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Naturally we human beings want to move from not knowing to knowledge. We want to move from not knowing how to cure a disease to finding a cure for that disease. But this natural desire to know things ought not make us believe that we know something when we do not yet know it. This is the case for what, for a given individual, may be his most important personal problem: his emotional health. We do not know much about “what goes on” inside human beings. Nor may we ever. This is perhaps the largest “not knowing” that confronts our species and maybe also the hardest one to swallow.

I competed in the 1996 Olympics in Judo. I also achieved complete mental health recovery from 12 psychiatric diagnoses and 29 psychiatric medication. I've also now mostly recovered from a traumatic brain injury, which probably was exacerbated by a lifetime of contact sports, ten years of psych meds before I learned about mental health recovery, and seven shock treatments, that are totally ineffective at promoting mental health recovery.

If you're on psychiatric drugs or you're a psychiatric survivor, chances are others told your story for you in their words. Like it or not (I hope you like it), you're going to have to retell your story in your own words, in your own way. If you choose to do this through blogging, social media, video or any other digital approaches, having your story read, seen and/or viewed by many could be very satisfying. You may not be ready to share it so publicly yet, but once you are, there are some tools to get your story out there to the masses.

An important study was headlined on MIA this week. The study examined the effectiveness of cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) to treat the symptoms of people labeled with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and related conditions who had elected to not take neuroleptic drugs.

In 2006 I undertook a neuropsychology placement during my Clinical Psychology Doctoral training course. It was in a community brain injury service. I had the fortunate experience of undertaking not only neuropsychological assessments, but also therapeutic interventions and service projects. My eyes were opened in a very positive way. Things suddenly made sense; psychology, interactions, life, all became much clearer. I now understood that we are all unique, not only because of our experiences and views on life, but because of our neurocircuitry. I began to see how our unique cognitive profiles make us who we are.

For most parents, addressing the topic of death is an uncomfortable proposition. Yet, it may be one of the most important discussions we have with our children.  Our lifelong response to death often affects our mental and physical health.  We must teach our children practices from an early age that can buffer the unavoidable distress that would come if the worst occurs.

Since I am new on Mad in America, I will tell you; my mission is to debunk the ADHD diagnosis. My goal is to add common sense to a world where drugging kids for acting like kids is all the rage. When discussing ADHD with concerned adults I share how little is required to earn a diagnosis of ADHD. Learning just how non-scientific the diagnosis actually is, for many, is a shocking discovery.

Julia has received a lot of media attention in the last few days as a result of her blinded RCT published in a prominent journal, the British Journal of Psychiatry, showing that micronutrients were better than placebo at improving ADHD and mood symptoms in adults. But what interests us far more is the amount of public emails we get as a result of this work. And the theme running through almost every email is that the child/adult/husband/wife has tried all kinds of medications and the symptoms are still there and, often, getting worse. Could the micronutrients help?

The Movement for Global Mental Health's objective is to ensure that people living in low- and middle-income countries have access to the best and most effective modern psychiatric drugs and therapies. In pursuing these objectives it assumes that to do so is a neutral project beyond political concerns. China Mills’ book Decolonizing Global Mental Health challenges this view.

The mission of Mad in America’s International Film Festival is rooted in a commitment to human rights and social justice, and our intention is to tell the evolving story of psychiatry over the past century, and to present films that question our current mental health system and highlight past and present-day alternatives.

On January 27 I posted a blog, Maternal Attachment in Infancy and Adult Mental Health, on my website Behaviorism and Mental Health. In this article I reviewed a longitudinal study by Fan et al.  The main finding of the study was: “Infants who experience unsupportive maternal behavior at 8 months have an increased risk for developing psychological sequelae later in life.”

In 2009, my friend Leonie’s 22-year-old son Shane killed himself and another young man after taking Citalopram for 17 days. Eighteen days after Shane’s death, Psychiatrist Dr Michael Corry publicly stated his view that he could not have done what he did had he not been on Citalopram. Initially Leonie admits to thinking he was mad. How could medicine prescribed by a doctor have anything to do with what had happened to her son?

A great American passed away the other day. Ordinarily, I never indulge in such chauvinism, but how else can you describe Pete Seeger? Who else has contributed as much to the country’s emotional and spiritual well-being?

