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).

What it Means to be a Human, With all the Beauty and Complexity That...

14
If not every week, then very often, we receive requests from people not living in Sweden asking if it would be possible to come to the Family Care Foundation and take part in our shared work. I often day-dream that I have a list of different places in different countries where it was obvious that the main task for the organization and everyone involved was to meet those we call clients and their families in a relational and dialogical way, where it was NOT important at all to define people in terms of diagnosis and where it was NO big deal to support people to get off medication. Where the big deal was about something else: to try to create a safe place and to make sense of experiences and to try to share the very hard things with each other.

Justina Pelletier: The Debate Continues

29
On April 1, 2014, Slate published an online article titled Mitochondrial Disease or Medical Child Abuse?  The article tries to explore the central question in Justina's case:  does she have mitochondrial disease or is she a victim of medical child abuse?

Open Letter Re: This Morning‘s Feature on Depression

55
Recently, This Morning featured a story on depression, in which Dr. Chris Steele advised participants that their depression was due to a 'chemical imbalance' (despite obvious environmental explanations) and that antidepressants - possibly for life - were the solution. However both the 'chemical imbalance' notion and the medical solutions it implies, for which there has never been any evidence, are outdated and now known to be harmful. Our letter asks Dr. Steele to refrain from using information that cannot be scientifically substantiated, as doing so has serious implications for the health and well-being of the viewing audience - which may be in violation of broadcasting legislation.

America’s Sweetheart

19
Justina Pelletier, a fifteen-year-old girl from West Hartford, Connecticut, has captured the heart of the American public. Whether or not Justina Pelletier may survive her ordeal is yet to be determined. Thousands of people nationwide are praying. What is certain at this point, is that Justina is truly America's Sweetheart and she will never be forgotten.

9 Ways to Stop the Next Village Shalom Shooting

3
If you haven't heard about the Village Shalom shooting yet, it happened. This time it's my own community. So I when I list these 9 ways to stop the next Village Shalom shooting know that I speak with full love and compassion. The main thing I want to share is the real story about mental health. Emotional distress can be temporary and transformative. Recovery can mean, "All this goes away."

Psychiatric Teams Have a Responsibility to Think About the Psychosis/Sexual Abuse Link

14
In England, childhood sexual abuse (CSA) has become big news. The increasing understanding of the level of childhood sexual abuse and how this produces mental anguish has of course reached the psychosis arena, and encouraged academic study. Whilst the majority of psychiatrists continue to privilege a biological explanation of psychosis, more and more workers recognise abuse as at least a trigger if not a cause of psychosis. It's important to develop thinking points for teams struggling with, or more generally avoiding, the CSA/psychosis link.

Enslaved to Abilify

60
A very gifted and compassionate friend recently said that she feels enslaved to Abilify - that she has tried to taper off it several times but always ends up slipping into an extreme state, no matter how slow she tapers. She said this repeated experience makes her feel like a slave, because she has to go back on the drug to stop the very intense extreme state induced whenever she tries to stop taking it.

The Great Turning

27
When I first heard of the proposed “Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2013” (H.R. 3717)”, I felt relieved and thought “maybe somebody has finally got it!” However, as I read and processed the words I realized just how much Tim Murphy didn’t get it. Is this mental health system broke? Yes it is. Can it be fixed? Yes it can. But we must do it collectively and with the experience and voices of those with true lived experiences including their families and allies. I stand with millions of others who have shown through our resiliency that our movement is real, has saved lives and most of all we have people that can give voice to what really needs to be changed within the system. If only people will listen.

Historic Moment for the Right to Legal Capacity

43
On Tuesday April 8, 2014, the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities adopted its first General Comment, on Article 12 which deals with the issue of legal capacity.  It was a moment that brought tears to my eyes and I turned and hugged another woman who was crying - Raquel Jelinek from the Mexican group CONFE, which advocates for the rights of people with intellectual disabilities.  I had not expected the adoption to happen so quickly and had not expected my tears.

Regulatory Capture

11
Around the world, drug regulatory agencies spend billions of dollars engaged in activities which purport to ensure the safety, efficacy and quality of legal drugs. If the goal of regulation is to protect public health and safety, there can be no argument that it has failed. Safe drugs are not associated with annual rises in mortality and morbidity, effective drugs are not associated with increased prevalence of the conditions they are designed to treat and with greater chronicity of those conditions, quality drugs are not discovered to be contaminated with solvents months after their manufacture and release to the market. Effective regulation does not see companies repeatedly breaching standards and shrugging off sanctions.

A National Scandal: Psychological Therapies for Psychosis are Helpful, But Unavailable

43
For years, drugs were it. If you felt paranoid, heard voices or were diagnosed with schizophrenia, the only thing likely to be on offer was ‘antipsychotic’ medication. Like all drugs, these have a number of different effects on our nervous system. Some of the effects can be helpful, for example calming us down or making our experiences less intense or distressing. Others may be less desirable.

Markingson Case Supporters: Please Join Our Call-In Campaign

3
Patient advocates and bioethicists have launched a call-in campaign demanding action on psychiatric research abuse at the University of Minnesota.

Rep. McCann: Taking Away the Jury Trial is Undemocratic. (Open Letter)

14
I don't understand your recent sponsorship of a bill to remove "the option for a jury trial for a certification for either a mental health or substance misuse hold."

