Blogs

In Part 2: The Values and ethics of WRAP, I describe the Values and eThics that have evolved around the Wellness Recovery Action Plan.

After filling with anger from listening to parents' testimony to the Connecticut General Assembly for hours, I realized: Parents believe what they are told and what society believes – that certain emotional experiences are signs of a disease that needs to be treated like other medical illnesses. The reality is that those parents want exactly what I want – for our children to be happy. We owe it to our communities to channel the voices of parents who feel that all the system offers children is diagnoses and drugs.

When a woman has a history of severe and relapsing mental illness, but is stable on her current treatment, and is planning a pregnancy or is postpartum, what is the best course of action for her and her baby?

In answer to the question posed in the title to this article, probably not for a long, long time. Or perhaps more accurately, when...

Mahatma Gandhi said "If I have the belief that I can do it, I shall surely acquire the capacity to do it even if I may not have it at the beginning." That is certainly how recovering from the heinousness of the iatrogenic injury of psychiatric drug withdrawal syndrome has worked for me!! -- my unrelenting determination to find a way through the maze of autonomic nervous system chaos has, indeed, brought me many gifts and continued healing . . . and it's not done yet!

Les Ruthven addresses the research showing that psychiatric hospitalization increases suicidality.

Earlier today, Matthew Cohen announced the launch of Mad in America’s directory of providers who support psychiatric drug withdrawal.  Many thanks to him for...

I recently read Rachel Waddingham’s excellent post (Me & the Meds: The Story of a Dysfunctional Relationship) on how she eventually managed to get off meds and take control of her hallucinations. This particular piece struck home with me because it illustrates that the biggest problem with the direction psychiatry has taken in the past fifty years is not the meds (acknowledging that meds are a big problem) but the refusal to deal with the obvious: Hallucinations.

The market for psychiatric drugs is, of course,  booming. In 2011, spending on psychiatric medications can expect to top $40 billion. Yet, in spite...

David Romprey walked up to me one day when I was in the middle of planning the next new 16-bed facility in a community setting for people who were in our state hospitals in Oregon. Progress was in the making. He asked why I called these places 16-“bed” facilities. Answering matter-of-factly what seemed obvious, I replied that these residences, nicely furnished in pleasant neighborhoods, had 16 beds. Looking me straight in the eye, as he always did, David asked me, “Do you think we’re lying around prostrate all the time?”

We spend a lot of time writing about knowledge dissemination in mental health, and over time, have increasingly recognized the important role of science...

I believe the question of whether to medicate or not cannot be kept separate from the question of whether or not to consider individuals...

Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD) has become the province of geneticists, neuropsychologists, and physicians. The prevailing view is that ADHD behaviors are caused by a neurobiological delay and that treatment must include medication and stringent management. While this general attitude may continue to prosper, there is increasing concern that we are proposing the existence of a medical problem when there are no biological markers or dysfunctions that reliably correspond with the behavioral criteria. It is vital that we more closely examine traditional beliefs about ADHD and review the shortcomings of commonly used treatments.

Note: This post originally appeared on August 18, 2014 on dxsummit.org. On August 5 and 6, 2014, a group of roughly twenty persons met in Washington, DC...

All the media hubbub surrounding the recent publication of the RAISE study has been somewhat confusing. A sampler of headlines includes; Game Changer? (HuffPo); New Approach Advised to Treat Schizophrenia (New York Times); New York Times Issues Correction on RAISE Study Report; Landmark Study Recommends More Therapy, etc… What is one to make of all the fanfare and conflicting commentary?

Soon after awakening to my crisis of ‘self’, I was sent to my first therapist. My social circles had changed, and I’d begun to...

In 2000 when I gave a lecture on "Psychopharmacology and the Government of the Self" at the invitation of the University of Toronto, I ran into a problem.  In the public domain our shared difficulties were because of this lecture.  In fact, the difficulties stemmed from a member of the Establishment – Charlie Nemeroff – who put the frighteners on the U of T about hiring Healy. 'The psychopharmacology establishment in the face of adverse effects from drugs' is the same as 'the medical establishment in the face of treatment-related adverse effects' is the same as 'the British establishment in the face of allegations of paedophilia and child abuse' is the same as 'the Vatican in the face of allegations of abuse.' It’s about power.  We have it – you don’t.  Get lost.

I’ve been working steadily on Cracked Open, a book that chronicles my experience being a mother suffering terrible insomnia to a mother desperately dependent on benzodiazepines. I am not alone. I live in a state that ranks at the top for anti-depressant and anti-anxiety meds and we love to give them to women. But I’m not writing this book simply for mothers or for women. I’m writing it for anyone who has gone into a doctor’s office, desperate and sick, and come out with a prescription that led them down a path to illness and/or disability. It happens so often.

Autism rates are on the rise, with the latest report from the US Centers for Disease Control showing 1 in 50 children to be affected.  Prozac, the first of the SSRI antidepressants, was launched in 1987 and sales have risen since then. Estimates are that up to 13% of US pregnancies are exposed (or around 500,000 US pregnancies per year). Available scientific data from animal and human studies raise serious concerns that exposure to SSRIs during pregnancy damages the developing brain and may cause neurodevelopmental abnormalities, including autism.

Today we launch our brand new culture section where you can find tips on books and films related to mental health issues, and which contribute to the critical review of the current health paradigm in the psychiatric field. The page also has its own section for poetry.

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.

This is a memorial to my friend Ken Braiterman who was a long time member of the mental health civil rights movement. He was a best friend/ally/coworker/enemy of David Hilton, who lost his life to mental health civil rights battles. Ken wrote a great series of posts about David's struggle with advocacy.

When a foster youth encounters a Psychiatrist, chances are high that s/he will get medicated. Traumatized foster youth are often prescribed powerful psychotropics due to exhibiting a wide variety of “normal reactions to abnormal events,” such as despair, agitation, anxiety and self-harm. The practice has been well documented; foster children are prescribed psychotropics at a 2.7 to 4.5 times higher rate than non-foster youth. The National Center for Youth Law aptly summarizes the problem as; too many (25% of foster youth medicated), too soon (300 children under the age of 5 in California are given psychotropics annually) too much (adult dosages) and for too long (no planning or reviews for possible discontinuation).

Ever since critics began asking questions about the death of Dan Markinson in a clinical trial at the University of Minnesota, the General Counsel for the university, Mark Rotenberg, has responded with a uniform message: the case has already been investigated many times, and no wrongdoing has ever been found. That's how Rotenberg responded to my article about the case in Mother Jones, and that's how he responded last week to the news that the Board of Social Work had issued a “corrective action” to the study coordinator for the clinical trial in which Markingson died.

In the BMJ this week there is a debate about the antidepressants. On the “Yes, The antidepressants are overprescribed” side is Des Spence. This is hardly a new debate and Des Spence makes a good case for the overuse of the antidepressants, but what caught our eye was the response by Adrian Preda, and his discussion about the findings of Irving Kirsch.