DISPATCHES FROM THE ROAD
Daniel Mackler is the director of the 2008 documentary Take These Broken Wings, on recovery from schizophrenia without medication, and the 2011 documentaries Healing Homes and Open Dialogue, both on alternative treatment programs for psychosis. He is also the co-author (with Matthew Morrissey) of the 2010 book A Way Out of Madness: Dealing with Your Family After You Have Been Diagnosed with a Psychiatric Disorder, and the co-editor (with David Garfield, MD) of Beyond Medication: Therapeutic Engagement and the Recovery from Psychosis. Daniel was a psychotherapist in New York City for ten years, and now is living on the road.
Components for a Good Neuroleptic Withdrawal Program
by Daniel Mackler
February 25, 2013
The United States desperately needs good programs to help people withdraw from neuroleptics, that is, antipsychotic drugs. From all I have seen and heard, there aren’t any — none at least that can reputably claim to get good results on a fairly consistent basis. Again and again I find myself challenged to envision such a program, and in reply to the challenge I have broken down this hypothetical program into various components.
Full Article
Categorized in: Blogs, Coercion, Featured Blogs, Medication Tapering/Withdrawal, Non-Drug Approaches, Psychiatric Drugs | Tagged as: Antipsychotics, coming off psychiatric drugs, coming off psychiatric medications, drug withdrawal programs, medication, neuroleptic withdrawal, neuroleptics, psychiatric drugs, psychiatric medications, Psychosis
Some Observations of Soteria-Alaska
by Daniel Mackler
September 28, 2012
If people who work in mainstream biological psychiatry are willing to consider referring people in severe psychiatric crises to a program that operates under both a completely alternative philosophy and model to their own, then I see hope for our world’s mental health system. If our local psychiatric emergency room is willing to refer to a program like ours, then other psychiatric emergency rooms elsewhere in the United States and the world must be willing at least to consider doing the same. For this reason, I do not feel like Don Quixote tilting at windmills. I feel the system can change.
Full Article
Categorized in: Blogs, Featured Blogs, Soteria | Tagged as: Soteria Soteria-Alaska first-break psychosis recovery without psychiatric drugs
A Visit into the Lithuanian Mental Health System
by Daniel Mackler
January 12, 2012
In November of 2011 I spent two weeks in Lithuania — a fascinating time. Some colleagues in Scandinavia connected me with a progressive psychiatrist of about my age who is the director of the biggest mental hospital in Kaunas, Lithuania’s …
Full Article
Categorized in: Blogs | Tagged as: daniel mackler lithuania mental health lithuanian recovery from schizophrenia without medication psychosis take these broken wings
