Alison Bass

A former medical and science writer for The Boston Globe, Alison Bass writes  about conflicts of interest in medicine and flaws in the way drugs are tested and marketed. She is a Pulitzer Prize nominee and author of Side Effects: A Prosecutor, a Whistleblower and a Bestselling Antidepressant on Trial.

Douglas Bloch

Beyond Prozac: A Holistic Approach to Treating Mood Disorders An author, teacher, and mental health coach, Douglas Bloch writes on using holistic tools and coping strategies to manage the symptoms of depression, anxiety and bipolar disorder so that people with these disorders can lead full and purposeful lives.

Melissa Bond

Killer Brain Candy: A doctor prescribes consistent use of Ativan for insomnia that was caused by pregnancy. After two years of high-dose use, her body begins to fall apart. No help from her doctor, only more prescriptions and the knowledge that this drug is slowly disassembling her brain and body.

Ken Braiterman

Getting Well, Staying Well, Making Systems Well: A long-time journalist and advocate of recovery-oriented services, Ken Braiterman writes about overcoming adversity, and adverse systems of care.

Kelly Brogan, MD ABIHM

Third Path Psychiatry: Dr. Brogan's interest is in holistic living, environmental medicine, and nutrition. She has published in the field of Psycho-Oncology, Women’s Health, and Infectious Disease. She is Board Certified in Psychiatry, Psychosomatic Medicine, and Integrative and Holistic Medicine.

Jack Carney, DSW

Up the River:  A social worker, Jack Carney writes on the contradictions and hypocrisies of the public mental health system and promotes and applauds acts of resistance to it. In the words of the immortal Joe Hill, just before he was executed by a Utah firing squad, he likes to advise:  “Don’t mourn, organize!"

Monica Cassani

Creator of the blog Beyond Meds, Monica Cassani has seen the system from both sides - as a social worker and as a person whose life was severely ruptured by psychiatric drugs. She writes critically about the system, as well as about holistic pathways of healing without medication.

Ted Chabasinski

Still Crazy After All These Years: Ted Chabasinski writes about trends and events in the current mental illness system,  from the point of view of someone who has been abused by it.  He also focuses his writing on how to create a system that really helps people.

Matthew Cohen

Building Community: Mad In America's web developer and community manager offers updates on the growth and direction of this website.

Oryx Cohen

Healing Voices: Oryx is a leader in the international consumer/survivor/ex-patient movement.  Currently he is the Director of the National Empowerment Center’s Technical Assistance Center. Oryx is co-founder, with Will Hall, of The Freedom Center, an empowerment and advocacy group.

Lisbeth Riis Cooper

Bringing Hope Home: Mother Bears Lisbeth Riis Cooper and Jennifer Maurer share how the Mother Bear Community Action Network is uniting families to create mental health care that emphasizes hope, family, community, and the many pathways to real recovery including medication optimization.

Mary Ellen Copeland, Ph.D.

Change Now: The founder of the Copeland Center for Wellness and Recovery shares her vision of a world where people are supported in using simple, safe, noninvasive self-help tools to get through difficult times and move on with their lives.

Michael Cornwall, Ph.D.

An Alternative Understanding of The Nature of Madness: I want this blog and the discussion it generates to help deepen our understanding of the mystery of madness and to help us learn ways to lovingly do self care when we are mad, and how to lovingly respond to others when they are mad.

Carolyn Crowder, Ph.D.

Discipline, Not Drugs:  A psychologist whose primary interest is Adlerian parent education, Carolyn Crowder writes about parenting methods and attitudes that facilitate better relationships with children and practical advice for common problems.

Vivek Datta, M.D., M.P.H.

The Psychopathology of American Life: A British physician explores how the concept of mental disorder has vastly expanded over the past century, reporting from the front line of American Psychiatry.

Sera Davidow

Tangible Intangibilities: Sera writes here to share her thoughts on how the language we choose and our apparent need to concretize the inherently complex is leading to violations of rights and humanity on a daily basis.