My Story of Benzo Withdrawal and Activism

22
My story starts in 1976. I had a nervous breakdown whilst studying for my Accountancy Technician examination. I was then prescribed a series of benzodiazepine/anti depressant drugs for 5 years. I have been campaigning for the last 28 years at local, national and international level on this public health scandal and government cover-up. The following questions need to be asked to those responsible: Why have the doctors and psychiatrists ignored the 1988 Committee on Safety of Medicines Guidelines on the prescribing of benzodiazepines? Why are the same physicians making the same mistakes with the newer drugs?

Who Cares About Kelsey?

25
I know the popular thing to do right now is rail against the Murphy Bill, and with good reason given its devastating implications. (I plan to do my fair share of railing.) Yet, I can’t ignore the less sensational tragedies of the day. Today's tragedy is a documentary that lets us know that, along with trauma, "approximately 20 percent of adolescents have a diagnosable mental health disorder." In other words, there's the trauma... and then there's the 'mental illness.' Separate and not particularly equal.

Antidepressants Make Things Worse in the Long Term

24
Antidepressants may be effective over the short term, but research is showing that treatment resistant depression has risen dramatically in the past 30 years; evidence that the drugs may be inducing chronic depression.

It’s About the Trauma: How to Truly Address the Roots of Violence and Suffering...

81
Representative Tim Murphy is a psychologist who proposes unsatisfactory solutions to our most pressing social problems. In a "shockingly regressive" piece of legislation known as the “Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act of 2013” (H.R. 3717), he proposes to expand the highly controversial practice of Involuntary Outpatient Committment (IOC) for persons with serious mental illnesses. But that approach is not the answer, as documented in a fact sheet authored by the National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery:

Important Considerations for Implementing Assisted Outpatient Treatment: A Collaborative Advocacy Agenda

44
For my entire career a vicious debate has raged about involuntary outpatient treatment largely pitting parents and clinical professionals on the pro side against consumers and rehabilitation professionals on the con side. Like it or not, packaged as Assisted Outpatient Treatment (AOT), involuntary outpatient treatment is increasingly coming to a neighborhood near you. The cornerstone of the con position has always been that even if AOT is done with the best of intentions forcing someone to do something or to change in a way they don’t want to change is inherently an assaultive thing to do. There is a large risk the coerced person will react resentfully and even aggressively in response. There is also a large risk that the people exerting power coercively will be corrupted by their power and abuse it. This damaging effect on staff who forcibly treat people is why I personally wouldn’t want to be involved in it.

Advice to the Newbies: Give Your Heart, & Hold Your Theories Lightly

4
I was recently asked to give the commencement address for Goddard College's masters program in psychology and counseling. This is what I said.

The Can Collector’s Club: Clarifying Where Mental Health Begins

9
In 1980, my father started the Can Collector’s Club (CCC). I was 2 years old. As the story goes, it was my mother’s brainchild, but dad quickly took ahold of the idea with his entrepreneurial spirit. Some people thought he had lost his mind. Some still do. But the purpose of the CCC was simple. Convince family and friends to turn aluminum cans into him so that he could use the money from recycling to support our college fund. And clean up the environment.

Justina Pelletier: The Case Continues

52
On March 25, Joseph Johnston, Juvenile Court Justice in Boston, Massachusetts, issued a disposition order in the case: Care and protection of Justina Pelletier. The background to the case is well-known. Justina is 15 years old. Judge Johnston did not return Justina to the care of her parents, but instead granted permanent custody to the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF), with a right to review in June. The disposition order is somewhat terse and sparing in its tone, but reading between the lines, it seems clear that the court has determined that Justina either does not have mitochondrial disease or that, even if she does have mitochondrial disease, her concern about this matter is inappropriate and excessive.

First They Ignore You: Impressions From Today’s Hearing on H.R. 3717

57
As I walked alone up the stairs to the Rayburn House Office Building this morning to attend the hearing of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health on H.R. 3717 - the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act - I thought about how I wasn’t truly alone. In spirit with me were all the people who had experienced scary, coercive, and dehumanizing interventions in the name of help. In spirit with me was every mental health provider who went into the field hoping to really make a difference in their communities, but became cynical and discouraged in the face of so many broken systems and broken spirits.

It’s Time For A Stronger Political Ground Game To Compete With NAMI & Company...

125
The seemingly unstoppable political alliance made up of NAMI, the American Psychiatric Association (which represents 24,000 psychiatrists), the financial lobbying power of the corporate drug industry, and a chorus of fear-mongering politicians, achieved a great political victory this week when president Obama signed the Medicaid DocFix legislation into law.

Legislator’s Rush to Implement Increased Mental Health Services Based on No Data from Shooting...

45
The rush to institute increased mental health services in Connecticut, initiated in response to the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary, is troubling for a number of reasons. The most obvious problem with the rush to legislate costly mental health services, based on the horrific events at Newtown, is that there is no publicly available data to support the need for increased services. In fact, anyone reviewing the limited number of records available would agree that Adam Lanza was not a child who fell through the cracks of mental health services. On the contrary, it appears that Lanza received the best mental health treatment money could buy. The question that one cannot help but ask is, if Lanza received the best mental health could offer, did that mental health "treatment" contribute to Lanza's violent behavior? Let me explain.

Murphy Bill: Violates Civil Rights, Increases Government Intrusion and Control, and Ignores Scientific Research

18
HR 3717, authored by Congressman Tim Murphy, has been introduced in response to mounting concerns about the treatment of persons with mental health challenges. It is universally recognized that improvements are needed in the mental health system. Unfortunately, HR 3717 will have serious unintended consequences.