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Part of what has scared me straight about ever starting a patient on an antidepressant (or antipsychotic or mood stabilizer) again is bearing witness to the incredible havoc that medication discontinuation can wreak. I am half way through the first e-course of its kind (on withdrawing from psych meds), and it has been incredibly well-received. There are so many people out there, disenfranchised by psychiatry, skeptical of its promises, and who want a better way, a more thoughtful assessment of them as whole persons. We seem to be onto something here, so let’s keep the dialogue flowing, keep our eyes wide open, and reform what psychiatry means, one patient at a time.

eCPR is a public health education program designed to teach people to assist others through emotional crisis through three steps: C = connecting, P = emPowering, and R = revitalizing. eCPR recognizes that the experiences of trauma, emotional crisis, and emotional distress are universal; they can happen to anyone, at anytime, anywhere.

This article is about my testimony at the Massachusetts State House hearings on September 10, 2013 supporting legal reform of rights of patients in mental hospitals in Massachusetts. The state Legislature’s Committee on Mental Health & Substance Abuse heard testimony on a proposed bill, House Bill #1806, guaranteeing patients in mental hospitals the right to get outside for fresh air breaks every day, and in the same bill is a proposal to put “teeth” into a weak existing law by strengthening enforcement powers to protect rights already granted people in hospitals. These rights may be unique to Massachusetts. It was hard to get them.

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."

If the US wishes to maintain its reputation as a leader in the field of disability rights, it is not enough to assist other countries in building ramps and developing accessible technology. Those are laudable aims but are at best half of what the CRPD requires. There is a new world in disability rights, and the US risks being left behind unless there is a reversal of course that commits to full domestic implementation in compliance with standards that have been set by the international community with US participation.

A colleague and I have been tracking individuals who elect to reduce their dose of neuroleptic drug. The two year results are presented here.

Through the act of deep listening to personal stories of distress and healing, I have become convinced that even the most well-meaning mental health professionals are persistently asking the wrong questions. We are operating within a system that prizes the stability, conformity, and sedation of persons with experiences too unusual or too "disruptive" to social norms. It is a system that asks the question, "What is wrong with you?" and it is a system that defines "fixing" the problem as managing symptoms so that people aren't a bother (financially, logistically, and socially) to other people.

I learned a lot about the meaning of community in Senegal, West Africa where I lived for a few years. One day while I was still learning to speak Mandinka, the language of my village, I asked “How do I say, I am going running (alone, by myself)?” It was explained to me that there was no word for "alone" in Mandinka.

In the face of concerns that large numbers of children were being incorrectly diagnosed with pediatric bipolar disorder, the DSM–V introduced Disruptive Mood Dysregulation Disorder (DMDD). In the scramble by drug companies to produce evidence that their drug should be prescribed to this new population of mentally ill children, the manufacturer of Risperidone paid to test their drug on a group of children. The study does not investigate whether treatment with Risperidone has any therapeutic benefit to the children, whether it cures or treats DMDD or ‘rage outbursts.’ It is quite open that Risperidone is being trialled for its efficacy as a chemical restraint.

In recent months the English pharmaceutical company GlaxoSmithKline (GSK) has assiduously portrayed itself as an advocate of transparency, and in support of access to clinical trial data. Well, in support of "Responsible Access." "Responsible" here essentially means that a researcher commits to the primacy of RCTs and statistical significance over an analysis of adverse events. It would not, for example, be responsible to claim that an SSRI causes suicide, a statin muscle damage or cognitive failure, or hypoglycemics cause hypoglycemia unless a trial has shown this to happen to a Statistically Significant extent – and they never do.

The historic divide between the “respectable” vs. the “renegades” is the subject of historian Thaddeus Russell’s A Renegade History of the United States, which argues that when renegade groups gain civil rights and social acceptability, they lose their renegade culture. How do psychiatric survivors, mad priders, and those with lived experience of alternate consciousness fit into the tradition of Russell’s historic renegades?

