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).

Deconstructing Psychiatric Diagnoses: An Attempt At Humor

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Based on my experience both as a therapist and client in the mental health field, I have learned that when therapists or psychiatrists give you the following diagnoses all too often here is what they really mean:

Forced Treatment Ineffective: Advocacy Essential

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Most Americans would agree that we have problem with mental health in this country, but what many do not know when they consider that people who are in distress are not getting the help they need is that hospitals in this country are not giving people a choice when they are in the most need. This is based on laws that currently exist in 45 US States, which allow individuals to be petitioned into an inpatient psychiatric unit against their will if they are deemed to be a “danger to themselves or others.” I have worked for 3.5 years as a Peer Support Specialist within my local public mental health system, where I see this happen to the individuals I serve, on a regular basis. I myself have been forced.

The Science and Pseudoscience of Children’s Mental Health

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Over the past two decades, there has been a meteoric rise in the number of children – now estimated to be 1 in 6 – diagnosed and treated for a range of psychological disturbances including ADHD, autism, mood disorders, and learning disabilities. Explanations in the popular media tend to polarize around two viewpoints. The truth is, neither of these perspectives tell the whole story. Without question, some children are diagnosed unnecessarily because their behavior is inconvenient to the adult world.

Top Psychiatrist’s Stunning Announcement About Gun Violence

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After each highly publicized gun violence incident, some lawmakers—whether with good intention, for political gain, or both—declare that we must have laws to keep guns out of the hands of people with mental illness. It is therefore stunning and profoundly important to note Sunday's blog post from the American Psychiatric Association's president, Dr. Renee Binder.

My Response to Dr. Pies’ Response

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A "little white lie" is an inconsequential falsehood, told to avoid causing embarrassment or hurt. So the question becomes: did Dr. Pies believe, or argue, that the chemical imbalance hoax was an inconsequential falsehood, designed to shield individuals from embarrassment or hurt? Of course, I have no way of knowing what Dr. Pies believes. Nor, to the best of my recollection, have I ever speculated on such matters. But I do know that he has argued that the chemical imbalance theory is an inconsequential falsehood designed to shield individuals from guilt and self-blame.
time for rain

A Time For Rain: Teaching Our Children About Sadness

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The only way out of the epidemic of feeling-people-turned-medicated-psychiatric-patients is to rebrand and reframe feeling as a cultural collective. And I believe it starts with our messaging as parents and our orientation toward shadow elements like anger and sadness. We have to model a conscious relationship to our own dark parts, and we have to show our children what it looks like to move through these spaces. Feelings can be messy, wild, and sometimes ugly to our constrained sensibilities.

Pandora’s Box

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This morning I remind myself to point my eyes forward. I tend to want to re-do the past and try to make bad things...
A photo of a dirt path through the forest in bright sunlight

Inner Fire Is the Only Place I Would Go for Emotional Distress

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At Inner Fire, people share meals, take walks, clean, and garden, learning how to live again after being disconnected from others, nature, and our authentic selves.

The Unbearable Heaviness of Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal

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Last week Matt Samet posted about a setback he’s recently had. Setbacks for me remain routine and normal. They are part of the excruciatingly non-linear process of recovery.

Is Electroconvulsive Therapy (ECT) Effective?

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ECT, or shock treatment as it's sometimes called, is a controversial topic. Adherents describe it as safe and effective; opponents condemn its use as damaging and ineffective. But it is still widely used in the US and in other countries. After shock treatment, some clients do appear to be less depressed, but this phenomenon has been interpreted differently by ECT's proponents and opponents. Proponents claim that the ECT treatments have clearly alleviated the depression. Opponents claim that the apparent improvement is an example of post-concussion euphoria, and that the effects are short-lived. My purpose in this article is to examine the evidence that ECT "is highly effective."

The Case of the Missing Schizophrenia

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This past Thursday I attended the American Psychiatric Association's Institute for Psychiatric Services in San Francisco, and then a talk by the Bay Area Mandala Project on "Providing Loving Receptivity Can Help People in Extreme States." I would like to thank both groups for the motivation to publish this — particularly as they would seem to be at odds in the reductionist "dialogue" we so often have — but really aren't so different in my mind for reasons discussed herein: Who is not "in crisis" for questioning their identity and fit within dominant paradigms?

