April 24, 2013

Is it really best to force someone into the hospital when they are suicidal? Do suicidal feelings plus “risk factors” really mean professionals can predict whether someone might try to kill themselves? And are suicidal feelings the symptom of a treatable illness that should include medication prescription?
Full Article →

Categorized in: Blogs, Featured Blogs, Suicide

February 23, 2013

This is a transcript of my keynote speech at Alternatives 2012, which a Madness Radio listener recently transcribed.
Full Article →

Categorized in: Blogs, Featured Blogs, Non-Drug Approaches, Research, Rethinking Psychiatry/Medical Model, Violence

December 16, 2012

Is poetry the way to truly understand madness? Do rituals and music — such as Ireland’s tradition of keening — have the power to heal emotional suffering? Susan McKeown, Grammy award-winning singer/songwriter and folklorist, supported her partner through an extreme state. She began a journey to uncover intergenerational trauma in her family and in the history of her native Ireland, and was inspired to set poems about madness to music.

Full Article →

Categorized in: Blogs, Featured Blogs, Non-Drug Approaches

December 1, 2012

In my recent Alternatives keynote I talked about mental health issues and our unjust prisons, including the shameful racism of the criminal justice system and the urgent need to end the so called War On Drugs. Many people have approached …
Full Article →

Categorized in: Blogs, Coercion, Featured Blogs, Industry, Rethinking Psychiatry/Medical Model

November 29, 2012

There’s a widespread belief in psychiatric and mental health circles that human experience can be reduced to the biology of brain chemistry — the “medical model.” But this is just the tip of the iceberg: our whole society is in the grips of a faddish pseudo-science of “neuromarketing,” “neuropolitics” “neurotheology,” and ‘neuroeconomics.”
Full Article →

Categorized in: Blogs, Featured Blogs, Genetics, Rethinking Psychiatry/Medical Model

November 8, 2012

The phrase “medication tapering” is being used more and more as the preferred term for the psychiatric medication withdrawal or coming off process. Based on my years of work educating many people around coming off medications — clients, support groups, and in workshops and trainings — I think that term is misleading, and let me explain why.
Full Article →

Categorized in: Blogs, Featured Blogs, Medication Tapering/Withdrawal, Psychiatric Drugs

October 26, 2012

What if people struggling with madness could explore their emotions in a supportive sanctuary? Do frightening ‘psychotic’ experiences have the power to transform and heal? Is breakdown also breakthrough? Michael Cornwall became a therapist after surviving his own crisis — without medication or psychiatric treatment. For more than 30 years he has worked in the tradition of Carl Jung and R.D. Laing to support people to go through psychotic states in medication-free community settings, including John Weir Perry’s Diabasis House in the 1970s.
Full Article →

Categorized in: Blogs, Featured Blogs

October 16, 2012

How did the APA talk go? Overall a success– the audio went viral on the internet, and the talk itself was so crowded we had to move to a larger room — more than 70 psychiatrists and behavioral healthcare professionals attended. Afterwards many stepped up to shake my hand and congratulate me: I was told by two people I was a gift to the conference, asked to present at a Grand Rounds, encouraged to do a TED talk, thanked for my compassionate response to a question about forced treatment, and invited to do more trainings in the future. I even met several psychiatrists who are Madness Radio listeners. Psychiatry is clearly not a monolithic profession and many in it are beginning to think differently.
Full Article →

Categorized in: Blogs, Featured Blogs, Industry, Non-Drug Approaches, Rethinking Psychiatry/Medical Model

July 27, 2012

The Harm Reduction Guide to Coming Off Psychiatric Drugs, written by Will Hall and published by The Icarus Project and Freedom Center five years ago, is now available in a revised edition! This Guide can be downloaded for free on …
Full Article →

Categorized in: Blogs, Featured Blogs, Medication Tapering/Withdrawal, Non-Drug Approaches, Psychiatric Drugs, Research

July 5, 2012

Hearing distressing voices is highly correlated with traumatic experiences, and many people report that their first experience with distressing voices occurs after a trauma. Making the connection can be a vital step in the recovery process. In this interview with …
Full Article →

Categorized in: Adult, Blogs, Disorders, Hearing Voices, Psychiatric Drugs, Schizophrenia/Psychotic Disorders

June 30, 2012

I was invited to give a Keynote Address at the 2012 Alternatives Conference in Portland Oregon, and I’m collecting your input on what I should say — I’m crowd sourcing my Keynote! Alternatives is a federally funded annual SAMHSA conference that brings …
Full Article →

Categorized in: Blogs, Community, Featured Blogs, Non-Drug Approaches, Rethinking Psychiatry/Medical Model

May 21, 2012

First Aired 5-1-2012 What is it like for a prisoner diagnosed with mental illness? Should we have more mental health treatment in prison — or should we work to abolish our prison system? Daniel Hazen spent three years in prison …
Full Article →

Categorized in: Blogs, Coercion, Psychiatric Drugs

April 15, 2012

It was a long haul from being a psychiatric patient in 1992 to graduating with a masters in counseling in 2011. I flunked out of my first attempt to get a graduate degree because I was in a school that …
Full Article →

Categorized in: Blogs, Non-Drug Approaches, Psychotherapy

March 19, 2012

Professor Sharna Olfman has researched and written extensively about children in society, including education and sexuality, and her perspective on so-called bipolar disorder is insightful and deserves wide recognition. Sharna discusses the social and economic pressures that are driving parents …
Full Article →

Categorized in: Bipolar, Bipolar, Blogs, Children and Adolescents, Disorders

February 1, 2012

Grainne was courageous to do this interview: I was struck by her strong love for John and her very deep sensitivity to the violence she has witnessed him undergo in the name of treatment. Let us all lend our hearts and passion to the international campaign to free John Hunt and to ensure that no one ever has to suffer the abuses he has suffered.
Full Article →

Categorized in: Blogs

January 24, 2012

Matthew Aldridge, a psychiatric nurse at London’s Lambeth Hospital, just published a new article in the 2011 Journal of Psychiatric and Mental Health Nursing, “Addressing Non-Adherence to Antipsychotic Medication: A Harm-Reduction Approach.” This is an extraordinarily well researched clinical discussion of professional medication practice.
Full Article →

Categorized in: Blogs

January 9, 2012

I want to thank Bob Whitaker for inviting me to join the bloggers at Mad In America. As an introduction to my work I enlisted the help of Portland visionary colleagues Kent Bye, Jen Gouvea, and Jonathan Marrs to produce …
Full Article →

Categorized in: Blogs, Videos