Yearly Archives: 2013

The Today Show chose to air a segment on ECT, and only interview people who were happy with their experiences — one of whom is a famous author, which gives his testimony more weight. We all know that many people are happy with their ECT experiences. That's why most of us are not asking for a ban on ECT — just for the opportunity for truly informed consent so that people can accurately weigh the potential benefits along with the serious risk of adverse effects.

I have facilitated support groups and worked one-on-one with those who hear voices for nearly 10 years.. The insights I've come to from my own experience have often facilitated understanding for others. Here is what I have learned from my experience of hearing voices.

Researchers from the Brown University School of Medicine, writing in Clinical Psychology Review November special issue on the future of evidence-based psychotherapy, report that psychotherapy...

Sometimes the best way to make real change is just to do the work. Sometimes the talk is the work and it can be hard to separate out the two. However, in a growing number of instances, it’s hard to miss the futility of the talking and how tied up we can get in our own virtual war of words. Stepping away can be liberating. Sometimes, while everyone else is wrapped up in the talking, you can get an awful lot done.

There was a time when I, as a young woman, had not yet been a prostitute, a heroin addict, a homeless bum, and all that. I was, at that time, a literature student, at a famous school, and things were going well. But an eerie stampede of social workers and mental hospital stays were overshadowing it all. The tentacular reach of psychiatric drugs into the deepest recess of my being was performing a nasty assault on me from within the bloodstream. In order for my life not to be wasted, it became imperative that I get away. So I said goodbye, America. Goodbye, everybody that I used to know.

Once a star-student of literature, unexpected twists of fate dragged Polly Trope (not her real name) through hell and back. She came out a...

A study of 106,000 pregnant women with a diagnosis of mood or anxiety disorder, by researchers from Harvard, Duke, Michigan State and the university...

In an article that contains implications for mental illness, GreenMedInfo reflects on the progress of identifying the genetic basis of medical illness. "What has...

While some will frame Eleanor Longden’s story, told in her awesome TED video (which has now been viewed about 1/2 million times!), as the triumph of an individual struggling against “mental illness,” I believe the story might better be seen as a refutation of the whole “illness of the mind” metaphor, and as an indication of a desperate need for a new paradigm.

Researchers from Vanderbilt and Columbia Universities and the FDA find that, through a retrospective cohort study of 28,858 patients of the Tennessee Medicaid program...

Michael Wilusz discusses his experience struggling with emotional distress, the ensuing regimen of psychiatric drug treatment, and his process tapering off of the drugs.

Secret court proceedings against someone certainly justifies the feeling that people are out to get them. Expressing this sentiment is characterized as paranoia. If people felt they had a fair legal process they are likely to be less upset.

Chinese medicine offers one proven path to emotional balance and harmony for many people who struggle with anxiety or depression. Many people who receive treatment from a licensed acupuncturist experience significant benefit, and don’t need to take psychiatric drugs.

Will Fudeman is a licensed acupuncturist, social worker, and Qi Gong instructor. His book Before Pharmaceuticals: Emotional Healing with Chinese Medicine (Bryce Cullen) tells true stories of...

A paper in the Journal of Contemporary Psychotherapy chronicles the history of MiA blogger Gretchen LeFever Watson's effort to improve ADHD treatment in southeastern...

An anti-anti-stigma campaign The whole anti-stigma campaign is something of a joke. Google the word “stigma,” see for yourself. Mental health labels are inherently stigmatizing,...

MIA blogger and mental health advocate Leah Harris discusses growing up with parents diagnosed with schizophrenia, her personal experience with the psychiatric system, and psychiatric drugs.

A study in BMC Psychiatry explores a range of perspectives on the value of neuroimaging studies for disorders of mental health. The study concludes...

The New York Times reflects on various explanations for the skyrocketing use of antidepressants (the economy, pharmaceutical advertising, the effect of insurance), then reports...

In the 1950s, when the drugs we now call ‘antipsychotics’ first came along, psychiatrists recognised that they were toxic substances that happened to have the ability to suppress thoughts and emotions without simply putting people to sleep in the way the old sedatives did. The mental restriction the drugs produced was noted to be part of a general state of physical and mental inhibition that at extremes resembled Parkinson’s disease. Early psychiatrists didn’t doubt that this state of neurological suppression was potentially damaging to the brain.

Since the invention of the printing press, community-controlled publications have enabled the voices of those with little power in society to be heard. Gandhi said that without a journal, a community could not be united. Asylum magazine is a printed magazine, in existence since 1986, which provides a place where alternative voices in mental health can be heard.

We have good reason to despair, to feel anguish, and pain. We have a planet that we are poisoning. We have people populating the planet who like to harm one another. We have families who, in their own pain and trauma, pass on that pain and trauma to their children. We face tragedies of all kinds just by being alive. Being human is DIFFICULT. It’s also the most amazing adventure and it can be very very painful to wake up to just how amazing and outrageous this life we’ve been given is. It’s no small task for any of us.

If I thought that it was possible, I would have opened a string of clinics all over the country to help get people off of antidepressants.  Unfortunately, the problems that sometimes occur when people try to stop an SSRI antidepressant are much more severe and long-lasting than the medical profession acknowledges, and there is no antidote to these problems. The truth is, giving people information about taking antidepressants is like giving information to people who are enroute to a casino; they go because they hear that some people win (at least for a time), but the losers are the ones who ultimately pay for it all — and the odds are not in their favor.

The New York Times highlights the Maudsley Philosophy Group, a London seminar that includes psychiatrists, psychologists, philosophers and others interested in "looking at various...