Tag: Disability

When It Comes to Mental Health Problems, The Disability Framework Fails

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Treating those struggling with emotional distress and troublesome behaviors as mentally disabled is a barrier to arriving at humane and dignified ways of assisting them.

Mad Activists: The Language We Use Reflects Our Desire for Change

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There is not one movement but many, and the language people use reflects how accepting they are of the psychiatric explanation of their experiences.

Inside an Online Charter School: Labeling Kids “Disabled” for Profit

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I’d thought this teaching job would be my chance to make positive changes in children’s lives. But most of the recommendations in students' IEPs were related not to reading, writing, and ’rithmetic but to behavior control and obedience to adults. And the school seemed to be working very hard to prove that the kids were disabled and to get them certified as such.

Political Neuroscience: “Growth Mindsets” and Disability

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From Neuroskeptic: The British government is launching a new initiative, the "Health and Work Conversation," a one-hour conversation in which welfare claimants receiving financial support...

New Resources from the WHO’s QualityRights Initiative

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The challenge to promote the rights of persons with psychosocial, intellectual and cognitive disabilities and to transform mental health services across the world is colossal. The QualityRights initiative seeks to provide actors everywhere with the tools that they need to become active agents for change.

Can Trump’s Disability Czar Be Trusted?

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From Pacific Standard: Melissa Ortiz, President Trump's appointee for Commissioner of the Administration on Disabilities, is a vocal critic of federal programs for disability. The...

INTAR India 2016: Reflections

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Despite everyone's best intentions, the river of psychopharmacy was making its path through the global south, with no stops anywhere within policy or practice. INTAR India 2016 became very important for the global south against this rising tide and the overmedicalization of people's psychosocial distress and disabilities.

MHE Launches New Video on Article 27 of the UN CRPD

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Mental Health Europe has launched a new animated video explaining Article 27 of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities. Article 27...

Group Homes for People With a Disability Must be Phased Out

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From ABC: More than 100 academics have published an open letter to Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull to hold a royal commission investigating abuses and...

What the Fidget Spinners Fad Says About Disability Discrimination

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From Thinking Person's Guide to Autism: For decades, autistic and developmentally disabled people have been conditioned and coerced into behaving like neurotypical people, including suppressing...

When Disability is Misdiagnosed as Bad Behavior

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From Pacific Standard: People with hidden or invisible disabilities are often subjected to violence and verbal abuse, as well as denied accommodations and asked to...

Radical Disabled Americans Bringing Direct Action to Your Town

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From Pacific Standard: ADAPT, a national direct action disability rights group, recently staged a protest to fight provisions in the GOP's health care plan that will...

How the Positive Only Movement has a Negative Impact

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From Rooted in Rights: The Positive Only movement has a negative impact on the disability community by ignoring the realities of many disabled people, including...

Why I Resigned From The Mighty

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The apprehensions I'd initially had about joining the team returned to my mind. I'd allowed my original cautious disposition to be overtaken by optimism when I had accepted a position of contributing editor with The Mighty, but my hopes were about to be dashed.

Intentional Peer Support: Creating Relationships, Creating Change

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IPS is about creating a power-balanced, relational context in which we can begin to explore and even challenge the stories we have been taught. We can name our experiences, and challenge the meaning that we have constructed around those experiences. This fundamentally alters what we think of as “help,” but also challenges social and political constructs of disability.

When Psychiatric Medications Cause Psychiatric Symptoms

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Dr. Yolande Lucire, a psychiatrist from Australia, recently published a paper about the iatrogenic effects of psychiatric drugs.

“Corbyn Creates New Dedicated ‘Minister for Mental Health’”

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Newly elected UK Labour leader, Jeremy Corbyn, has appointed Luciana Berger to his shadow cabinet as the “Minister for Mental Health,” a new position that has no counterpart in the Conservative government. The Independent reports that Corbyn has devoted considerable attention to mental health issues.

“Fears That Antipsychotic Drugs Being Used as ‘Chemical Cosh’ in Disability...

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An editorial in the Guardian discusses the fact that the number of people with intellectual or learning disabilities “who are being treated with psychotropic drugs far exceeds those with mental illness.” The authors of a new study examining the overuse of psychotropic drugs on people with learning disabilities, published this month in BMJ, argue: “If people without mental illness are given psychotropic drugs… it is probably to control their behavior.”

NARPA Reflections: The Necessity of Disability

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I think it is time to reclaim the word disability. Disability needs to be appreciated. To the extent we value community over isolation, anything anyone cannot do, or needs help with, builds community. There are infinite examples in every career and walk of life of how necessary “disability” (since we're calling it that) is for connection, service and meaning in life. Without it we'd have absolutely no need for each other. And the fastest way to despair is to feel unnecessary.