Blogs
How Not to Diagnose Your Child
The reflections of a mental health professional on saving her own son from invalid and harmful labels.
Labeled, Medicated, Misdiagnosed — Until I Rewired My Own Brain
I’m not a doctor. I’m a patient. But I solved what six psychiatrists could not.
Like a Refuge and Like a Prison
From Mad in Puerto Rico: Laura LĂłpez-Aybar interviews Francisco about psychiatric hospitalization.
When Validation Becomes Avoidance: The Hidden Costs of Comfort in Modern Therapy
Each week, her therapist offered affirmations and reassurance. Her eating disorder remained comfortable and unchallenged.
Locura en Argentina
Editor Alan Robinson aims to provide readers with a magazine that represents them and the “mad cultures” found in Argentina.
Why I Kept Going Back: Breaking Free From Trauma Bonds
Breaking free from trauma bonds is a process of doubt, pain, and courage. It’s learning to trust yourself again after years of confusion.
Welcome to the Psychiatry Casino
Modern psychiatry is still, in many ways, closer to educated gambling than science. And patients deserve to know that.
A Place in the Forest: Mental Well-Being from a Wider Perspective
The whole social system as it is now is not designed with the purpose of well-being. Where has this gotten us?
On Love in America
After I nearly died during open-heart surgery, I realized that there is no room in this second life for anything but gratitude — and love.
Public Citizen, the FDA, and SSRI Safety
The safe and effective treatment for depression is psychotherapy and social support, not prescription drugs.
Beliefs that Create Madness
We know that it is not simply a chemical imbalance or a broken brain. We know how the context plays a large role.
Antidepressants in Pregnancy—Turning a Blind Eye, Again
You might think that telling women about the potential risks of taking antidepressants during pregnancy would be uncontroversial.
A Manner of Speaking
A cinematic prose poem that uses metaphor and symbol to capture the essence of experiences for which there are no words.
Sober Living: Why Less Clinical Sometimes Means More Recovery
Real independence is where most people stumble. Treatment can’t replicate what it’s like to live sober in the chaos of everyday life.
The Psychological Totalization of Experience: Objectification and Subjectivity
I must be a mechanistic, predictable unit, in order for a psychiatric label or a psychological variable to be implemented on me smoothly.
ECT: New Studies Detail Harms, Lack of Efficacy, Lack of Informed Consent
What people who have received ECT really think about what they were told, and about how ECT affected them.
Community, Ethics, and Healing Amidst the Great Unraveling
If our treatment is only aligned with the individualist reductionist model, we are unwittingly contributing to destruction.
Narrative Reclamation: Who’s Allowed to Tell Their Story?
Narratives have the power to lock us up—sometimes literally. But they also have the power to set us free.
Reflections on My Mistrust for Other Mental Health Workers
I learned to hold my tongue around mental health workers. I dealt with their slurs by working harder and longer than them.
Veteran Suicide Prevention Legislation Introduced That Will Save Lives
The bill will require prescribers to obtain written informed consent including the risks of psychiatric drugs.
When Repair Doesn’t Come: A Trauma Survivor Reflects on a Rupture With Her Therapist
I spent years in therapy slowly learning how to feel safe with another human being. But then came the rupture.
Two Voices and One Chair
It’s a war between two voices. The writer’s voice shapes, composes, imagines. The trauma’s voice: raw, insistent, unfiltered, breaking in.
Antipsychotics—And How I’ve Learned to Manage the Side Effects
While suppressing pathological symptoms, drugs also suppress the normal instinct of "wanting to move" and "wanting to enjoy life".
It’s the Cracked Ones Who Let the Light in
The identified patient is often the healthiest: a lighthouse desperately pointing the way to the wounds and power imbalances in the family.
The Report That Erased Me: How Misdiagnosis and Neglect Delayed My Healing
What looks like defiance is often a child screaming: "I don't know how to trust you, prove me wrong."
