Art, Poetry, and Humor Galleries
View the artwork, poetry, and humor galleries and submit your work. Or visit the Arts Corner.
Split by Ashley Nightingale
What Does Consent Mean in Practice? A Lived Experience Perspective
Every time I agreed to 'treatment’, I was told that it was necessary to save my life. I was sold a bunch of lies.
Mad in Portugal
Mad in Portugal's readers can find blogs, book reviews, and first-person testimonials from voices less present in mainstream narratives.
The Betrayal of Professionals with Lived Experience
I know that being “out” at work could help challenge stereotypes and reduce stigma but I hide. I have that luxury.
Usage of Depression Pills in Children and Young People Must Stop
Our citizens would be far better off if we removed all the psychotropic drugs from the market, as doctors are unable to handle them.
We Can’t Help People With Trauma If We Can’t Say Trauma
Although the medical care Cary received was excellent, no one mentioned “trauma” or counseled us on how it might manifest emotionally.
The Wound That Speaks
In my case, writing was the beginning of healing. It pulled me out of the abyss and gave me structure, voice, and purpose. It gave me a sense of authorship over a life hijacked by memory.
Rebecca Williams from University of Manchester is seeking participants for research on what potential participants want to know about psychedelic-assisted therapies. If you are interested in taking part, please contact [email protected].
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/
Please join us on Thursday, June 26, at 9am PDT, 12pm EDT, 5pm BST, 7pm CEST for a special webinar on Recovery Oriented Cognitive Therapy for Psychosis: Living Well w/ Psychosis with Dr. Aaron P. Brinen, hosted by Ron Unger.
- May 21, 2025, 12:00 pm: When Conversation Turns to Suicide, May, 2025
Heritability Explains Less About Mental Disorders Than You Think
The focus on diseased brains and genes obscures the significance of social and environmental influences.
Two Decades of PSSD: A Life Stolen by Antidepressants
Our two-year-long collaborative research project suggests that neuroimmune processes and related downstream mechanisms may play a role in PSSD.
Kermit Cole: Dialogical Therapy and Quantum Theory Walk Into a Bar…
On the podcast this week we are joined by Kermit Cole who shares his thoughts on how humor can help in creating a shared experience that is helpful to the healing process. Kermit, in his experiences of being with people in psychotic states, has seen humor as a moment when a connection can be made. In many ways, this project is bringing Kermit back full circle to his work as a film director, early in his professional career.
Criticisms That Establishment Psychiatry Can and Cannot Tolerate
Criticism that uniquely applies to establishment psychiatry but not to medicine in general threatens its existential legitimacy, and is not tolerated.
Chemically Imbalanced: Joanna Moncrieff on the Making and Unmaking of the Serotonin Myth
Joanna Moncrieff joins Robert Whitaker to talk about her latest book, titled Chemically Imbalanced: The Making and Unmaking of the Serotonin Myth. They discuss the serotonin story and the fact that there is no good evidence that a serotonergic deficiency is a primary cause of depression.
The Fight Against Involuntary Commitment: Are Protection & Advocacy Organizations Fulfilling Their Mission?
Protection and Advocacy organizations were designed as ground-breaking tools for fighting involuntary commitment and protecting patients’ rights. Are they fulfilling their promise? And will they survive Trump?
Another perspective on the Randers case: psychiatry is in deep crisis
In 2006, the Danish Health Authority warned against combining antipsychotics with benzodiazepines because it increases mortality by 50-65% . But what do we see in the medical records? Virtually all patients with psychosis receive one or more antipsychotics and also benzodiazepines.
Beyond 180…some reflection
If it is true that mental health is not psychiatry and that mental disorder is part of a distress that has its origin in a complex of factors, which in a somewhat too simplistic way are defined as bio-psycho-social, then I believe that psychiatry cannot omnipotently take charge of it but that it must find a less reductive interpretation than the currently dominant one.
Murder in Daphni
If the dominant psychiatric paradigm does not radically change, which unfortunately has been embraced by Psychologists, Social Workers, Nurses and other professionals involved in the provision of mental health services (without this meaning that I question their humanity), the tragedy of the way we approach and treat/care for people who experience mental suffering will continue and be reproduced, and even worse, as a non-tragedy.
