Recent Blogs
The Cause and Solution for Emotional Distress
Corinna West
February 22, 2012
Hi, I’m Corinna West, a psychiatric survivor. I was very ill one time and now I’m not. That’s the short story. The slightly longer story is that I have recovered from 12 psychiatric diagnoses, 6 suicide attempts, 5 hospitalizations, 7 …
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Categorized in: Blogs | Tagged as: complete mental health recovery, Corinna West, emotional distress, mental health business, mental health social entrepreneurship. coming off psych meds, Olympic Judo Team, profit from mental health, recovery stories, schizophrenia without medications, Wellness Wordworks
Set Up for the Con
Bob Fancher, Ph.D.
February 22, 2012
If biological psychiatrists have lied to us, we need to ask why, as a culture, we have been so willing to embrace those lies. Generally, we’re most apt to be conned when the con men appeal to our hopes and fears. We don’t like to admit that many people rightly fear the influence of therapy. If we want to defeat biological psychiatry, we can’t just show its lack of integrity. We have to offer alternatives that deserve trust.
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Response to 60 Minutes
Jill Littrell, Ph.D.
February 22, 2012
On February 19, 2012, Lesley Stahl’s “Treating depression: is there a placebo effect?” aired on CBS 60 Minutes. Stahl is to be commended for doing an excellent job. During the broadcast, Stahl interviewed Irving Kirsch, Michael Brown, and Michael Thase …
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Letters from the Front Lines
Mark Foster, D.O.
February 21, 2012
Bob– An encounter from this week: I saw a 24 year-old theater actress who was started on Lexapro nine months ago for a one-time “panic attack” and has gained sixty pounds since. This is extremely distressing to her as her …
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Personal Steps toward a Revolution in Mental Health Care
Ron Unger, LCSW
February 21, 2012
My friend David Oaks, director of MindFreedom , likes to say that what is currently needed is a non-violent revolution in mental health care. Mental health “reform” too often amounts to no more than “re-arranging deck chairs on the Titanic”. Yet …
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A Road Map to Hope
Lisbeth Riis Cooper
February 21, 2012
In my last blog, invited readers to consider sharing their families’ recovery stories and to open to the possibility of the healing that is available when we connect with each other through this sharing. I would like to share one of these stories with all of you.
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Categorized in: Blogs | Tagged as: Empowerment, family support, Mad in America, mental health, Mother Bear, Recovery, Robert Whitaker
The Real Suicide Data from the TADS Study Comes to Light
Robert Whitaker
February 20, 2012
Last week, Robert Gibbons reported in the Archives of General Psychiatry that fluoxetine was not found to increase the suicide risk in children compared to placebo. But if we closely examine the suicide data from the TADS trial, which at first glance seems to support Gibbons’ conclusion, we find a trail of hidden data and scientific scandal.
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60 Minutes, The SSRIs, and The Dirty Little Secret
Jonathan Leo, Ph.D. / Jeffrey Lacasse, Ph.D.
February 20, 2012
Last night, 60 Minutes presented the work of Irving Kirsch, who has been researching the placebo effect in antidepressants for many years. We discuss.
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Categorized in: Blogs | Tagged as: antidepressant, irving kirsch, Serotonin, SSRI
Turning a Child’s Intensity to Greatness
Howard Glasser
February 19, 2012
My passion in the medication debate stems from my clinical work with families with challenging and intense children. I got to see that with 2-3 weeks – at most within 2-3 months for the most difficult children – that the very same intensity that had gone awry became the very fuel for that child’s greatness.
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What Do Psychiatrists Say When They Talk to Each Other?
Jill Littrell, Ph.D.
February 18, 2012
Last week I attended a lecture presented at the Department of Psychiatry Grand Rounds at a major Southeastern University. The presenter, a psychiatrist employed in a student counseling center at the same university, discussed the historical evolution of the orientation …
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Responding to Madness With Loving Receptivity: a Practical Guide
Michael Cornwall, Ph.D.
February 14, 2012
In my last three blogs I posed the question- “If madness isn’t what psychiatry says it is, then what is it?” Now I’m asking- “If madness isn’t what psychiatry says it is, then how should we respond to madness?’ Here …
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Categorized in: Alternative Approaches, Blogs, Community, Critique of Psychiatry, Holistic and trauma Informed Programs and Literature, Medication Reduction Guides, Uncategorized, Withdrawal Guides and Protocols
Mental Health Homes Open Their Proverbial Doors in New York: Caveats, Part II
Jack Carney, DSW
February 10, 2012
Given the length of this blog and the subject matter it addresses, I’ve divided it into two parts. Part II appears immediately below, Part I in a separate posting. Thanks for your patience and interest. PART II – ISSUES TO …
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Categorized in: Blogs | Tagged as: Affordable Care Act, Caveats, Guerrilla Tactics, Mental Health Homes, New York
Dialogical Recovery from Monological Medicine
Daniel Fisher, M.D., Ph.D.
