What Does Social Justice Really Mean for Psychologists?
Without clarity and consensus around what social justice means, psychologists risk perpetuating injustices that undermine their stated mission.
Building a Support Network for Peer Workers in NYC
Peer Workers are actively organizing in New York City. This is significant because the mental health system is failing Peer Workers on so many fronts, and it’s long overdue that we start organizing support for ourselves. Peer work started from a social movement on the streets and has ended up a marginalized and co-opted role in a broken system.
A Healing Journey: Leaving Psychiatry Behind
The world calls what was "wrong" with me "bipolar." I prefer the notion that I went through a birth process to become the healer that I am today. I can't be silent because I know there are people like I was who are trapped and may not realize it yet. When they begin to see the prison bars that surround them, I want to be there for them as others were for me.
Having Empathy Doesn’t Mean That You Also Have Compassion!
There’s a very common, pop-psychology, new-age misconception that conflates being empathic with being caring and compassionate. But some of the most highly empathic people I’ve ever known have been con artists, grifters, unrepentant thieves, cynically manipulative fearmongering politicians, and heartless predators of every kind.
The Decline of Danvers State Hospital
For nearly a century, Danvers was a model asylum in the humanistic treatment of the insane, hosting visitors from all over the world. Patients and their families regarded a stay at Danvers as a positive, healing experience. But after the psychopharmaceutical "revolution," the hospital became a snake pit where the mentally ill went to languish and often die.
A Significant Indigenous Scholarship and Another Antipsychiatry Battle
Why is this scholarship important? Because it will fund, create recognition for, and promote research into violence against Indigenous women. It includes not only what is conventionally seen as violence such as murder, rape, and battery, but also violence perpetrated by institutions, including psychiatry.
Trump Anxiety Disorder Is More Fake News
For many people, the current political situation around the world is intensely frightening and not without cause. Depression and anxiety are on the rise, but we need a social model revolution in order to look at why this is happening. Labels like Trump Anxiety Disorder are merely a way to put people’s concerns in a box and leave them unaddressed.
Uproar over Cochrane Expulsion of Gøtzsche
The decision by the Cochrane Collaboration Governing Board to expel Peter Gøtzsche has erupted into a “crisis” for the Cochrane group, as critics argue it goes against “freedom of speech” and the open-mindedness so critical to science.
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Lancet Psychiatry Needs to Retract the ADHD-Enigma Study
Lancet Psychiatry, a UK-based medical journal, recently published a study that concluded brain scans showed that individuals diagnosed with ADHD had smaller brains. That conclusion is belied by the study data. The journal needs to retract this study.
UPDATE: Lancet Psychiatry (online) has published letters critical of the study, and the authors' response, and a correction.
The Concerned Parents’ Project: 31 Questions
The Concerned Parents’ Project grew out of the idea that there may be parents out there who are confused and bewildered by the mixed messages on what it is to have normal and healthy childhood experiences. We posted a new question and answer for parents each day in March.
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Why aren't veterans open with psychiatrists?
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From nightmares to Ecstasy: Can MDMA help with PTSD?
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Use transgender teens' chosen names to reduce suicide risk?
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Treat teen depression without side effects or stigma?
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Ketamine as a chemical restraint?
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Blame school shootings on mental illness?
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Stigma and psychosis: when medical labels injure
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