Blogs

Essays by a diverse group of writers, in the United States and abroad, engaged in rethinking psychiatry. (The directory of personal stories can be found here, and initiatives here).

Alone woman at the beach one twilight time looking out to sea

Where Is God When I Cut Myself? Soul Care and the Voices of Self-Injury...

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Care, as I’ve come to see it, is about sitting beside someone when the pain is too loud for words and not leaving.
Female College Student Meeting With Campus Counselor Discussing Mental Health Issues

Therapists, Neutrality Is No Longer an Option — Politics Is Tearing Us Apart

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To my fellow therapists: stop playing neutral. Stop minimizing systemic trauma to keep your comfort intact.
A young blonde woman looks sad in bed with the covers up to her neck

Inertia as Neuroceptive State Beyond the Pathologizing Lens 

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Reframing inertia as an adaptive, biologically based survival response offers a powerful alternative to traditional deficit-oriented models.
Teamwork hands as work collaboration and partnership tiny person concept. Team work together with many partners for effective performance vector illustration. Project with job management and leading.

A Relationship Imbalance, Not A Chemical Imbalance

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With DSM-III, everything we knew about relationship dynamics was buried under the tidal wave of the pharmaceutical industrial complex.
Black male therapist listening to White female client

Between Diagnoses and Dialogue: The Silent Conflict Between Psychiatry and Psychology

In contrast to psychiatry's biomedical model, for many psychologists, care begins with listening rather than labelling.
A woman looks distressed while a man kisses her

Depression Caused by Kissing? Psychiatry Hits New Low with Clickbait Fear-Mongering

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Instead of being laughed at, this study is being promoted across outlets like Vice and The Colbert Report.
AI image of three distinct ages

The Three Ages of Treating Madness: Confinement, Conversation, Chemicals

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There was a time when therapy did something dangerous—it listened. Suffering wasn’t seen as a malfunction, but as a story worth hearing.

Depsychiatrization: Dispelling Harmful, Diagnostical Self-Concepts in Therapy and Community Health Work

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Depsychiatrization is a way of reclaiming the right to be understood through a nonpathologizing, rehumanized lens.

Screen Time for Children Under Three: A Trigger for Virtual Autism?

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"A Stone Unturned" weaves together the research and stories of autism symptoms reversed by removing screens and adding more parent engagement.
Illustration of sad person with hands reaching toward them

Depression: Biological or Psychological?

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Scientific evidence tells us that depression is psychological and should be treated by behavior therapy, not by antidepressant drugs.
Blue pawns standing up, a single red pawn fallen over

“Life Unworthy of Life”: Historical Amnesia, Ausmerzen and the Rhetoric Surrounding Autism

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The idea that human value can be reduced to economic contribution is not merely reductive—it is deeply dangerous.
Oregon State Hospital

Life in the Hospital Before Deinstitutionalization

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Accounts of deinstitutionalization fail to describe recovery, peer support, or what it was actually like to be in the state hospitals.
A gavel and open handcuffs

Fighting Forced Treatment in Court: A Victory to Be Celebrated

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It is very difficult to get off a mental health commitment. The counties fight tooth and nail to keep people in the system.
A wooden hand touches post it notes of smiling and sad faces on wooden figures

Family Traditions and the Inheritance of “Madness”

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Families are not merely a source of comfort and support but also a breeding ground for dysfunction, unhealed trauma, and emotional neglect.
Medical informed consent paper document with signature. Agreement with doctor and patient in clinic. Information and purposes of medical scientific research. Treatment in hospital vector illustration.

What Does Consent Mean in Practice? A Lived Experience Perspective

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Every time I agreed to 'treatment’, I was told that it was necessary to save my life. I was sold a bunch of lies.

Mad in Portugal

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Mad in Portugal's readers can find blogs, book reviews, and first-person testimonials from voices less present in mainstream narratives.
Upset Black boy holding pills

Usage of Depression Pills in Children and Young People Must Stop

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Our citizens would be far better off if we removed all the psychotropic drugs from the market, as doctors are unable to handle them.
Sad lonely man in depression. Vector illustration. Flat.

We Can’t Help People With Trauma If We Can’t Say Trauma

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Although the medical care Cary received was excellent, no one mentioned “trauma” or counseled us on how it might manifest emotionally.
Sticky notes on blue background. One shows a smiley face, one a frown, and one between them depicts a question mark.

Beyond the Pill Paradigm: Reclaiming Humanity in Mental Health Care

5
By tackling social causes of distress along with personal support, we prevent suffering rather than just reacting to emergencies.
3D Isometric Flat Vector Conceptual Illustration of Moral Issue, Ethical Dilemma, Decision Making.

Power, Privilege & Controlling the Narrative: Vested Interests in ‘Mental Health’

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Alienating someone from their own meaning-making is a violent action, but that's what happens when professionals use unscientific, decontextualised diagnoses.
Empathy concept with nurturing hands reaching down to sustain a sad young woman in deep depression sitting under a thunder cloud with crying emoticons, vector illustration

The Roots of Emotional Illness: Emotional Conditioning

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Psychodynamic psychotherapy gets at the root cause of the emotional distress—a person’s emotional conditioning in childhood.
A male doctor appears to scream in frustration. His glasses catch the light

Are Psychiatrists More Mad Than Their Patients?

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Misconceptions among psychiatric leaders are at variance with the scientific evidence. They suffer from a serious, collective delusion.

And You Thought They Were Side Effects: How Psychiatry Turned Chemical Disruption Into Medical...

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There’s no cure beneath the disruption, just a chemical hit that alters perception or behavior.
Photo of young woman in a therapy group

The Quiet Crisis in Mental Health: The Medicalization and Deskilling of Psychotherapy

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The focus on the "worried well" and the exclusion of the "mad" serves to legitimize psychiatric control and surveillance.

Jo Watson Interviews Cathy Wield, Author of “Unshackled Mind”

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It’s never too late to seek another explanation for the problems you’re facing, to change your mind and get your life back.