Blogs

There are currently ten classes of prescription medications that impair brain function, including both psychiatric and non-psychiatric drugs. A number of non-drug “treatments” do the same.

Paula Caplan, known for her fierce criticism of psychiatry and its diagnostic manual, died Wednesday at age 74.

With all eyes on Britney, we must unmask the role of psychiatrists in court hearings like hers, where basically what the shrink says, goes— and the person’s freedom and human rights are stripped away.

Peter Gøtzsche describes trying to join the psychiatric establishment to bring attention to critical issues from the inside.

“Prescripticide”: The purpose of this informational video is to raise public awareness of this association between psychiatric drugs and violence/suicide.

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.

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.

(Note: Read Bruce Levine's latest post: Anti-Authoritarians and Schizophrenia: Do Rebels Who Defy Treatment Do Better? In my career as a psychologist, I have talked with...

Se-REM is a self-help version of EMDR that uses sound instead of eye movement for bilateral stimulation. My clients have reported finding it helpful for healing from trauma.

New clinical case studies have found that many young children who spend too much screen time—on TV’s, video games, tablets and computers—have symptoms labeled as “autism.” When parents take away the screens for a few months the child’s symptoms disappear.

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.

Peter Gøtzsche explains how psychiatry has reacted when confronted with evidence and stories of lived experience, and how this has corrupted journalism.

Cindi Fisher has gone on a hunger strike to demand that her adult child, Siddharta, be freed from Western State Hospital after being suddenly removed from the discharge list without explanation.

Jill deserves all the defense she is receiving. However, this rush to defend Jill’s honorific usage is missing a much bigger and far more pervasive point: NO ONE should be called “Dr. Last-name.”

If you are a mental health worker or advocate, there's a way to help dismantle police brutality and systemic racism in the U.S.

The FDA has finally acknowledged the adverse effects of benzodiazepines, the dangers of withdrawal, and that the current packaging does not sufficiently warn of these harms.

James Davies on the medicalization and individualizing of distress and its connection to neoliberal ideology, and the need to focus on pervasive inequality and other social causes.

I have opposed involuntary treatment for my entire career and first began criticizing it in the medical literature in 1964.  As Thomas Szasz originally taught, involuntary psychiatric treatment is unconstitutional and an assault on basic human rights.   I am also against it on scientific grounds, because after hundreds of years, this violation of human rights has generated no scientific studies to show that it benefits its victims. I am encouraged by the excellent blog by Peter C. Gøtzsche on MadinAmerica.com, which inspired me to put a new section, Psychiatric Coercion and Involuntary Treatment, on my website, and to compose these further observations of my own.

The adage that one must step outside their comfort zone if one wants to achieve success is troubling, and it’s time to stop letting it go unquestioned.

Peter Gøtzsche explains how newspapers and film festivals censor the work of journalists and filmmakers in order to appease the pharmaceutical industry.

I am a psychiatrist and I have been watching my profession deteriorate for many decades. This is my most direct written statement about the dangers of stepping inside a modern psychiatrist’s office. My conclusions are the culmination of mountains of research authored by me and by an increasing number of other psychiatrists, scientists and journalists.

My first encounter with mental illness was when I was 17. My friend was hospitalised in the psychiatric unit of the local general hospital and diagnosed with hypomania.

What I was able to learn about the injury inflicted by TMS and the culture surrounding it is an incredible insight into the treatment itself and the nature of the medical model in its current form.

For more than 7,300 days of my life, waking up the next morning required me to make a conscious choice to diligently pursue something — anything — other than my impulse to die. Maybe the best teachers of how to avoid suicide will not be the people who are afraid someone else will die, but those of us who can explain how and why we regularly choose to live.

A warm line is an alternative to a crisis line that is run by “peers,” generally those who have had their own experiences of trauma that they are willing to speak of and acknowledge. Unlike a crisis line, a warm line operator is unlikely to call the police or have someone locked up if they talk about suicidal or self-harming thoughts or behaviors. Most warm line operators have been through extreme challenges themselves and are there primarily to listen.