Yearly Archives: 2013

What would happen if professionals opened their minds about the nature of madness?  What new possibilities might be created if they questioned labels such...

As I continued to work in the human services field, I often found myself confronted with my past. I would hear colleagues talk about “borderlines” or describe clients as “low-functioning,” “manipulative”, or “emotionally fifteen”, and I would wonder how people were supposed to start feeling better about themselves when this was how they were seen by those who were there to help them. It seemed that our mental health system had become so focused on symptoms and finding out what was wrong with people, that we had forgotten to look for what was right, how to bring out a person’s strengths.

Cassie is a social worker (MSW, LICSW) and active member of the Boston peer/recovery advocacy community.  She works with older adults in the community,...

Large numbers of studies are being conducted with many claiming internet use causes structural changes in the brain similar to those found in the brains of drug addicts. No snorting, smoking or injecting required. You just have to look at this drug for long enough and your brain is damaged. Is it possible your laptop and mobile phone are the crack cocaine of gadgets?

For years, people in Germany who act like they are radical antipsychiatry activists have said that in this country psychiatric violent (forced) treatment has been forbidden. Unfortunately, this is not true.

Sociologist Harold Garfinkel, in his landmark article "Conditions For a Successful Degradation Ceremony" wrote that "Degradation ceremonies are those concerned with the alteration of total...

Psychiatric Times is offering an online continuing medical education (CME) course designed to "present information on why a patient might decide to discontinue psychotropics...

While increasing numbers of Americans are being prescribed antidepressants, the Centers for Disease Control reports that suicide rates increased 28% from 1999 to 2010. Trained professionals remain unable to predict who is at risk. Their guess is as good as chance.

Psychiatric Times explores "the general possibility of psychiatry being defined by the political environment in which it operates… " Article →

In 1988, the introduction of Prozac was hailed as a breakthrough in the treatment of depression. A quarter of a century later, the prospect of a similar breakthrough in psychiatric medications seems remote. On August 19, 2013, the New York Times ran an article called, “A Dry Pipeline for Psychiatric Drugs".

This is a summary compiled by people in the mental health civil rights movement. Some of us call ourselves psychiatric survivors; those who have survived psychiatric treatment, not the “illness.” Many of us have found scientific evidence and our own personal experiences showing that emotional distress is not an illness. We have found recovery using a variety of approaches and methods, but here are several concepts of hope and empowerment repeated in many of our personal stories.

Finding that Shire's study of its successor to Adderall XR, Vyvanse, (lisdexamfetamine; known in Germany as Elvanse) was too short and did not look at the drug...

Professor Peter C. Gøtzsche, Director of the Nordic Cochrane Centre, graduated as a master of science in biology and chemistry in 1974 and as a physician...

Jenna Fogle discusses her experience struggling with depression as a teenager, and the consequent harm done by psychiatric drug treatment.

Gary Greenberg write in the New Yorker that "the psychiatric-drug industry is in trouble… In the past few years, one pharmaceutical giant after another—GlaxoSmithKline,...

Renown author Gabor Maté hosts a free online conference September 28-October2, addressing "the big 5 addictions: Drugs, Alcohol, Food, Sex, and Money. As well...

Addiction Today reports "Attention on illicit drugs has deflected focus from the gigantic scale of harms by legal, prescribed drugs. We give you the...

Scientific American reports on a March 25 article in  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that finds that even superficial contact with people...

The New Yorker's Adam Gopnik explores the controversial value of brain science. Article →

A study comparing the effects on cognition of major depression (MDD) vs. SSRIs finds that healthy subjects learn significantly better from positive feedback than...

Researchers find that parents who are focused on their child's academic achievement are twice as likely to start the child on ADHD medications as...

In research that may have implications for depression in humans, researchers at Ohio State find that hamsters exposed to blue and white light rather...

For years, drug companies have sought to boost sales by hyping the benefits of new drugs while downplaying their risks. A couple of years ago the European Medicines Agency (equivalent of the FDA) set up a program to grant public access to all clinical trial results used in the approval of new drugs. The program was hailed by activists and researchers around the world as a big step forward for patient safety. Now AbbVie, along with another U.S. drug firm called Intermune, has filed a lawsuit to stop the release of clinical trials on their drugs, effectively shutting the whole program down.

Johanna Ryan is a workers’ comp paralegal and a union and healthcare activist in Chicago. She may or may not have a biological brain disease,...

Norman Doidge is a curious psychiatrist. He wanted to know how neuroplasticity could serve his practice and he sets out in his book, The Brain That Changes Itself, to interview and understand the work of leading neuroscientists who are using the natural neuroplasticity of the brain to heal everything from long-time post-injury paralysis to successfully managing OCD and anxiety.