Tortured by the Mental Health System Due to Misdiagnosis of Schizophrenia

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The police think my non-existent "schizophrenia" makes me a danger to the community. If I don't show up for my injections I'm subject to police arrest and kidnapping from my home.
Photo of diverse hands in center of huddle

Mad Camp Europe: My Journey from Ward Violence to Healing and Community

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If we want to advocate for a better mental health system, we have to integrate our own shame. And that is what happened to me at Mad Camp.
A jenga tower of bricks begins to collapse

From Public Service to Private Practice: The Collapse of the Social Work Profession

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Can we resist turning to private practices masked in social justice rhetoric as a substitute for genuine movement building and advocacy?
An engraving depicting water being shot at two prisoners; hydrotherapy

Everything About Us Without Us

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Between 1883-1955, there was little attention given to the value and contributions of those who were “patients” at the Oregon State Insane Asylum.
A hospital bed with restraints. The background is a pride flag with all colors.

Sexual Sanism: Why Anti-Queer Rhetoric Is a Threat to the Mad, Too

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Our response to this moment should be understanding our shared queer/Mad history and solidarity across lines of oppression.

Dear Psychiatrist: I Almost Died Under Your Care

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Dear Psychiatrist: What were you thinking when you prescribed me nearly 800 pills of Xanax in under seven months?

Art, Poetry, and Humor Galleries

View the artwork, poetry, and humor galleries and submit your work. Or visit the Arts Corner.

Liberation of Psyche by Marlena Kolesinska

Dr. Morgan Shields of Washington University in St. Louis is conducting research on the experience of people utilizing behavioral health crisis services. They are recruiting people who have direct lived experience as patients/recipients or providers/clinicians and those with indirect experience as loved ones. If interested, take the 5-minute screening survey here.
 

Survivors And Families Empowered (SAFE) has developed a pilot project to work with caring families who have been stymied in their search for support and help. You can fill out their survey here.

Do Critics of Biological Psychiatry Have an Alternative to a Life of “Whack-A-Mole”?

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Psychiatry has simultaneously offered multiple biological theories of depression and its other disorders, but the theories that stick are those that are effective marketing devices for money-making drugs.

Exploding Myths About Schizophrenia: An Interview with Courtenay Harding

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The Vermont Longitudinal Study, led by Courtenay Harding, belied conventional beliefs about schizophrenia by showing remarkably good outcomes for patients discharged in the 1950s and '60s.

“Dad, Something’s Not Right. I Need Help”: Richard Fee on the Dangers of Adderall

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In appointments that last five to seven minutes, all doctors do is push drugs—psychiatric drugs, ADHD meds, everything.

Psychotherapy and Social Change: Mick Cooper on Counseling, Pluralism, and Progressive Politics

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Javier Rizo interviews Mick Cooper on the intersection of psychotherapy and social transformation, the pluralistic approach to counseling, and the role of psychology in building a more just society.

“All Real Living Is Meeting”: Brent Robbins on Love, Death, and the Possibilities of...

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Psychologist and existential thinker Brent Robbins reflects on a lifetime of work, the limits of psychiatric diagnosis, and what facing mortality has taught him about joy and human connection.

Kids Are Not the Problem: An Interview With Gretchen LeFever Watson

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In this interview, Brooke Siem, who is the author of a memoir on antidepressant withdrawal, May Cause Side Effects, interviews Gretchen LeFever Watson, PhD. Gretchen...

EDITOR'S PICK

Suicide among Pakistani Women: Reasons and Protective Factors

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Factors like abuse by in-laws, diminished patience, children’s well-being, and religious beliefs influence Pakistani’s women’s suicidal thoughts and attempts.

A lone monkey is a dead monkey – about stigmatization?

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We all know that humans are social creatures; as mammals we live in packs, we are not solitary, but our belonging to the group is an essential part of how our species has survived historically. What's more, our brains have changed little since we lived as hunter-gatherers on the savannah, meaning that our desire to belong to the group is still an important psychological mechanism in all of us

“Power insight… – Act insight…”

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It was not only me who had something wrong, it has never been only me. My book here is my testimony to that. I have also received help that helped, and continues to help me, – that help is a contributing factor to why I am where I am in my life today, and a large part of the reason why I can even process, and all the damage that has been done.

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