Laura Delano

Journeying Back To Self: A 2006 graduate of Harvard University, Laura Delano was first put on psychiatric medications at age 14. In this blog, she tells of her 13 years of living with a psychiatric diagnosis, and of her recent experience tapering off psychiatric medications.

Tim Desmond, LMFT

One Mind: Therapist and Buddhist scholar, Tim Desmond explores how we think about the nature of madness and wellness, from the medical model to a humanistic view of suffering and empathy.

Sean Donovan

Recounting Chimera: Sean writes about issues of civil rights, human rights, personal experiences and the madness created when founding myths of liberty, justice and freedom in the United States clash with the realities of his own life, and those of many others; telling a very different story.

Jonathan Dosick

Toward Peer-Friendly Public Policy: A peer activist, Jonathan Dosick writes about obstacles his community faces due to continuing refusal by governments, industry and the public to consider proven alternatives to the “status quo” of mental health services.

Deron Drumm

Deron Drumm is Co-Executive Director of Advocacy Unlimited.  He self-identifies as having experienced extreme, altered and addictive states.  He writes and speaks about where his emotional distress and addiction brought him and how he has reshaped his life through deliberate living.

Sascha Altman DuBrul

Navigating the Space Between Brilliance and Madness: An activist writes of The Icarus Project, which is a network of radical support groups, an arts and media project, and a platform for re-visioning the language and culture around ideas of mental health and illness.

Dorothy Dundas

Finding Resilience: Institutionalized in the 1960's, Dorothy was labeled "schizophrenic" and underwent 40 insulin coma/electroshock 'treatments.' "I experienced and witnessed many atrocities.  Luck, determination, anger and a compassionate advocate were my friends on the road to survival and freedom."

Carl Elliott, M.D., Ph.D.

Enemy of the People: Carl Elliott writes on the medical-industrial complex. He is a professor at the Center for Bioethics at the University of Minnesota, Carl Elliott writes on the medical-industrial complex. He is the author of Better Than Well and and White Coat, Black Hat.  

Bob Faw

Positively Healing: Transforming Vicious Cycles into Vital Cycles. Bob Faw writes about the Vital Cycles program, which seeks to empower those who seek joy in living, and provide them with tools for emotional healing and thriving in life.

Daniel Fisher, M.D., Ph.D.

Recovery Through Voice and Dialogue: Co-founder of the National Empowerment Center, Daniel Fisher, a psychiatrist, writes on alternatives to the medical/institutional model of distress and healing. In particular, he tells of the Empowerment Paradigm of Development and Recovery.    

Mark Foster, D.O.

Letters from the Front Lines: A family physician, after having read Anatomy of an Epidemic, writes of his struggles to prescribe psychiatric medications in a thoughtful way . . . and help some patients wean from the medications.

Mary Fry, N.D.

Dr. Fry discusses her vision of an effective and collaborative integrated mental health care system that includes naturopathic medicine. She also discusses her perspectives on healing and the interconnectedness of the mind and body.

Howard Glasser

Awakening Children to Their Greatness: Creator of the Nurtured Heart Approach and the Inner Wealth Initiative, Howard Glasser writes of ways to help children flourish in school and in all aspects of their lives, without the use of psychotropic medications.

Elliot Goldberg, LCSW

Get Off Prescription Drugs: Psychotherapist Elliot Goldberg writes about his experiences running an outpatient rehab program that helps people get off prescription drugs, and of discoveries of "what lies below" the drugs.

Jim Gottstein

Law, Alternatives and Change:   A Harvard educated lawyer and long time activist for change in the mental health system writes about law as it relates to psychiatric rights and fostering truly helpful, non-coercive  alternatives to the current system.

Chaya Grossberg

All of Us or None of Us: Chaya questions the idea that some of us are "mentally ill" and others of us are not.  She shares lessons learned through coaching people coming off psychiatric drugs and/or looking for alternatives to taking them.

Will Hall

Living With Mental Diversity:  A Process Work therapist, teacher, schizophrenia survivor and host of Madness Radio writes about discovering new ways to understand mental illness as a meaningful and purposeful part of what it is to be human.

