Yearly Archives: 2012

An unidentified man who matched the description of an "eloped" patient was brought to Graylands Hospital in Perth, where he was injected with an...

STEPS TO A POST-THERAPEUTIC FUTURE In the late 1970’s, shortly before he would have been thrown out for raising unwelcome questions about patients’ rights, Eugene...

Steps to a Post-Therapeutic Future: With a strong interest in how popular culture and psychiatry/psychotherapy reflexively influence one another, Eugene writes critically about aspects of...

The vast disconnect between prognosis (as predicted by mental health providers) and actual outcome (as reported by psychiatric survivors) forces us to ask the question: Why send messages of hopelessness when they are so often untrue?

Beyond Meds publishes Giovanna Pompele's critique of a New York Times' op-ed written by psychiatrist Paul Steinberg, who's proposed solution to violence such as that...

Health Central offers a slideshow detailing medical conditions that "can make it even harder" to get an accurate ADD/ADHD diagnosis. Health Central →

This past year has been a terrible year for mental health in the news and other media. The most prevalent and widely publicized messaging has been heartily encouraged by national lobbying groups that "advocate" for expanded treatment of what they have deemed "severe diseases of the brain." Psychiatrists and proponents of the medical model are calling for what is basically a soft re-institutionalization of people deemed mentally ill, particularly those with diagnoses erroneously assumed to be “treatable, but not curable.” This perspective is dangerous. It supports violence and abuse. It feeds fear and delusion. It is not helpful.

How is it that we allow the agendas of others to occupy our childrens’ minds? Is it possible that a stranger can know our child better than we do? Is there anything a baby needs to learn that can’t be taught by being held in a parent’s arms? Because my children’s eyes and ears and thoughts are on me every day, they are key players in my ongoing efforts to live a right life. I count on their eyes and ears and thoughts to shore me up during times of temptation. They always lead me home.

After 4 decades as a psychiatric survivor human rights activist and 3 decades with spinal arthritis (ankylosing spondylitis), that fused my spine into peanut brittle, I knew I needed a break. The break that I got about 3 weeks ago was not the one I expected. I slipped off a wet ladder in my writer's studio, and it resulted in a complete break of my neck.

I am a survivor of severe psychiatric abuse. There was a year or so in the early 1980’s when I was in and out...

Hallgrímur - A Man like me.

The more we worry about the separation from reality, the more scared we get and the more separated we get. This month I found out about another trap. When you can see the beauty and spirituality and mystery and magic of what is going on, it's tempting to do things to make it last longer and help yourself get further into it, like skip sleep or skip meals or use drugs. I had to fight those temptations often through this month, and still am, to be honest, because there is so much of this process that was not just scary, but glorious and giganticly interdimensional and impactful.

Emma Bragdon compiles the evidence on the connection between antidepressant medication and violence for Elephant Journal. (Free registration required). Elephant Journal →

THINKING ABOUT SUICIDE After surviving “four years of madness”, David Webb looked into the formal study of suicide (Suicidology) and was taken aback to find...

Thinking About Suicide: David Webb argues that suicide prevention needs a broad community conversation that challenges the status quo thinking about suicide. At the...

I am the number 60. In the past, I've been reduced to a label – Major Depression, Generalized Anxiety, Borderline Personality Disorder and more. Now I’m a number on a one-hundred point scale, but that number only seems to lead back to more of the same. Funny how, in actuality, I have managed to live without any of that for most of my 30’s. Yes, I still think about suicide. (I have since I was a teen.) Yes, I still experience a number of ups and downs. Yes, at times I still struggle more than some others might. And yet, I’ve learned that those same self-reflective, intensely analytical qualities that lead me to feel so deeply are also a large part of what make me good at the work that I do.

Tangible Intangibilities: Sera writes here to share her thoughts on how the language we choose and our apparent need to concretize the inherently complex...

TANGIBLE INTANGIBILITIES Sera Davidow is a mother, an advocate, an activist and a filmmaker. She devotes much of her time to the Western Massachusetts Recovery...

Pharmalot has just posted a piece - 'Controversial FDA official, Tom Laughren, retires.' This is a must read for anyone with anything to do with mental health - both the post and the comments afterwards where some have posted that they still believe the Black Box warnings on antidepressants arose because of pressure from the Church of Scientology rather than in response to the data.The post will likely seem boring to many. But the comments won't - they seethe with anger.

Like everyone else, I was shocked and stunned by the senseless mass killing of young children and adults in Newtown, Connecticut. The families and community deserve their chance to mourn and search for their own meaning and healing. However, I cannot be silent about the threats now being made against my community, as people respond to this act of terrible violence. The aggressive legislation against people labeled with psychiatric diagnoses that is being promoted by the NRA and by Representative Sensenbrenner, among others, is not a fit way to honor anyone's life.

An article by Allen Frances in Bloomberg examines the economic impact of the DSM's increasing pathologization of human behavior. Article →

Beyond Meds features an article by Paul Woodward that reviews the "false assumption" that "the primary weakness in the mental health system is lack of...

A petition on the White House web site which calls for an investigation into the link between psychiatric medication and violence has been blocked...

Beyond Psychiatric Diagnosis: Lucy writes about replacing psychiatric diagnosis with a formulation-based approach that explores personal meaning within relational and social contexts, and she reflects on...