February 8, 2012
Open Dialogue* has created a great stir since its public introduction to the United States two years ago through Robert Whitaker’s book, Anatomy of an Epidemic, and Dan Mackler’s film, “Open Dialogue.” This enthusiasm has been particularly marked in Massachusetts. …
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Mental Health Homes Open Their Proverbial Doors in New York: A Look into the Future of U.S. Public Healthcare (Part One)
Jack Carney, DSW
February 7, 2012
The first of New York State’s “mental health homes,” which are intended to serve as the bedrock for a reformed public mental health system, are now open. Will this reform deliver improved care for those with “serious and persistent mental illness?”
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Categorized in: Blogs | Tagged as: Affordable Care Act, Future, Mental Health Homes, New York, U.S. Public Health
Unraveling the Biopsychiatric Knot: the Future History of the Radical Mental Health Movement
Sascha Altman DuBrul
February 7, 2012
I did the research for this article to try and make sense of this story I carry around with me about being someone who is seen as mad, who struggles with what this society considers a serious “brain disorder.” My hope is that by the time you finish reading my words you will have more tools to analyze this hyper-complicated world around you.
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The Death of Leslie Carter
Elliot Goldberg, LCSW
February 7, 2012
For several years now I have been talking to colleagues and friends about my developing interest in raising red flags regarding harmful prescription drug use. Considering the Center for Disease Control and Prevention is now admitting that tens of thousands of people a …
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The Role of Inflammation in the Success and Failure of Antidepressants
Jill Littrell, Ph.D.
February 6, 2012
The evidence is fast accumulating that systemic inflammation has a causative role in depression, or, at minimum, is a major factor in the chain of events leading to depression. Pioneer animal work was done by Robert Dantzer, Linda Watkins, and …
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Remembering A Medication-Free Madness Sanctuary
Michael Cornwall, Ph.D.
February 3, 2012
In my last blog entry, I described how the I-Ward first episode madness sanctuary came into being and how I ended up working there as a therapist for over three years. As you read now about my time there, I would again like to ask you to keep in mind the question I posed in my first two blog entries- “If Madness isn’t what Psychiatry says it is, then what is it?”
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On a Paradox Revealed: Discontinuing Neuroleptics
Sandra Steingard, M.D.
February 2, 2012
In Anatomy of an Epidemic, Robert Whitaker posits that long-term exposure to neuroleptics does more harm than good. I will discuss how I have wrestled with this in my practice.
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Bring in the Peer!
Keris Jän Myrick
February 1, 2012
Around the country, consumers of the public mental health system speak of ‘empowerment’, ‘recovery’ and ‘independence’ while being disempowered, and made reliant on a system that uses the word ‘recovery’ as only a buzzword. How can Peer provided services help?
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Categorized in: Blogs | Tagged as: mental health, Peer-Run, peers, Project Return Peer Support Network, Psychiatry, Recovery, Shared-Decision Making, WRAP
Madness Radio: Grainne Humphry on the Psychiatric Incarceration of John Hunt in Ireland
Will Hall
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.
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Return to Self an Alternative Medication?
Elliot Goldberg, LCSW
February 1, 2012
After nearly two years in Utah, from 2008-2009, I made the decision to return to the splendor of the Pacific Northwest where I had previously practiced as a psychotherapist. Relocation is one of the most profound experiences. I noticed and …
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Letters from the Front Lines
Mark Foster, D.O.
February 1, 2012
Dear Bob– I’ve had a couple of remarkable conversations, not with my own patients, but with friends and acquaintances asking me for advice. Each example depicts so much that is wrong with the biomedical model of mental health care. First, …
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The Power of Storytelling
Lisbeth Riis Cooper
February 1, 2012
Over the years, I have heard many powerful recovery stories. I’ve also had many opportunities to share our family’s struggle with mental health challenges and our recovery journey.
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Categorized in: Blogs | Tagged as: Bob Whitaker, family support, Mad in America, Mental health care, Mother Bear, Recovery
Thinking about Care with Care
Bob Fancher, Ph.D.
January 31, 2012
Weak science and exaggerated reports of discovery aren’t the special province of biological psychiatrists. We don’t really understand much about the suffering that brings people into care. We need to study the beliefs that we like as critically we study the ones we don’t.
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