Leah Harris

Speaking Truth to Power: Leah writes about holistic, community-based approaches to support those experiencing emotional distress and extreme states; storytelling as a vehicle for personal liberation, human rights, and social justice; and connections between creativity, activism, spirituality, and social change.

Daniel Hazen

A Call To Action: Daniel writes about human rights as a framework to mobilize and organize for liberation and self-determination. He presents strategies for resisting the psychiatric industrial complex and pharmaceutical industry dominance, as well as building and organizing for freedom, justice, and equality.

Yana Jacobs

Transformation Through Peer Respite: Yana writes about lessons learned from peer respite programs, while transformation is happening, peer to peer.

Jonathan Leo, Ph.D. / Jeffrey Lacasse, Ph.D.

Rethinking the Broken Brain: Two researchers, writing jointly, take a critical look at the evidence for the biological basis of mental disorders.

Lucinda Jewell

Mental Health NOW: the Opportunity for Wellness: What would be possible if Mental Health Conditions were viewed as gifts that require effective management and responsible use? How would healthcare protocols and delivery be impacted? These, and related questions, will be the inspiration for this blog.

Jay Joseph

The Gene Illusion: Genetic theories and research in psychiatry, psychology, and other behavioral sciences from a critical perspective. I will provide a counterweight to the claims in the media and scientific literature that important genetic factors underlie psychiatric disorders and behavioral traits.

Alice Keys, M.D.

Necessary Phoenix:  Can one physician help heal the practice of medicine? After  two and a half decades of work as a psychiatrist in private practice, community clinics and inpatient units, Dr. Keys shares her personal perspectives on the devolution of medical care and the needed  resurrection.

Susan Kingsley-Smith

A New Paradigm: Susan Kingsley-Smith considers the idea of creating a mind shift in mental health  for both users and providers of mental health services through a trauma informed approach and shifting our mindset from “sick for life” to “creating our best life”.

Vanessa Krasinski

Media, Popular Culture and the Market for Mental Illness: Vanessa Krasinski, an activist and MSN NP candidate, explores depictions of psychiatry and psychiatric diagnoses in the popular culture and media, and examines cultural messages about mental health vs. illness within a critical framework.

Jeffrey Lacasse, Ph.D.

Thinking Critically About Mental Health: A mental health researcher with an interest in the philosophy and sociology of science, Jeffrey Lacasse writes about psychiatric medications, conflicts-of-interest, and evidence-based mental health practice.

Mo Yee Lee

Utilizing strength and empowerment: Promoting dialogue and knowledge that for a strengths-based, systemic approach to diverse mental health conditions, this blog's focus is on empowering clients and families to help themselves without fostering prolonged dependence on professionals or medications.

Lyn Legere

Experiential Wisdom: Lyn writes about the power of lived experience to change hearts and minds, and the ups and downs of trying to bring this vital voice into the medically-modeled, credential-laden industrial complex known as the mental health system.

Jonathan Leo, Ph.D.

Rethinking Biological Psychiatry: A professor of neuroanatomy, Jonathan Leo writes on the problems with the evidence base used to support the often promoted chemical theories of mental illness, the genetic theory of schizophrenia, and the idea that children with ADHD have smaller brains.

Bruce Levine, Ph.D.

Commonsense Rebellion: In addition to writing on the pseudoscience and corruption of the "psycho-pharmaceutical industrial complex," Bruce Levine discusses how culture, politics and psychology intersect, and how to rehumanize the mental health profession and society.

Richard D. Lewis

Addiction, Biological Psychiatry and the Disease Model: Richard D. Lewis, M.Ed. has worked with addictions for the past 19 years in  New Bedford, MA. Richard discusses the relationship of addictions to severe psychological distress often labeled as a “disease” and/or a so-called “mental illness.”

Jill Littrell, Ph.D.

Life Style Can Change the Brain: A Clinical psychologist, Jill Littrell writes about research studies of psychiatric medications, and interventions to bolster natural resilience through talk therapy, proper diet, exercise, and support from your friends.  

Daniel Mackler

Dispatches From the Road: A filmmaker and former psychotherapist tells about making his three documentaries about recovery from "madness," and about meeting with peer groups and directors of innovative programs throughout North America and Europe.

