Why We’re Turning Psychiatric Labels Into Identities
From The New Yorker: So you’re on the spectrum, or you’ve got borderline personality disorder, or you’re a sociopath: once you’re sure that’s who you are, you’ve got a personal stake in a very creaky diagnostic system.
Whoopi Goldberg’s Mom Forgot Her Children After Undergoing Electroshock
From Page Six: “Yeah, I had no idea who you were," Goldberg's mother, Emma Harris, had told her. "I just knew I never wanted to go back to that hospital. So I had to do everything I could. If they said the sky was green... I’d say, 'Yes, the sky is green.' ‘Cause I never wanted it again.”
People Detained Under UK’s Mental Health Act Dying at Three Times Rate of Those...
From The Independent: The findings come after separate figures were revealed showing 15,000 people died while under the care of community mental health services in just one year.
Shield Alert: Stop David Russell From Being Force Electroshocked
From Mindfreedom International: David is currently a psychiatric prisoner at the Mayo Clinic in Minnesota, where there is a hearing scheduled for this Monday, May 6th, to get a court order to electroshock him against his will.
Petition: The Question About Medication that Can Save Lives
Katinka Blackford Newman, who runs the website antidepressantrisks.org, has put up a petition on change.org urging suicide prevention hotlines "to ask callers if they...
The Danger of Relying on Anti-Anxiety Drugs
From The Wall Street Journal: Medications like Klonopin and Xanax can instantly bring physical calm, but freedom from anxiety requires facing your fears rather than masking them.
NY Times Prints Fraudulent STAR*D Result Yet Again
In an article titled "What You Really Need to Know About Antidepressants," the New York Times repeats, yet again, the fraudulent results from the...
David Egilman, Doctor Who Took On Drug Companies, Dies at 71
From The New York Times: His testimony as an expert witness in some 600 trials helped plaintiffs win billions of dollars in cases involving malfeasance by pharmaceutical makers.
The Wild and Recent History of ‘Schizophrenia’ and Family Therapy
From Underground Transmissions: The family therapy movement has had a lot of success in different mental health contexts, but in the realm of “serious mental illness” and “schizophrenia” it’s nearly impossible to find anyone who publicly talks about the importance of working with complicated family dynamics.
We Don’t Know If Most Medical Treatments Work, and We Know Even Less About...
From The Conversation: Only one in 20 medical treatments have high-quality evidence to support their benefits, and treatment harms are measured only a third as often as benefits.
Committed: An Interview With Suzanne Scanlon
FromPsychology Today: Scanlon's Committed: On Meaning and Madwomen—A Memoir concerns the treatment of prolonged grief in a major psychiatric hospital.
I Was the Poster Girl for OCD. Then I Began to Question Everything I’d...
From The Guardian: When I sought help for crippling invasive thoughts, I was told I had a disease like any other. But I wasn’t able to recover until I understood the fallacy at the heart of mental healthcare.
Bad Science, With Robert Whitaker | Where Is My Mind? Podcast
From Where Is My Mind?: Niall Breslin and Robert Whitaker discuss the paradigm shift needed in mental health to ensure people have informed consent and a true understanding of their distress.
Debunking the Myths About Depression and Antidepressants
From EmpowerUAmerica: Psychologist and author Bruce E. Levine is interviewed about the problem of depression in America and how it's being treated.
Mom’s 911 Call for Her Son’s Mental Health Ends With His Death After Police...
From MedPage Today: Taylor Ware's August 2019 death was among more than 1,000 over a decade after police used common use-of-force tactics that are meant to stop people without killing them.
Against Her Will
From Investigative Journalism Foundation: Under Canada's Mental Health Act, doctors don’t have to get a patient’s consent for treatment — or the consent of a substitute decision maker. They have what’s known as the patient’s “deemed consent” to administer any treatment that’s been approved by the director of the mental health facility.
What Needs to Change at the FDA? A PharmedOut Report
In the past 30 years, repeated regulatory failures and a shift in the FDA’s mission from protecting public health to speeding drugs and devices to market has tarnished the agency’s reputation and, more importantly, harmed patients.
STAR*D: It’s Time to Atone and Retract
From Psychiatric Times: “Our patients, our field, and our integrity demand a better explanation of what happened in STAR*D than what has thus been provided," argue two San Diego psychiatrists.
BetterHelp to Pay $7.8 Million for Deceiving Customers After Promising to Keep Sensitive Data...
From FTC: The FTC has moved to ban BetterHelp from revealing people's data, including sensitive mental health information, to Facebook and others for targeted advertising.
STAR*D: It is time to atone and retract
From Psychiatric Times:
Two psychiatrists write in the Psychiatric Times that the response of the STAR*D investigators to a reanalysis of STAR*D data by Ed...
Three Causes of Spiritual Illness: A Shamanic Perspective
From Shared Wisdom: From the shaman’s perspective, illness can be caused by either disharmony, fear, or soul loss: negative internal states that appear within us in response to negative or traumatic life experiences.
How Chronic Stress Feeds Suffering by Eating Up Our Dopamine
From Gary Sharpe Substack: This mechanism applies to all "dopamine deficiency" issues including Parkinson’s, dystonia, restless leg syndrome, ADHD, chronic conditions more generally, trauma, and addictions of all sorts.
A Neuroscientist Evaluates the Standard Biological Model of Depression
This is a talk at UPenn by neuroscientist Peter Sterling, who, in his writings for Mad in America, has critically assessed the “biological model of depression."
Christy Huff, Medical Director of Benzodiazepine Information Coalition, Dies
From Benzodiazepine Information Coalition: Dr. Huff was a cardiologist who experienced a benzodiazepine injury firsthand, leading her to become a fierce advocate for better education and safe tapering of these drugs.
Parents Must Reclaim the Central Role If Growing Crisis Among Children Is to End:...
From Irish Examiner: "Parents must surrender their point of view that there’s something wrong with the child and see that it’s the relationship that’s in trouble and the child’s behaviour is just a function of that," says physician Gabor Maté, who works with patients challenged by drug addiction and mental illness.