ECT Day of Protest: Time for You to Take Leadership

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Work on the May 16 International Day of Protest Against Shock Treatment is moving right along. This spontaneously-organized, grassroots effort now includes 21 cities in 16 states, plus two each in Canada and the United Kingdom. There will also be demonstrations in Ireland, New Zealand, and Uruguay. We CAN win, and you CAN be a leader.
drug dealers

Warning to Parents: Psychiatry is How Kids Get High and Die in the USA

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Street drug dealers and stimulant-peddling doctors both get clients high and addicted for profit. So there is really no difference between what they do except that doctors are more ‘successful’ at it, since they enjoy many advantages over illicit dealers and can get away with doing it legally.

Watchdogs or Show Dogs?

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Beginning in the 1990s, a number of pharmaceutical and biotechnology companies began to set up bioethics advisory boards, ostensibly to obtain guidance about controversial ethical issues. Over the years, the ties between industry and bioethics have gradually grown closer, with companies setting up endowed chairs and hiring bioethics consultants. Yet very little is known about how bioethics advisory boards work. What exactly is their purpose? Do they prevent ethical wrongdoing, or do they provide ethical cover?

Mental Health Survival Kit, Chapter 3: Psychotherapy: The Human Approach to Emotional Pain

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Through the process of healing—whether assisted by psychotherapy or not—we learn something important that can be useful if we get in trouble again.

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

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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.

Autism, Antidepressants, and Pregnancy: The Basics

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This month, the seventh study and eighth study came out on the topic of antidepressant exposure during pregnancy and autism.  And these studies showed, as essentially all of the others have, that antidepressant use during pregnancy (principally with selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors or SSRIs) is associated with autism in the exposed children. With so many children being diagnosed with autism and so many women taking antidepressants during pregnancy, everyone wants to know: are these things (the antidepressants) associated with autism or not?  Quite frankly no one has the time to read through all eight scientific papers (and dozens more animal and basic science studies) to understand this important area, so I will do my best to briefly summarize it here.

Racism 102:  It Is Not About Colorblindness

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How do we genuinely heal from the damage of racism and internalized racism, as well as mental health oppression, adultism and all form of oppression? We can change all the laws in the land – and we have changed many laws (civil rights laws, employment laws via the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and the Americans with Disability Act laws) but that doesn’t change attitudes.

Prescribing Antidepressants for Girls: Intergenerational Adverse Consequences

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Children exposed to SSRIs during pregnancy, a recent study shows, were diagnosed with depression by age 14 at more than four times the rate of children whose mothers were diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder but did not take the medication. Such reports are usually met, appropriately, with an outpouring of reassurances from clinicians who take care of pregnant women, who need to protect their emotional wellbeing in whatever way they can. From my perspective as a pediatrician specializing in early childhood mental health our attention must be on prevention.

ï»żStory-Telling in the Age of Corporate Medicine (or more on being called an AIDS...

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As a journalist, I long have been fascinated by reporting on the storytelling forces within American medicine that create societal understanding of the merits...

Dyskinesia, Dissociation, and the Long Term Consequences of “Antipsychotic” Drugs

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I recently receive a tweet from Intervoice, that said “This is a odd research finding in my view, what do you think? http://fb.me/L9cs3NTR” Curious, I...

Coercion

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I am a psychiatrist who believes that involuntary treatment is rarely effective in the long run but I am also a psychiatrist who sometimes forces people into hospitals against their will.

The Ups and Downs of Online Therapy

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Now that the novelty has worn off and we are able to step back and analyze the situation, what does the switch to teletherapy portend for our profession?

Our Emotions – The Sole Creators of Every Word, Voice, Symbolic Image, Bodily Movement...

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The experience of hearing voices during madness, or during our "normal" and constant inner conversation that never stops, shows that we use words to...

The University of Minnesota was not Involved? Some Further Thoughts on the “Corrective...

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The suicide of Dan Markingson at the University of Minnesota has brought notoriety to the CAFÉ study and its site investigators, Stephen Olson and Charles Schulz. But the “corrective action” recently issued by the Minnesota Board of Social Work against the CAFÉ study coordinator, Jean Kenney, has raised another disturbing question.