Jennifer Maurer

Finding Our Way Home: As program director for the Mother Bear Family Mental Health Network, Jennifer helps guide the development of family-led mental health education and support programs that help families transform suffering and find healing in community.

Jacks McNamara

Making Meaning out of Madness: A psych survivor & activist, Jacks uses poetry and prose to examine the intersections between trauma, spirituality, identity & place as they inform the experience of being “crazy” in a crazy world. Jacks' perspective is grounded in struggles for social justice and collective liberation.

MindFreedom

MindFreedom International leads a nonviolent revolution of freedom, equality, truth and human rights that unites people affected by the mental health system with movements for justice everywhere.

Tina Minkowitz

Mad Law and Human Rights: An attorney and psychiatric survivor, Tina Minkowitz writes on the new perspectives in human rights law that emerged in the work by users and survivors of psychiatry on the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.  

Keris Jän Myrick

Pushing the Mad Envelope: As CEO of a Peer Run organization, mental health consumer, advocate and visionary change agent, Keris writes about pressing issues facing mental health treatment such as choice, peer support, wellness and recovery, culture and language and leadership development

Robert Nikkel, MSW

Policy for Recovery: As a former state mental health and addictions commissioner, Bob Nikkel writes about policy and practice changes that are needed to promote recovery and reslience while decreasing the over-reliance on psychiatric medications in community and hospital treatment settings.

Gina Nikkel, Ph.D.

Expect Recovery:  The executive director of the Foundation for Excellence in Mental Health Care tells of how the foundation is partnering with private philanthropy to discuss the implications in Anatomy of an Epidemic and create a new mainstream for mental health.

Sharna Olfman

Childhood In America: Sharna Olfman, author, academic and psychologist, critiques America's failure to support children's psychological development through its public policies, parenting practices, educational and mental health systems. Her books include Childhood Lost and Drugging Our Children.

Jen Padron, M.ED, ACPS, CHW

The Hope Project: Jen Padron, a leader in  Peer Support initiatives, writes on resiliency, hope, and peer support programs in Texas and the country. She also writes on cultural and political issues in mental health, and whole-health and wellness solutions.

Ed Pigott, Ph.D.

The STAR*D Scandal: A psychologist who has spent five years “deconstructing” the NIMH’s large study of antidepressants tells of his findings, discusses his published articles, and posts the documents that reveal the bad--and dishonest science--at the heart of this trial.

Brent Potter

Free Associations: A psychotherapist and advocate of recovery-oriented services for 20 years, Brent Potter writes from psychoanalytic and phenomenological perspectives about psychological distress as contextually situated and always meaningful.  

Jonathan Raskin

Deconstructing, Reconstructing Abnormality: Dr. Raskin is professor of psychology and counseling at SUNY New Paltz, focusing on social constructions of abnormality in psychology and psychotherapy, and co-chair of the Society for Humanistic Psychology's Diagnostic Summit Committee, overseeing the Global Summit on Diagnostic Alternatives.

Second Story Respite

Learning Through Relationships: Staffed by people who have learned from their lived experience of mood swings, fear, voices, visions, etc., Second Story is an opportunity to experience change and to learn new responses through relationships with the assumption that we all inherently know what we need.

Faith Rhyne

David Ross, M.Ed., LPCC

Getting From Here to There: David Ross writes about the efforts in Ashland, County Ohio to move its mental health and drug/alcohol system towards a recovery-oriented system of care, one that puts into practice the core principles of recovery, medication optimization and trauma-informed care.

Matt Samet

The Other Side: As an “old-timer” long clear of benzos and other psychotropic medicines, Matt Samet writes about navigating the toughest years, finding his way to wellness again, and how rich and meaningful life can be on “the other side.”

Stuart Shipko, M.D.

Dr. Shipko is a psychiatrist in private practice in Pasadena, CA and author of Surviving Panic Disorder and Xanax Withdrawal.

Aubrey Ellen Shomo

Fixing A Broken World: A psychiatric survivor activist contemplates the mental health system, stigma, science, law and culture, politics, and the practical realities of fighting what some have called one of the "Last Great Civil Rights Battles."

