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Bright, white light pours into my eyes, which have opened themselves slowly.  I clench them closed again, hoping to push the light out.  For...

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

Everyone in the world is either touched by their own mental health issues or have had a family member affected. What if they directed their buying power to an organization that would use the profits to fund exciting mental health & recovery projects both in the developing world and in their own countries; projects that would be ethical, non-coercive, personal recovery-based, and were aimed at creating recovery communities? What if they could buy products, crafts, services, art, music, books from people who had experienced mental health issues, enabling them to set up their own businesses or buy from social co-operatives that enabled distressed people to work and earn a living wage?

It is with great satisfaction and great hope that we are launching our Mad in Brasil website. Ours will be a collaborative effort. We look forward to being part of a global effort that will succeed in creating a new paradigm of care, one that will promote true robust recovery from psychiatric crises.

Teenage boys and young men tell me they have no hope that school shootings will decrease because all they hear in the news are authorities’ ideas about how better to control them. They are angered by compulsory mental health screenings and are certain that the effect on kids with greater potential for violence could be disastrous.

After a number of years with a steadily increasing sales curve, the number of children and adolescents in treatment with depression pills decreased by 41% in Denmark. Despite this welcome development, pharmaceutical companies and psychiatry professors continue to deceive the population and deny the facts about these drugs.

On October 1st the Connecticut State Legislature’s reactionary response to the tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary school went into effect. Public Act No. 13-3 requires all people that voluntarily admit to a hospital for mental health reasons (not solely for drug or alcohol treatment) have their names placed in a database administered by the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services - for the purpose of automatic suspension of Second Amendment rights.

I am being asked by a number of grassroots communities to facilitate a dialogue about how they can better welcome and support individuals who experience emotional distress. This is a challenge for many aspiring peers and allies in a culture where responsibility for our individual well-being has been increasingly transferred to psychiatrists, doctors, and other health professionals.

The other day I talked to a friend who I hadn’t seen for quite a while. She told me that she had been prescribed Seroquel for sleep problems about a year ago. But when she started to read about it a couple months ago she got really nervous that it was causing her long term health complications and she stopped taking it - cold turkey - without tapering. I wondered about our conversation afterwards and thought about the countless amount of people who don’t tolerate their psychiatric meds and quit cold turkey.

Families are often very important for people encountering severe mental and emotional difficulties. But how can family members really know what is helpful, and what is likely to make things worse for the person having problems? Similarly, for those who want to help families, how can they know what will really be helpful for those families, and what will make things worse?

The latest endorsement of claims from research on twins reared apart comes from cancer physician and researcher Siddhartha Mukherjee, who published an article in the May 2, 2016 edition of The New Yorker entitled “Same but Different: How Epigenetics can Blur the Line between Nature and Nurture.” Mukherjee is an influential author due to his medical credentials, accessible writing style, promotion by the mainstream media, and award-winning book. Unfortunately, Mukherjee is only one of many authoritative authors to misreport the methods and findings of human genetic research.

There are few around Mad in America territory who would argue against the dangers of the National Alliance for Mental Illness. But as a movement, we often fail to recognize the dangers of their much younger sibling named ‘Autism Speaks’.

My personal struggle to stop my friend’s court-ordered psychiatric deterioration has reached the US Supreme Court.

What does it tell us about the current state of psychiatry when some of the biggest names in the psychiatric establishment are now distancing themselves from psychiatry’s diagnostic system and its treatments? The institution of psychiatry has become corrupted by Big Pharma to such a degree that it has become, even to the mainstream media, so obviously ridiculous and so dangerously insane that politically astute psychiatrists are trying to separate themselves from their institution.

As all of you on Mad in America are aware, being labeled with a mental disorder can be devastating. However, for a few of us, we immediately recognized our “disorder” as a breakthrough – a re-ordering of the psyche, if you will. As it turns out, in most cases where this re-ordering takes place, there tends to be a very powerful “spiritual” component. Now, the word “spiritual” is a very broad term that is interpreted in many different ways, so let me be more specific.

Sometimes as a journalist one thing leads to another and you suddenly find yourself going down a dark rabbit hole that you hadn’t planned to visit. That’s what happened to me recently when I was writing a piece about how the Veterans Administration’s mental health system and the military in general were failing women in need of care following sexual assault. Retaliation is rampant in the military against those who tell the truth about what happens to victims of abuse, with pseudo-psychiatric diagnoses like “Borderline Personality Disorder” often used to damage or end a victim’s career.

Opioids are now the leading cause of mortality from overdose, accounting for 91 deaths every day. The context and key players that created and contributed to the opioid epidemic must be brought into sharp focus if we are to have any hope of stemming the tide of this public health crisis.

I was invited to give a Keynote Address at the 2012 Alternatives Conference in Portland Oregon, and I'm collecting your input on what I should...

So many kind and thoughtful parents are trying so hard to simply have a lovingly positive impact on their child, only to see the child slip further and further into the realm of being “challenging.” This is so prevalent, even among the best and brightest parents. Diagnosis: difficult child behavior comprises a quiet epidemic - the kind that brings so many to their knees. Let this article bring you hope and be the medicine that cures your family.

A response to the thought-provoking comments and concerns on the previous blog, furthering the discussion about disability and mental disorder.

As I write this, my daughter is 18 months old. She operates 24-hours-per-day, 7-days-a-week under a baby’s natural assumption that she is loved and accepted exactly for her. She throws her whole self at you with complete faith that you’ll not only want to catch her, but be delighted to do so. She flashes her round belly, expecting those around her will fight for the privilege to kiss or blow on or tickle it. Any sign that you are questioning her wants and needs leads to shock expressed with wild abandon and never self-recrimination.

On February 24th, 2016 Bill HD4554 - An Act relative to benzodiazepines and non-benzodiazepine hypnotics was filed by Representative Paul McMurtry in the Massachusetts State House. The bill received 47 co-sponsors during the seven-day open period in which legislators can co-sponsor. This is an impressive and promising turnout.

I am The Invisible Woman. A woman with a nice enough bag, a calm demeanor, and well-put-together clothes (they are not “odd,” they attract no attention). You might see me walking my dog near where I live, smiling at my neighbors, making small talk. People make all sorts of comments to me about the crazies. It never occurs to them that I might be among this so-called population.

For those of you who haven't read it, I published a blog post called, 'Too Much Pies,' on Mad in America on Wednesday, April 10th.  The post included an invitation to psychiatrist Ronald Pies (who caught the interest of many when he wrote a letter to the New York Times about psychiatric diagnosis) to a real dialogue, not limited by number of words, frequency of reply or professional licensure. I copied the letter directly to Mr. Pies, not knowing if he would reply.  On Thursday, April 11th I received a direct reply that Mr. Pies has authorized me to repost here.  I am also including my response to him.

An NBC online News article dated October 15, 2010, carried the noteworthy title New blood test may help detect schizophrenia. The article was written by Natasha Allen, a freelance medical journalist. The gist of the article is that there is a new blood test called VeriPsych which "researchers say" is 83% accurate in discriminating people who are "schizophrenic" from people who are not.