Blogs

Essays by a diverse group of writers, in the United States and abroad, engaged in rethinking psychiatry. (The directory of personal stories can be found here, and initiatives here).

Would You Want Your Therapist to be Honest?

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If a therapist is honest about their triggers, they risk equalizing the power imbalance. They risk being on the same plane as their client. If the therapist has triggers too, they may end up being as “bad” as the client’s, and then what? Then who is the healer?

“Doubly Brutish”: Forensic Psychiatry and Force

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It is difficult to imagine a system that could do any better at ensuring the failure of its patients, and in doing so it accomplishes the very opposite of what it claims — it increases risk for all concerned.

Emotional Pain and the Possibility of Finding Hope

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The human need to not be left alone when we are suffering is very great. During such times our very basic human needs for being valued, seen, heard and cared about arise as we are at our most vulnerable and are dependent on the goodwill of others.

Unusual Beliefs and Mental Well-Being

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Who’s deluded? Who’s possessed with unusual beliefs? And whose beliefs, if expressed and put into practice publicly, actually cause the greatest harm? Who gets to decide what is abnormal or normal, and based upon what kind of evidence, really?

Dear Boston Globe, Part VI: Congratulations. Bad Things Happen.

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Yes, people are dying, but not typically in the manner you so salaciously describe in every blood-lusting Globe article you write. They're entering the system when they’re younger, getting stuck in that service, and then dying early (or transferring to nursing homes), unseen by the public eye.

From One Parent to Another

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In the couple of years since my daughter Rebecka and I published our book, I have received many emails, Facebook messages and phone calls from despairing parents. They want to know, how did you get through it? What do you suggest? What else can we try?

When Modern Medicine Made Me More Autistic

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I think future research will reveal that autism is more complicated than neurodiversity advocates would like to admit. Environmental factors affecting our microbiomes can very clearly influence the extent to which people’s behaviors correspond with the current diagnostic criteria for autism.
Dorothea Buck

Celebrating Dorothea Buck’s 100th Birthday

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Mainstream psychiatrists celebrated the 100th birthday of their hero Kraepelin. Let us celebrate the 100th birthday of our Dorothea Buck, remember the many victims of psychiatric treatment, and stay together against violent psychiatric behavior and for humanistic support for people in distress.

Finding the Way to Mental Health

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I love counseling, and helping people deal with their emotional and relational problems. But in addition, I encourage anyone suffering from mental issues to consider that nutritional issues are also involved in their distress.

The Third Director: Interrogating the Mental Health Discourse in Marat/Sade

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Written at a time when advocates for mental health reform were pushing for deinstitutionalization, the play forces the audience to confront the ways that society constructs the definition of insanity and its treatment, and the systems of power involved in that construction.

The Torture in Treatment

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In psychiatric hospitals we have set up the same environment as the Stanford Prison Experiment, but without a professor watching who has the authority to shut it down when things go horribly wrong. As a patient, there wasn’t any protection from the inescapable abuse of limitless power.

The Sunrise Center 2017

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An update on the Sunrise Center Project, a survivor-run project aiming to help people come off psychiatric drugs using Re-evaluation Counseling. We don’t think it’s down to just the person trying to get off drugs to deal with their issues and feelings about it. We think the people around them need to deal with their own issues and feelings about the process too.

Emotional Strategies and Skills for Aspiring Mental Health Workers

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In mental health, we have spent an inordinate amount of effort on the intellectual level. Since most people who come to us for help have deeper needs than that, we’re going to fail most of them if we don’t instead operate predominantly at the emotional level.

Why I Don’t Like the Idea that Mental Disorder is a Disease

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What we need to try and understand extreme and unusual states of being are not the specialised methods of natural science. In contrast, it is the ways in which we understand ordinary, everyday behaviour that can help to reveal the nature and meaning of madness.

‘CRAZY’: New Documentary about Forced Psychiatric Treatment

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Lise Zumwalt’s new documentary “CRAZY” follows Eric, a young adult diagnosed with serious mental illness, and his father, who together want to change Eric’s treatment. However, the county does not want to give them a say.

Mainstream Western Psychiatry: Science or Non-science?

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Because it is such an important question, because people's lives depend on this and psychiatry has a record of getting it seriously wrong, we need to be sure we can trust their claim. In practice, is it true that biological psychiatry has the science?

What Role Does Talk Therapy Have in Recovery from Psychosis?

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In my graduate education, we were taught how to deal with a wide variety of human troubles — but one big exception was psychosis! For that, we were told to send our clients to the psychiatrist.

Not Going Quietly

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A few years ago, I was asked to see a man called Chris Rushworth. He was referred to me for anger issues. Chris had a restlessness about him, frequently shifting his legs from side to side. He had been on antipsychotic medication for 25 years.

Beyond Survival

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Recently I came across a remarkable article, "From surviving to thriving: how does that happen." The authors have demonstrated that when people are weighed down by life's adversities, what they need is authentic, validating support, not facile pathologizing checklists, and not tranquilizing or stimulant drugs.

Discussing Nutrient Formulas Without Naming Them: Who Benefits?

Do we not want our public to pay attention to the quality of science behind a treatment? By constantly dancing around the product names of nutrient formulas, we are doing a disservice to those who need accurate information.

Optimizing Mental Wellness Through Nutrient Therapy: A Gastroenterologist’s Perspective

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It was hard to believe, initially, that nutrient therapy could have that profound an impact. My son’s remarkable recovery with “just nutrients” has made me question the entire medical model behind ADHD and other neurobehavioral disorders.

Introducing the ‘Parent Resources’ Page

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I know how difficult it is for the average parent to get educated about alternatives to the “diagnose a mental disorder and provide a chemical fix” paradigm. I hope that this new MIA parent resource section that I’ll be curating will help to educate you and point you in the direction of valuable resources.

Burn Baby Burn (Psychopharmacology Part 3)

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In the 16 years from 1952 to 1968, the world changed in astonishing ways. In the 16 years since I first gave this talk, it has changed almost as much again. When some future historian looks back at this period, will they say it was a time when the field’s significant figures tweeted while psychiatry burned?

Where Do We Go From Here?

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We need to spread the word to a much wider group. We need to connect with that silent skeptical majority, and deliver the message: your skepticism is well-founded; psychiatry is a destructive, disempowering, self-serving, drug-pushing hoax; your instincts are correct.

Leading Psychiatrists Follow Top-Dog Bankers’ Guide to Career Advancement

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A career update for members of the “Psychiatry Hall of Shame,” including the group excoriated in the 2008 Congressional investigations, and another psychiatrist who conducted studies aimed at inducing psychosis—experiments that appeared to run counter to the Nuremberg Code of research ethics.