Guidelines Recommending Antidepressants “in Contradiction with the Current Evidence”
Researchers critique the German S3 guidelines for depression promoting antidepressants.
Informed Consent, or Lack Thereof in My Psychiatric Experience
After telling my psychotherapist about my medication-fueled suicidal ideation, he said, “You have two options. We can do this either voluntarily or involuntarily.” Aghast and shaken, but assuming everyone in the medical system had my best interests at heart, I reluctantly agreed to go to the hospital without any protest.
William James’s Letter to His Depressed Daughter
If you discover that your child has been experiencing a bout with depression, what wise words might you share? Brilliant psychologist William James was forced to address this issue himself when his 13-year-old daughter, Peg, began to struggle with melancholy. I present his long, thoughtful reply for your consideration.
Disciplines of Dissent: On Antipsychiatry Within the Academy
Disciplines of dissent, antipsychiatry being among them, tirelessly fight to be heard within dominant dialogues that prefer critique remain silenced. As the first recipient of the Dr. Bonnie Burstow Scholarship in Antipsychiatry, I will continue the hard work started by those before me to push towards the legitimization of this discipline.
Pies’ Polemic and the Question of Theories in Psychiatry, Again
If the "Chemical Imbalance Theory of Mental Disorder" is a mirage, if not a frank deception, then what theory are psychiatrists using to justify prescribing their drugs? What is the current accepted theory or model of mental disorder by which psychiatry justifies not just its extensive and unequalled powers, but its very existence?
A ‘Blueprint’ for Genetic Determinism
Robert Plomin's Blueprint: How DNA Makes Us Who We Are was seen as a "declaration of victory of nature over nurture." Plomin has a 40-year track record of unfulfilled gene discovery claims and predictions, and there is every reason to believe that his new polygenic score claims and predictions are merely a continuation of this trend.
How Healthcare Foundations Destroy Grassroots Advocates
We advocates are often told we're the key to progress in mental healthcare. Yet foundations continue to minimize our role and to damage us and our organizations every day. Here is how they do it, and what they need to do if we are ever to make real progress.
MIA Continuing Education: Creating System Change
How can the mental health system be radically remade? MIA Continuing Education will explore this pressing question in a ten-seminar course: System Changes for a Green Mental Health Movement. The first seminar is on September 17.
MIA'S NEW RESOURCE FOR MILITARY VETERANS
Mad in America has launched a new resource for military veterans, which will provide news, personal stories, and resources specific to veterans.
Call for papers
Manuscripts are being accepted through October 31, 2019 for a Special Collection for Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology on discontinuing and tapering psychotropic medications.
Research Surveys
Ongoing studies seeking participants for surveys on mental health issues.
ARTWORK AND POETRY
Antidepressants Increase Risk of Death in ICU
An analysis of electronic records from admissions to four ICU's in 2001-2008 showed that the 1,876 patients who were on an SSRI or SNRI...
A Time For Rain: Teaching Our Children About Sadness
The only way out of the epidemic of feeling-people-turned-medicated-psychiatric-patients is to rebrand and reframe feeling as a cultural collective. And I believe it starts with our messaging as parents and our orientation toward shadow elements like anger and sadness. We have to model a conscious relationship to our own dark parts, and we have to show our children what it looks like to move through these spaces. Feelings can be messy, wild, and sometimes ugly to our constrained sensibilities.



















