Lauren Spiro

Mental Health Liberation: Lauren shares her unfolding journey towards liberation which includes spreading Emotional CPR, building the National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery, giving birth (soon) to her memoir, and other adventures in service of reclaiming our shared humanity.

Sandra Steingard, M.D.

Anatomy of a Psychiatrist: Dr. Steingard chronicles how she is integrating information from Anatomy of an Epidemic into her community mental health practice. She also discusses changes in Vermont's mental health system and the influence of pharmaceutical advertising on clinical practice.

Elizabeth Stuyt, M.D.

Thinking Holistically: A psychiatrist and medical director of an innovative, 90-day inpatient treatment program in Colorado for people with chemical dependence and mental illness writes on the components that empower people to recover in mind, body and spirit.

Ron Unger, LCSW

Dialogues with Madness:  A therapist and educator specializing in cognitive therapy for psychosis, Ron Unger explores emerging understandings of psychosis and of efforts to change mental health treatment to support human rights and full recovery.

Laura Van Tosh

Life After Medication: Laura writes about her experience withdrawing from psychiatric medications and her experience in the mental health system as a former patient turned policy advisor.

Gretchen LeFever Watson

Live and Learn: As a clinical psychologist who has worked in academic and healthcare settings for over 20 years, Dr. Gretchen LeFever Watson is passionate about improving the health, safety, and education of individuals and places where they work, live, and learn.  

Ethan Watters

Crazy Like Us: The cultural shaping of mental health symptoms is often ignored by psychiatry. Watters reveals a remarkable diversity in the expression and outcome of major mental illnesses. Clients and practitioners can learned a great deal by viewing mental health across history and across cultures.

Marilyn Wedge

Thinking Outside the Kid: Marilyn Wedge is a family therapist and author of Pills Are Not For Preschoolers: A Drug Free Approach for Troubled Kids. Creator of Strategic Child-Focused Family Therapy, she believes that making targeted changes in the family system is more effective than psychiatric medication.

Corinna West

Wellness Wordworks: Corinna West  writes about the business she founded, which coordinates people with emotional distress who provide instant peer support for each other in exchange for helping anyone who is interested in expanding their online presence.

Robert Whitaker

In the News:  A journalist’s review of reports in medical journals and the media on psychiatric disorders and treatments.

Paul Andrews

Paul W. Andrews is an assistant professor in the Department of Psychology, Neuroscience & Behaviour at McMaster University in Canada. His work on the evolution of depression with J. Anderson Thomson, Jr. has been featured in the New York Times Sunday Magazine and Scientific American Mind.

Paul Baker

Paul is a founding member of the Hearing Voices Network and INTERVOICE. He has developed community mental health projects, self-advocacy services, supported housing, social firms, enterprises in which people have direct input into the planning, development and running of their services.

Maria Bradshaw

DelusionNZ: Maria Bradshaw, who lives in Auckland, New Zealand, writes of social models of suicide prevention, pharmacovigilance, and alternatives to psychiatric interventions for emotional distress.

Janet Currie

Janet Currie is co-founder of the Psychiatric Awareness Medication Group, which provides information on the potential harms and effectiveness of psychiatric drugs, and advice on drug tapering. She also co-edits a blog on the safety and effectiveness of all prescription drugs for Pharmawatch Canada.

Jacqui Dillon

The Hearing Voices Movement: Jacqui Dillon writes about the rapidly expanding, worldwide Hearing Voices movement which contests the traditional psychiatric relationship of dominant-expert clinician and passive-recipient patient and views voice-hearing as a significant human experience.

Eugene Epstein

Steps to a Post-Therapeutic Future: With a strong interest in how popular culture and psychiatry/psychotherapy reflexively influence one another, Eugene writes critically about aspects of the therapeutic era or therapeutic state in which we, (that is, those of us living in parts of the western first world), find ourselves.

Carina Håkansson

Ordinary Life Therapy: A psychotherapist and manager at Family Care Foundation in Gothenburg, Sweden, Carina Håkansson writes about that program--its philosophy, successes, and challenges--and about psychiatry and societal treatment of children in foster care.

