Mad in America

Overtreatment with drugs kills many people, and the death rate is increasing. Why have we allowed this drug pandemic to continue?

Indian doctoral scholar Neha Jain wonders what kind of ‘care’ and ‘help’ are possible in the absence of real consent.

I know now that I can trust myself and listen to my intuition. Within the mental health system, I trusted everyone but myself.

Despite growing awareness that ‘schizophrenia’ is not a scientifically valid concept, the old assumptions still drive clinical practice.

Tapering strips are one of the practical tools mentioned in the new Maudsley Guidance.

Why does long-term use of neuroleptics correlate with poorer social and occupational outcomes?

Sam Ruck shares his fourth excerpt from his book Healing Companions, which describes his life with, and love for, his wife and her “alters.” 

Mental health treatment requires more than words; it demands a deep understanding of the unspoken, the symbols and signs that permeate our lives.

If the wounded healer doesn't work on their wounds, they become the wounded wounder, keeping the client and themselves trapped in their roles.

After being put on antidepressants, Katinka started hallucinating wildly, thinking in very violent images.

Critiquing the wildly popular 1994 eugenicist book, which purported to link IQ and race, by reviewing the supposed genetic evidence.

By setting standards of equality, competence, and accountability, Szasz worked for the liberation of the "mental patient.”

The suffering caused by physical, sexual or psychological violence, common in women's lives, is pathologized by psychiatry.

The published articles underreported suicide-related events and provided false claims that the drugs were effective.

The mental health system needs to adopt the principle of holistic care, promoting fundamental rights and the relevance of family support.

Tensions of sustainability, climate change, and global mental health: grassknots, greenspace, and climate psychology.

I wake to what has happened every day, and must filter my every action through the memories and the fallout of what I did when I was psychotic as a twenty-four-year-old kid.

What if the only choice we can really make, and trust, is the irrational, even mad, choice to love? What would saving the world look like then?

We can assess whether Mad in America readers or JAMA Psychiatry readers are being provided with the most robust scientific literature.

Too many people see themselves as having mental disorders when what they have is emotion, and in some cases, a great deal of it.

But parents are still sending children away to board, and it’s still dangerous.

Some of the most marginalized and stigmatized people in a community are those with psychiatric diagnoses and those who are HIV positive.

One of the original Open Dialogue researchers responds to a paper presenting a prejudiced and selective review of the scientific literature.

The widespread use of psychiatric drugs reduces important conversations about the problems of being human while limiting our options for problem-solving.

How persistent, unbearable suffering, due to prolonged withdrawal from antipsychotics prescribed as a sleeping medication, led to euthanasia.