treat the DSM like a cash cow, not a public trust”, and psychiatrist (and MIA blogger) Sandra Steingard commenting that she has advised her agency against buying it. Regardless, Marketplace notes, the APA already has more than $150 million in pre-orders.

Article → Discuss →

More News ...

Around the Web

“Why it’s Truly Bonkers to Believe in Shrinks”

May 24, 2013

The U.K.’s Daily Mail reviews “Cracked: Why Psychiatry is Doing More Harm Than Good” by James Davies.

Article → Discuss →

“Science Isn’t Golden”

May 22, 2013

Paula Caplan’s Psychology Today blog on the “existential nausea” associated with seeing the recent controversy over the DSM and psychiatric diagnosis. This is a fight, she writes, she’s been engaged in for 25 years; against powerful people who get away with “distortions and even lies, lies that hurt the people they profess to help.”

Article → Discuss →

“Are Mental Illnesses Such as PMS and Depression Culturally Determined?”

May 20, 2013

Britain’s Guardian discovers, in light of the DSM controversy, that a “growing number of psychiatrists suspect mental conditions are ‘culture-bound syndromes’ rather than exclusively biological” illnesses.

Article → Discuss →

“Closed Thinking: Without Scientific Competition and Open Debate, Much Psychology Research Goes Nowhere”

May 20, 2013

Science News offers an excellent review of the the perils and pitfalls of the scientific method as it is practiced in psychology today, concluding with the story of Clever Hans, the horse that could count.

Article → Discuss →

More Around the Web ...

Featured Blogs

More Blogs ... More Foreign Correspondents ... More Op-Eds ...

Personal Stories

Recovering Myself

Amanda Back

May 7, 2013

I have known altered states of consciousness since I was a child.  I clearly remember staring into the mirror in my mother’s bathroom and thinking that I was not who I appeared to be and that I was separate from …
Full Article

Did Electroshock Save my Life?

Loretta Wilson

April 20, 2013

In July 2006, I wrote about Electroconvulsive Therapy and stated, “If I had the opportunity to have another series of treatments I would do it!”  I had been compelled to believe the shocks had saved my life.

My Place in the Crisis

Mary Anne

April 2, 2013

Editor’s Note: To ensure the security of her job, the author has opted to use only her first name. My relationship with the mental health crisis laid out in Robert Whitaker’s book, Anatomy of an Epidemic, is deeply personal. Not only have …
Full Article

More Stories ...

Anatomy of an Epidemic

Robert Whitaker’s

Blog
Speaking Schedule
Source Documents
Slide Presentations
Videotaped Talks
Interviews
Answering Critics
Books 

 

“One of the most disturbing, consequential works of investigative journalism I’ve read in a long time. Perhaps ever.” –John Horgan, Scientific American

MIA Reports

Leonard Roy Frank:
Activist and Pioneer

May 15, 2013

IMG_0944

Leonard Roy Frank, an early pioneer of the Psychiatric Survivor movement, discusses his lived experience including forced insulin treatments, ECT, and the relationship between non-conformity and psychiatric diagnosis.
Full Article

Support Mad In America...

“Voices Matter”

May 2, 2013

HVN

“Voices Matter” is the first full production to emerge from the Open Paradigm Project, a collective dedicated to heeding the voices and perspectives that accompany the diverse and changing realities we all share. This documentary about the Hearing Voices Movement was filmed over the course of three days at the 2012 World Hearing Voices Congress in Cardiff, Wales.
Full Article

Support Mad In America...
More MIA Reports ...

Best of MIA

A random selection from our most popular blogs

More Popular Blogs ...

Mad Media

Films/Videos

Allen Frances and Robert Whitaker on Al Jazeera: “Inside Story Americas – Redefining mental illness

What DSM-5 Means for Diagnosing Mental Health Patients


Important Souls“, a film about trauma in the lives of the psychiatrically labeled


Benzo and Antidepressant Withdrawal – Support for Caregivers


You May Be Suffering From Antidepressants (The Adbusters)

Radio
Lucy Johnstone from the British Psychological Society on the influential BBC radio news program Today (May 13, 2013);  on changing the paradigm, the language and the ideology of what is a mental health problem.

“King’s Park” by Lucy Winer
“Crooked Beauty” by Ken Paul Rosenthal
“Little Brother Big Pharma” by David Heine
“Care Farms of the Netherlands” by David Heine
“Generation Rx” by Kevin P. Miller
“Open Dialogue” by Daniel Mackler
“Take These Broken Wings” by Daniel Mackler
“Healing Homes” by Daniel Mackler

Books

Madness Contested; contributors include Mary Boyle, Jacqui Dillon, Eleanor Longden, Joanna Moncrieff, Phil Thomas
The Spiritual Gift of Madness by Seth Farber
Rethinking Madness by Paris Williams
Bad Pharma by Ben Goldacre
Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal by Peter Breggin
All We Have to Fear by Allan V. Horwitz, PhD
Xanax Withdrawalby Dr. Stuart Shipko

Latest Mad Radio Broadcast Interviews by Will Hall