David Healy, M.D.

David is a founder of RxISK.org, whose mission is to capture the data that is missing from anyone taking treatments in order to help make medicine safer for all of us.

Lucy Johnstone

Beyond Psychiatric Diagnosis: Lucy will write about ongoing work to replace psychiatric diagnosis with a formulation-based approach whichexplores personal meaning within relational and social contexts. She will also reflect on the challenges of working within biomedically-based services.

Jon Jureidini, M.D.

Healthy Skepticism: Jon Jureidini, a child psychiatrist in Australia, writes on the quality use of medicines, misleading drug promotion, suicide, medical education and child abuse.

Bonnie Kaplan

Nutrition and Mental Health: Bonnie has published on the biological basis of mental health – in particular, the contribution of nutrition to brain development and function, micronutrient treatments for mental disorders, and the effect of intrauterine nutrition on brain development and maternal mental health.

Tamasin Knight, MBChB, MPH

Power & Alternatives: Tamasin is a public health doctor in England. She writes about power issues in the mental health system and alternatives to the medical model.

Peter Lehmann

Stop the professional monologue: Peter Lehmann, Honorary Doctor for "scientific and humanitarian contribution to the rights of the people with psychiatric experience," writes about coming off psychiatric drugs, suicidal effects of neuroleptics, and other approaches of humanistic antipsychiatry.

Nadia Mahjoub

Mad in Belgium: Nadia is convinced there are better ways to help people in crisis than what is provided generally in psychiatric care in her country today. In this blog, she will write about (her search for) alternatives, the local user and survivor movement and news about mental health in Belgium.

Rufus May

Rufus May is a psychologist in Bradford, England. He believes everybody can flourish with the right support network. His work is part of an emancipatory movement that includes the hearing voices movement, community development approaches and other self-help and holistic health movements.

Hugh Middleton, M.D.

Medical Essentials from England:  A Fellow of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, a Member of the Royal College of Physicians and a medical practitioner of nearly 40 years, Hugh Middleton writes on the folly and shortcomings of using "illness" as a euphemism and metaphor for "madness".

Chrys Muirhead

Chrys Muirhead lives in Scotland and is a writer, activist and campaigner in mental health matters.  Chrys has always believed in people power and community development practice.  In 2008 she set up Chrys Muirhead Associates and Peer Support Fife to help bring about psychiatric system change.

Julia Rucklidge

Nutrition and Mental Health: Julia's interest in nutrition and mental illness grew out of her own research showing poor outcomes for children with psychiatric illness despite conventional treatments. She has been investigating the role of micronutrients in mental illness.

Berlin Runaway House

The Berlin Runaway House is an antipsychiatric crisis centre for homeless ex-users of psychiatry. Residents have the opportunity to live through their crisis without psychiatric treatment and to withdraw gradually from psychiatric drugs with support and intensive counselling.

Olga Runciman

Denmark: Voices From the Inside Out. Olga Runciman has worked as a psychiatric nurse and been a patient of the self-same system. She was told that she was an incurable case. She writes on the ethics of psychiatric practices and alternative ways to heal.

Philip Thomas, M.D.

English Madness: The founder and co-chair of the Critical Psychiatry Network, psychiatrist Philip Thomas writes of madness, meaning and culture.

Sami Timimi, M.D.

No More Psychiatric Labels:  A child and adolescent psychiatrist, Sami Timimi writes about the Critical Psychiatry movement, an international network of doctors (primarily psychiatrists) who critique current mainstream practice in mental health and are hoping to reform it.

Rachel Waddingham

David Webb

Thinking About Suicide: David Webb argues that suicide prevention needs a broad community conversation that challenges the status quo thinking about suicide. At the heart of this conversation will be the first-person voice of survivors and the recognition that suicide prevention is a human rights issue.

Paris Williams, Ph.D

Rethinking Madness:  With the rare perspective of someone who's experienced extreme states from both sides — as a psychologist/researcher and as someone with lived experience — Paris draws from multiple perspectives to explore what it means to be “mad” in a "mad" society.