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).

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.
brain

Too Good to Be True: How TMS Damaged My Brain

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TMS not only has not improved my mental health, but also has robbed me of some of the most important things in life. There has been little to no research on or awareness around the negative side effects that TMS can inflict. This must change.

Mad in (S)pain

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A Q&A with the team members who edit and run Mad in (S)pain: "There must be a radical change in the way mental suffering is understood and cared for."
A jenga tower of bricks begins to collapse

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

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Can we resist turning to private practices masked in social justice rhetoric as a substitute for genuine movement building and advocacy?

Mad in Finland

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The people who run Mad in Finland have experienced profound awakenings in the course of their lives, moments of awareness when they understood the failures of the psychiatric disease model and saw its harms.
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.

Beyond Benzos: Jordan B. Peterson’s Trip to Hell and Back

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I am thankful "Beyond Order" exists; if only because it serves as a cautionary tale for anyone looking to modify their mood using psychiatry’s plethora of pills.
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.
Close photo of a hand spilling pills on a floor

Prescription Drugs Are the Leading Cause of Death

29
Overtreatment with drugs kills many people, and the death rate is increasing. Why have we allowed this drug pandemic to continue?
Closeup of a researcher's blue-gloved hands counting money

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

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As a former pharmaceutical ad writer, I not only witnessed the explosive growth in antidepressant drugs, I contributed to it.
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

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South Korea ranks among the highest in the world for suicide, and its people are turning to psychiatric drugs in record numbers.
Young boy looking through the window

As a Psychologist, I’ve Seen Many Children Misdiagnosed as Autistic—It’s a Clinical Catastrophe

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The ASD diagnosis glosses over the many developmental specifics that might underlie a child’s challenges related to social communication.
Vector illustration; profile of person with capsules falling into their head

America’s Unhealthy Relationship with Antidepressants

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Exhaustive research topples the conceptual house of cards in which the antidepressant hegemony resides.
One green gamepiece facing many black gamepieces

How and Why Neurotypicals Misunderstand and Mistreat Autistic People

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Commonly used autism interventions, such as ABA, have been found to be both ineffective and abusive, inflicting trauma on those subjected to them.

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.

Arrested Development: Britney Spears’ Memoir Is a Survivor’s Tale of Generational Trauma, Psychiatric Abuse,...

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Miranda Spencer discusses Britney Spears' new memoir and the harms of conservatorship.

The Mad in the World Network: A Global Voice for Change

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Mad in Ireland is the newest Mad in America affiliate. The network of affiliate sites is becoming a global voice for change.

Mad in Ireland

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Although Jennifer Hough’s older sister, Valerie, was diagnosed with bipolar disorder when she was fifteen, Hough never saw her sister as mentally ill. “To...

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

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For the mainstream media, reviewing Laura Delano's memoir "Unshrunk" is an exercise in cognitive dissonance.
David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace: Suicide and the Death of Agency

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Today is the 10th anniversary of David Foster Wallace’s suicide. While it’s not fair to build an entire theory on an incredibly complicated issue like suicide around one person, Wallace’s death should challenge the common narratives around suicide — that “mental illness” causes it and that “we can’t ever know why people do it.” Both of these are self-serving platitudes that are simply not true.

Mad In South Asia

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While conducting research in rural Northern India, Ayurdhi Dhar spoke to a woman whose mother had vivid visual hallucinations of Indian wedding processions. When...
Pills falling out of a doctor's gloved hand

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

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Many of these so-called “treatment-resistant” conditions aren't underlying illnesses—they're caused by the drugs themselves.
Flat illustration of an anxios person holding their head with their hands.

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

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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.