At the Nordic Cochrane Centre, we have researched antidepressants for several years and I have long wondered why leading professors of psychiatry base their practice on a number of erroneous myths. These myths are harmful to patients. Many psychiatrists are well aware that the myths do not hold and have told me so, but they don’t dare deviate from the official positions because of career concerns. Being a specialist in internal medicince, I don’t risk ruining my career by incurring the professors’ wrath and I shall try here to come to the rescue of the many conscientious but oppressed psychiatrists and patients by listing the worst myths and explain why they are harmful.

A little over a year ago, there was consternation in psychiatric circles as a French psychiatrist, Daniele Canarelli was found guilty after her patient hacked a man to death. She had not recogized the hazard he posed. Doctors didn’t like the implications they saw. In a series of lectures I have raised the question as to how long it might be before doctors would be found guilty for a suicide or homicide linked to an antidepressant, given that we have known that these drugs can cause suicide or homicide for over 50 years.

The point of this post is to bring your attention to the writings of some fellow bloggers, particularly 1 Boring Old Man (1BOM). For the past 6 months , but particularly in the past month, he has brought attention to a conflict of interest with David Kupfer, the head of the APA's DSM-5 task force.

In recent weeks I have taken part in some very powerful meetings at my work place, the Family Care Foundation. By "powerful" I mean that they have been both moving and demanding, Many people who did not know about us before seeing Daniel Mackler´s movie, Healing Homes, have contacted the Family Care Foundation looking for a place where it is possible to get off pharmaceuticals, and to be supported. Even more importantly, they are longing for a place where they are met as a human being, amongst other human beings.

Hello and welcome to my inaugural blog! It's an honor to join the insightful and talented team of writers at Mad in America. This exciting opportunity is the perfect complement to my efforts to help kids worldwide live childhood drug-free.

In 1972, prisoners at Holmesburg Prison in Philadelphia were paid $3 to have their eyes held open with clamps and hooks while Johnson & Johnson's baby shampoo was dropped into them. In 2011, mothers of newborns were arrested when their babies tested positive for exposure to cannabis, a false result caused by the use of Johnson & Johnson’s Head-to-Toe Foaming Baby Wash. Young men have undergone mastectomies to remove breasts grown as a result of Johnson & Johnson antipsychotics, which were used as a result of Johnson & Johnson's criminal promotion of its drugs for off-label purposes. And now, Johnson & Johnson has announced the removal of carcinogenic chemicals from their No More Tears baby shampoo.

Justina Pelletier has been moved from Boston Children's Hospital to another psychiatric facility, but her ultimate fate, and perhaps her very survival, is still in doubt. The next hearing about her custody is scheduled for February 4. Another hearing, about the dysfunctional Department of Children and Families, who removed the child from her parents and placed her on a psychiatric ward for the past year, is scheduled for January 23, and I encourage readers to attend both hearings.

Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr said that “of all the forms of inequality, injustice in healthcare is the most shocking and inhumane.” For those of us diagnosed with mental illnesses and our families and loved ones, we know all to well the effects of these inequalities from personal and first hand experiences. For those of us like me, we also know of the extreme health and mental health disparities that exist within our communities of color.

In the last 30 years, acupuncture and Chinese medicine have become increasingly popular as a modality for helping people not only with health concerns but also with emotional distress and addictions issues.  Acupuncture has been especially helpful for people who are detoxing from drugs and alcohol as well as those who have experienced a high degree of trauma, such as returning military veterans.  One of the most innovative and wide spread ways of helping this population is through something known as the five needle protocol, or the NADA protocol.

After majoring in psychology in college, I entered medical school in 1986 with a strong interest in psychiatry. While in medical school, I was exposed to the subspecialty of child psychiatry, and was very attracted to the idea of making a difference in the lives of vulnerable youth. Child Psychiatrists were experts in understanding normal development through the life cycle. This was particularly fascinating to me and I believed that it would be personally meaningful and fun to work with children. During this time, child psychiatrists often directly provided individual psychotherapy and family therapy to their patients. The use of psychotropic medications in children was not typically a first line treatment.

Now that biological psychiatry has been discredited, I am championing a pro-suffering cultural shift. It is time to stop pretending that, with the assistance of hoped-for medical "miracles," we can eliminate everything we are afraid of. It is time that we get over ourselves and appreciate that a full existence as humans is fleeting and full of pain, suffering . . . and beauty.

Does antidepressant use during pregnancy lead to autism in the exposed children? This is a very important question, which new research is beginning to address—and the findings are concerning.