Blogs
Systemic Insanity
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?
Beyond Pills: UK Parliament Must Support Social and Psychological Services Instead
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
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.
Mental Disorder Has Roots in Trauma and Inequality, Not Biology
The scientific evidence is of social/psychological, not biological, causation: negative environmental conditions, not disease.
You Have the Legal Right to Informed Consent
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.
A Remarkable Feat: A Psychiatric Patient Changed the Law on Restraints
The case of Silas Dam obliged the Danish government to increase rights for psychiatric patients subjected to belt restraints.
Much of U.S. Healthcare Is Broken: How to Fix It (Chapter 1, Part 1)
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
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
"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do...
The Drug Taper Paradox
When we look to pills to solve one problem, we forget the opponent processes the body will naturally employ to return to homeostasis.
The Lie That Antidepressants Protect Against Suicide Is Deadly
Antidepressants do not protect against suicide. According to placebo-controlled trials, they double the risk of suicide.
Much of U.S. Healthcare Is Broken: How to Fix It (Preface)
Medical practitioners base their practice on clinical experience, rather than the sound published health research, which they distrust.
Letting Go of Lithium
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.
Pigs in the Hospital: The Collapse of Venezuela’s Mental Health System
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.
Psychiatry, Violence, and the State: California’s Systematic Failure of Its Unhoused Population
California has decided to systematically restrain, incarcerate, forcibly strip, and drug its now sizable unhoused population.
Withdrawing From Psychiatric Drugs: How to Produce Smaller Doses Than Those the Drug Companies Provide
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?
Even though psychiatrists don't use any medical knowledge when making diagnoses, they do have MD degrees, and that's enough.
Over-stressing Stress: American Psychological Association Report Omits Oppression
Despite noting financial problems, global conflict, and climate crisis, the report was on how individuals could work on their own stress.
The New WHO and UN Guidance: Psychiatry Must Entirely Change
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?
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.
How the Psychosocial Approach Provides an Alternative to the Biomedical Model
The biomedical model ignores the social context in which mental distress exists, despite a large body of evidence of that link.
Why Do Only Some People Experience Severe Antidepressant Withdrawal?
Much of the vulnerability to antidepressant withdrawal may be related not to bipolar disorder, but a trait called “bipolarity.”
Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 16: Is There Any Future for Psychiatry? (Part Six)
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’
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
Although it professes to divert calls away from carceral responses, #988 may actually be increasing involuntary interventions.