Monthly Archives: September 2019
Forced-Treatment Advocacy Group Cherry-Picks Data to Support Agenda (Again)
Did the Treatment Advocacy Center actually uncover research proving that poor psychiatric medication adherence plays a "significant" role in whether people diagnosed with schizophrenia become violent? If such research does exist, is it as compelling as TAC described?
A Biopsychosocial Model Beyond the Mind-Body Split
Can a renewed biopsychosocial approach, grounded in an updated philosophy, foster person-centered medicine, and psychiatry?
Do Not Swallow the Pill by Anonymous
Do not swallow the pill, This condensed mass of powder That the world has convinced you Will “fix” you, your “problematic” self My darling, you are not broken You are not lost, you are not crumpled You are merely a being living In a society, in a culture That you were never meant to be forced into
A Doctor Cures His Bipolar Diagnosis Without Psychiatry: Review of ‘I’
I details what happened to Jeffrey Fidel when he quit psychiatric drugs and embraced an alternative, non-medical healing approach — a set of philosophical and spiritual teachings known as the Tao Te Ching and Hua Hu Ching.
Understanding Voices: New Website for Voice-Hearers and Their Supporters
From Hearing the Voice: New website offers practical techniques and information and sheds light on the links between voice-hearing and inner speech, trauma, creativity and spiritual or religious experience.
How a Parent’s Affection Shapes a Child’s Happiness for Life
From Motherly: A number of recent studies highlight the relationship between parental affection and children’s happiness and success.
Peter Kinderman – Why We Need a Revolution in Mental Health Care
An interview with Professor Peter Kinderman about his new book, A Manifesto for Mental Health, Why We Need a Revolution in Mental Health Care, in which he proposes a rejection of invalid diagnostic labels, practical help rather than medication, and a recognition that distress is usually an understandable human response to life's challenges.
Ancient Singing Tradition Helps People Cope With Trauma in the Modern World
From YES! Magazine: "Lament [singing] is a very old, traditional way to express your feelings...If you are hurt or you have sorrows...you cry it out, you let it come out. That’s what they would do in the old times."
Arab-Americans’ Mental Health Suffers Due to Census Box
From Scienceline: Beyond cloaking millions of people in invisibility, the lack of a Middle Eastern and North African ethnic box has also complicated efforts to research the minority group’s mental health.
Ambushed by Antidepressant Withdrawal: The Escape Story
I’m alive. More than 30,000 veterans in the past decade alone are not. I was not warned of the risks of this drug. I was not told that once on it, I might never be able to get off it, or the nightmare that would ensue when I tried. I know millions of others were not told either.
Time’s Up: Culture of Denial Impacts Mental Health of Sexual Abuse Survivors
Study finds that not believing sexual abuse survivors often leads to self-blame and mental health issues.
Decontextualized Depression and PTSD Diagnoses Fail Indigenous Communities
A case analysis of an American Indian woman illustrates how the DSM diagnostic criteria misrepresent the lives of indigenous people.
People, Heal Thyselves: Nigeria’s New Mental Health Approach
From The Guardian: Informal mental health support networks like Nigeria’s MANI are becoming more prevalent around the world as people realise that health systems cannot cope with mental illness.
Marci Webber Granted a Conditional Discharge
In 2010, Marci Webber killed her four-year-old daughter during a psychotic episode that erupted while she was on a cocktail of psychiatric drugs. She was found not guilty by reason of insanity. A judge has now ruled that she should be discharged from a mental hospital.
How Social Dynamics at School Impact Teen Suicide
Teen suicide risk is influenced by relationships with adults and teachers, perceived popularity, close friendships, and school connectedness.
Schizophrenia and Suicide: Is There a Drug Connection?
From The Baltimore Sun: In current psychotropic trials, there are more dead bodies in the active treatment groups than in the placebo groups. That's quite different from what happens in the trials of drugs that really work.
Antidepressant-Induced Mania: When My Mind Became a Literal Hell
The amount of anxiety I felt on these medications — and for a couple of years after — was unfathomable. I felt as though I was trapped in an air-tight vat, constantly gasping for breath. And my thoughts were guided by my state of constant worry and panic.
Zoloft Does Not Improve Depression, Even in Severe Cases, Study Finds
Despite their finding, the researchers suggest that SSRIs be given to people who do not meet criteria for depression or anxiety.
Is It Time to Make Peace With Voices?
From Discursive of Tunbridge Wells: Hundreds of years of ignoring voices has only made them more desperate and challenging. Is it time to respectfully invite them to the peace table?
Tensions in Mental Health Care in China: An Interview with Zhiying Ma
Anthropologist Zhiying Ma explores mental health care in China, including tensions between Western psychiatry and socially-oriented local frameworks.
Fired for the Truth by Dr. Karan R Gregg Aggarwala
Just yesterday evening they let us know you were gone
Joanne the plans they made for you
Did not go through
The job description just did not...
Johann Hari: This Could Be Why You’re Depressed and Anxious
From TED: I was only able to start changing my life when I realized my depression was not a malfunction. It's a signal. Your depression is a signal. It's telling you something.
The Problems with the DSM Mask a Dark Reality We’re All Complicit In
It would be comforting to conclude that the people in charge of such projects as the DSM are perhaps a little sociopathic or deviously immoral. Unfortunately, it is not that simple. We are all inextricably bound to, and complicit in, the problem we are attacking.
‘Shocking’ Study: Most Common Antidepressant Barely Improves Depression
From The Telegraph: The new trial of sertraline is by far the largest to be conducted without the involvement of the pharmaceutical industry.
‘Disturbing Staff Abuses,’ ‘Serious Staff Violations’ of Law at DC’s St. Elizabeths Hospital
From Washington City Paper: By law, hospitals can only use restraints as a last resort. In 2018, St. Elizabeths used them almost 20,000 percent more than in 2013.
