Yearly Archives: 2013

Earth Day 2013 is a good time to reflect on how problems in our mental health system reflect deep flaws in “normal” conceptions of what it means to be a human being. These flawed conceptions then contribute in a critical way to the climate crisis that threatens us all.

In July 2006, I wrote about Electroconvulsive Therapy and stated, “If I had the opportunity to have another series of treatments I would do...

Janet Currie is co-founder of the Psychiatric Awareness Medication Group, which provides information on the potential harms and effectiveness of psychiatric drugs, and advice on...

Janet Currie is a prescription drug safety advocate who lives and works in Victoria, BC. A researcher by profession, she initially learned the hard...

Legislation in the U.K. that empowers psychiatrists to impose treatment  on patients has lost the support of one of its key advocates. "The evidence is...

Tension mounts across the ideological divide as D-Day (DSM-5 Day) approaches. The APA has powerful allies on its side. President Obama has just launched Decade of the Brain 2 with the announcement two weeks ago that heralds the arrival of BRAIN ( Brain Research through Advances in Innovative Neurotechnologies). If that’s not enough, those who believe that science will ultimately explain madness can always rely on the media to fawn at their feet.

Finding Resilience: Institutionalized in the 1960s, Dorothy was labeled "schizophrenic" and underwent 40 insulin coma/electroshock "treatments." She experienced and witnessed many atrocities.  Luck, determination, anger...

FINDING RESILIENCE AND HOPE IN THE FACE OF DESPAIR While institutionalized for three years as an adolescent in the 1960s, Dorothy Dundas was labeled a...

Recounting Chimera: Sean writes about issues of civil rights, human rights, personal experiences and the madness created when founding myths of liberty, justice and...

RECOUNTING CHIMERA Sean Donovan, after surviving more than a decade of psychiatric abuse, less-than-voluntary objectification through clinical trials and emotional turmoil, exhibits little patience for...

Some psychiatric drugs are extraordinarily effective, for instance benzodiazepines for catatonia or SSRIs for premature ejaculation. These treatments are so effective that controlled trials are an irrelevance. Every trial conducted would show a positive result. The point here is not that it is impossible for a treatment to achieve effectiveness but rather that controlled trials have little useful to contribute to the issue of effectiveness. Randomized placebo controlled trials have not shown any drug within the mental health domain is effective. If a treatment were effective virtually every RCT undertaken would show a positive result.

The ever-sagacious Monica Cassani writes "Some people are so terrified and reactive they assume that I am somehow suggesting that everyone come off their...

It is not often that you will find an issue on which the editors of The Lancet and Guinea Pig Zero agree, but the need to investigate the University of Minnesota is one of them. At this point, it still not clear who will prevail: those who want to honor the Department of Psychiatry, or those who want to have it investigated.

Many of the posts on MadInAmerica are devoted to looking at solutions that are more promising than medications. The two of us are so pleased to be able to fill in one of the very large gaps in the topics covered thus far: the role of nutrition in mental health.

For the past 20 years, there has been a prevailing concern in psychiatry that psychosis is bad for the brain. When I read Anatomy of an Epidemic, this was one of my most pressing concerns; if I suggested to my patients that they pursue other treatments before starting drug treatment, was I helping or harming them?

In January 2012, Mad In America went live with a handful of bloggers and the mission to become a central community in the effort to rethink and transform the paradigm of psychiatric care.

I want to offer some thoughts and figures about where we've been in the past year and what we are growing into.

Then I want to ask you for money.

British researchers find that a 10% increase in pain medication resulted in a dramatic reduction in the use of antipsychotic and other medications. “When...

What goes wrong for the 10-15% of women who feel like hiding under the covers instead of gazing blissfully into their newborns peaceful face? Is it expectations unmet? Is it hormones? Is it the brain? Having spent several years treating these women, I believe that what we are calling postpartum depression and anxiety is in fact postpartum immune dysfunction, and its attendant inflammation.

Beyond Meds explores one mother's story that suggests an explanation for post-partem depression: the effect of medicalized childbirth. Article →

For those of you who haven't read it, I published a blog post called, 'Too Much Pies,' on Mad in America on Wednesday, April 10th.  The post included an invitation to psychiatrist Ronald Pies (who caught the interest of many when he wrote a letter to the New York Times about psychiatric diagnosis) to a real dialogue, not limited by number of words, frequency of reply or professional licensure. I copied the letter directly to Mr. Pies, not knowing if he would reply.  On Thursday, April 11th I received a direct reply that Mr. Pies has authorized me to repost here.  I am also including my response to him.

The New York Times on Obama's $235 million initiative: "Mental health unites lawmakers Republican and Democrat, urban and rural, even those with safe seats...

Allen Frances writes about Obama's $235 million investment in a new mental health system, in the Huffington Post; "Most of the kids singled out...

Alternet's article about how "The over-diagnosis and over-prescription that dominates the mental health care scene in the US contributes to a system that is...

Nassir Ghaemi responds to "a young psychiatrist beginning a career in another country" that "We have lost the ability to accurately recognize our patients’...

From Scientific American: "Less than 200 years ago schizophrenia emerged from a tangle of mental disorders known simply as madness. Today its diagnosis remains...