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).

Vector illustration; profile of person with capsules falling into their head

America’s Unhealthy Relationship with Antidepressants

1
Exhaustive research topples the conceptual house of cards in which the antidepressant hegemony resides.
Professional psychotherapist and patient in office, focus on hands with clipboard

The Moral World of Personality Disorder Assessment

10
Professionals in the field must recognize psychiatry's connection to social norms rather than portraying it as a neutral branch of medicine.

Dreaming with Purpose: How the Mind’s Hidden GPS Can Guide Us Toward Personal and...

16
By honouring dreams, we honour our innate creativity, our shared humanity, our capacity to reimagine reality.
Close-up of pill with smiley face on it. Woman's hand holding it toward the viewer

Behind the Smiles: Mental Health in South Korea’s High-Pressure Society

3
South Korea ranks among the highest in the world for suicide, and its people are turning to psychiatric drugs in record numbers.
A woman and her child holding hands, walking in the dark toward a bright crack in the ground

The Mental Health System in the UK Failed Us

8
The whole system is broken and I pray for my friends in Great Britain. They need a reform, not cuts or euthanasia.
Pile of Scrabble letter blocks on wood background.

Lost in Psychobabble? Cut Through the Jargon for Real Mental Clarity

10
The key to healing is to recognize that you are not dealing with a broken brain, but unlearning survival habits that no longer serve you.
Flat illustration of an anxios person holding their head with their hands.

A Reflection on “Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistance”

58
The act of diagnosis is so influential on a person’s sense of self that its limitations need to be repeated again and again and again.

The Curious Case of Empty Asylums and the Birth of Psychiatry

15
Psychiatry has cut, burned, shocked, drugged, and subdued its way through history—leaving behind compliance, not cures.
Man on a white background reads the instructions for medicines. Male looks at the list and composition of the drug. The concept of home self-medication and the study of the properties of drugs

False Information in UK Package Inserts for Antidepressants About a Chemical Imbalance

6
To state something that is blatantly false is not a “paradigm,” it is a lie, plain and simple.
Closeup of a researcher's blue-gloved hands counting money

Confessions of an Advertising Writer: How I Helped Pharma Sell Antidepressants

28
As a former pharmaceutical ad writer, I not only witnessed the explosive growth in antidepressant drugs, I contributed to it.
Signpost showing many different directions

De-Meaning Psychotherapy: The New Psychiatric Critic

4
I reject psychiatry. But I also reject the critic. In the final analysis psychiatric abolition must be a deeply personal act.
Illustration of a diver disappearing into a human head full of water

Symptoms and Surface Psychology

20
Given the lack of objective signs, surface psychology can only ever be the treatment of subjectively distressing symptoms.

Rethinking Mental Health in Ireland: Why Not a Trieste-Style Approach?

2
Those with mental health difficulties continue to face systemic barriers to holistic, person-centred care.

When Narratives Clash: Unshrunk and The Cognitive Dissonance of the NY Times

57
For the mainstream media, reviewing Laura Delano's memoir "Unshrunk" is an exercise in cognitive dissonance.
Sepia illustration of a brain machine

Psychiatry: Medical Science of Mind or Moral Ideology?

15
Psychiatry is a moral ideology, making and enforcing judgments about the appropriateness of people's experiences.
Black and white photo of a hand holding a colorized pill

What I Have Learned in Working With 300+ People in Their Journey of Tapering

45
Tapering is stepping into each individual’s complex world of biology, history, psyche, circumstance, and tolerance for discomfort.
Photo of diverse hands in center of huddle

Mad Camp Europe: My Journey from Ward Violence to Healing and Community

14
If we want to advocate for a better mental health system, we have to integrate our own shame. And that is what happened to me at Mad Camp.
A jenga tower of bricks begins to collapse

From Public Service to Private Practice: The Collapse of the Social Work Profession

37
Can we resist turning to private practices masked in social justice rhetoric as a substitute for genuine movement building and advocacy?
An engraving depicting water being shot at two prisoners; hydrotherapy

Everything About Us Without Us

25
Between 1883-1955, there was little attention given to the value and contributions of those who were “patients” at the Oregon State Insane Asylum.
A hospital bed with restraints. The background is a pride flag with all colors.

Sexual Sanism: Why Anti-Queer Rhetoric Is a Threat to the Mad, Too

6
Our response to this moment should be understanding our shared queer/Mad history and solidarity across lines of oppression.
Pills falling out of a doctor's gloved hand

The Ethics of Long-Term Psychiatric Drug Use and Why We Need a Better Way

30
Many of these so-called “treatment-resistant” conditions aren't underlying illnesses—they're caused by the drugs themselves.

Jo Watson Chats With Rob Wipond About His Work and His Book

4
Wipond exposes abuses in mental health systems, including forced treatment, psychiatric detentions, and surveillance.
Vector illustration of businessmen on an assembly line with burned out light bulbs on their heads; one is being picked up by a robotic arm and has a lit lightbulb.

Managing Nonconformity: Lessons from Quality

38
Psychiatry is akin to the outdated and unhelpful way that industry used to understand the assembly line.
Helping hands

Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal: Harm Reduction, Not Judgment

Good advocacy does not rely on fear or shame. No one can predict the future for any individual.
Pills spilling out of an outstretched hand

Suicides Increase After National Suicide Prevention Introduced

4
Researchers have consistently found increasing psychiatric services associated with higher suicide rates.