Systemic Insanity

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Is the answer to numb ourselves and learn to deal with lives that we don't feel good about? Shouldn't the solution be to heal and live lives that don't make us stressed, unhappy, and sick?
Plenty of capsules and pills laying on a flag of Great Britain. Concept of medicine and heath care in the UK.

Beyond Pills: UK Parliament Must Support Social and Psychological Services Instead

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Davies calls on the UK Parliament to support the Beyond Pills initiative, and follow the evidence to put social and psychological help first.

The Great Grey Beast

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I am not the only child to have been devoured by the great grey beast that is the American psychiatric system. You're eaten away little by little, every single day, until what's left is barely a person.
Illustration: Lonely and sad stands a suffering man in a crowd of people walking by

Mental Disorder Has Roots in Trauma and Inequality, Not Biology

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The scientific evidence is of social/psychological, not biological, causation: negative environmental conditions, not disease.
assorted open law books with legal gavel, in dramatic light

You Have the Legal Right to Informed Consent

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My doctor didn’t tell me about any side effects, and I didn’t ask. I assumed that if there were any risks with taking Paxil, he would tell me.
Bed with restraints. Orange colored photograph

A Remarkable Feat: A Psychiatric Patient Changed the Law on Restraints

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The case of Silas Dam obliged the Danish government to increase rights for psychiatric patients subjected to belt restraints.
Image of male doctor pulling question sign with rope

Much of U.S. Healthcare Is Broken: How to Fix It (Chapter 1, Part 1)

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On the difference between basing a medical system on clinical belief versus one based on scientific evidence.

Decolonizing Psychiatry in Pakistan: A Reckoning with our Colonial Past and a Call for Reconstruction

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Psychiatrist Yousaf Raza details the problems with psychiatric health care in Pakistan and shows how to find a way forward.

Escaping The Shackles of Psychiatry: What I’ve Seen and Survived, as Both Doctor and Patient

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"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do...

The Drug Taper Paradox

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When we look to pills to solve one problem, we forget the opponent processes the body will naturally employ to return to homeostasis.
An artist's posable mannequin lies flat amongst a pile of pills, dark lighting

The Lie That Antidepressants Protect Against Suicide Is Deadly

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Antidepressants do not protect against suicide. According to placebo-controlled trials, they double the risk of suicide.
Medical Stethoscope and Pills on Dollars

Much of U.S. Healthcare Is Broken: How to Fix It (Preface)

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Medical practitioners base their practice on clinical experience, rather than the sound published health research, which they distrust.

Letting Go of Lithium

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The healing journey is less about being free from medication and psychiatry and more about connecting with myself now. I am grateful for the freedom to feel.
Photo of a pig

Pigs in the Hospital: The Collapse of Venezuela’s Mental Health System

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The directors of the hospital, considering the empty spaces provided by its lack of services, decided to allow “milicianos” to move in, along with their pigs.
Closeup on gloved hands held up as if asking for help

Psychiatry, Violence, and the State: California’s Systematic Failure of Its Unhoused Population

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California has decided to systematically restrain, incarcerate, forcibly strip, and drug its now sizable unhoused population.
Illustration: man trapped in a bottle of pills tries to scream for help

Withdrawing From Psychiatric Drugs: How to Produce Smaller Doses Than Those the Drug Companies Provide

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Peter Gøtzsche: To reduce the risk of withdrawal symptoms, it is necessary to respect the form of the binding curve.

The Psychiatric Diagnostic Evaluation: Medical Expertise or Smoke And Mirrors?

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Even though psychiatrists don't use any medical knowledge when making diagnoses, they do have MD degrees, and that's enough.
A hand erases a chalk drawing of the world surrounded by stick figures

Over-stressing Stress: American Psychological Association Report Omits Oppression

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Despite noting financial problems, global conflict, and climate crisis, the report was on how individuals could work on their own stress.
United Nations logo in UN headquarters in Manhattan New York City

The New WHO and UN Guidance: Psychiatry Must Entirely Change

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According to the preeminent health and rights bodies in the world, the WHO and the UN, psychiatry has to change entirely.

Words from My Heart to ‘My Heart’: What Might Have Helped My Late Friend?

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More than two and a half years later, I’m still processing my grief, still picturing our happiness and innocence as kids, and still acknowledging our struggles and pain.
Macro photo of thumbtacks holding strings in a network on a blue background

How the Psychosocial Approach Provides an Alternative to the Biomedical Model

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The biomedical model ignores the social context in which mental distress exists, despite a large body of evidence of that link.
Blue background, transparent pill bottle spills blue and white pills toward camera

Why Do Only Some People Experience Severe Antidepressant Withdrawal?

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Much of the vulnerability to antidepressant withdrawal may be related not to bipolar disorder, but a trait called “bipolarity.”
A sign in the desert reads "ROAD CLOSED"

Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 16: Is There Any Future for Psychiatry? (Part Six)

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In the final blog in Peter Gøtzsche's series, he presents his concluding thoughts and suggestions for the future of psychiatry.

My Chronic Illness Was Misdiagnosed as ‘Mental Illness’

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Physically ill and suffering folks are being misdiagnosed with ‘mental illness’ and sent to psychiatrists instead of doctors who can help them.

I Secret Shopped #988 and Three Cop Cars Showed Up Outside My House

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Although it professes to divert calls away from carceral responses, #988 may actually be increasing involuntary interventions.