When I lived in Massachusetts I taught yoga and led writing groups for alternative mental health communities. While the organizations I worked for were alternative, many of the students and participants were heavily drugged with psychiatric pharmaceuticals. There was one skinny teenager I'd never have forgotten who listed the drugs he was on for me once in the yoga room after class: a long list of stimulants, neuroleptics, moods stabilizers; far too many drugs and classes of drugs to remember. I was at the housewarming party of an old friend, and who should walk in but that boy who used to come to my yoga classes and writing groups religiously. And he was no longer a boy; he was now a young man. “I'm thinking yoga teacher,” he said. I nodded. Did he remember where? “I'm not stupid,” he said, as if reading my mind. “I'm not on drugs anymore. I'm not stupid anymore.”

On the 7th of November, Robert Whitaker was here in Copenhagen to officially launch the Danish translation of his book, . While we were celebrating the day, in another part of Denmark, psychiatry was preparing its attack. A professor of psychiatry Poul Videbech, one of our finest, specializing in depression with a particular emphasis on electroshock, was busy writing a review. The title of his review is “The Boy Has No Clothes On” and as you can imagine with such a title, the review is hardly going to be favorable, indeed it smacks of condescending paternalism framing the well-worn scenario for establishing psychiatric supremacy.

Kingsley Hall was the first of Laing’s household communities that served as a place where you could live through madness until you could get it together and live independently. It was conceived as an “asylum” from forms of treatment — psychiatric or otherwise — that many were convinced were not helpful, and even contributed to their difficulties. By the time I arrived in London in 1973 to study with Laing there were four or five such places. Getting in wasn’t easy.

The November 5 hearing on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations reached new heights of absurdity and opens new ground for concern. It may be worse for us to ratify with the reservations, understandings and declarations (RUDs) being proposed, and with the legislative record that is being created for the specific purpose of rejecting any application of the treaty's standards to US law than not to ratify at all. All the proponents of CRPD ratification who are allowed a voice in these discussions are in agreement that the US ratification is aimed ONLY at giving the US greater influence over other countries and over the development of customary international law, and NOT at improving the enjoyment of human rights by persons with disabilities in the US itself.

On 25 October 2013, the World Health Organization issued a press release promoting guidelines produced by the Patient-Reported Outcomes Safety Event Reporting (PROSPER) Consortium. The consortium aimed to “to improve [drug] safety reporting by better incorporating the perspective of the patient” with the aim of the guidance produced “to ensure that the patient ‘voice’ and perspective feed appropriately into collection of safety data.” Rather than 'quietly protecting the health of every person on this planet, every day' it seems clear that WHO is quietly protecting the interests of pharmaceutical companies and their advisors on planet 'profit from patients', every day.

The World Health Organisation was established in 1945 to provide leadership on global health matters. According to its Director General Dr Margaret Chan, it...

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.

It was an awesome experience to give a TEDx Talk at my old school, because, frankly, it was an acknowledgement by an elite institution that I've done something in my life worth listening to. I hope you appreciate my talk and share it with others. So many people who are affected by the mental health system in North America today have no idea how much the rise of the DSM and biopsychiatry has to do with the Reagan era and neoliberal economic policies that reshaped the whole language and culture of mental health. It's like a bulldozed neighborhood with shiny new buildings, after a while people forget how they got there and they just seem "normal."

Many months ago I wrote a guest piece on Mad In America entitled, “Corrections Officers, Not Clinicians.” And since that time I have walked away from that job because of the irreconcilable conflicts between its mission and my own heart. I have become convinced that, as an institution, the public mental health system of the United States is a disaster. There are always individuals within any system who are doing noble, beautiful things - For me, one part of my path toward healing included the connection I made with a therapist - But that doesn’t absolve us of the responsibility to confront institutional norms that are oppressive and dehumanizing.

GSK's continued failure to provide true transparency flies in the face of what the overwhelming majority of people signing consent forms probably intend - which is to make their data available for scrutiny by independent experts. If those who participate in trials thought some remote risk of a breach of privacy were being used to prevent disclosure of details that would save someone else's life - but threaten GSK's profits - most of us would likely be horrified.

Whenever I write or speak publicly, I feel compelled to frame cutting, burning and hitting myself as something I used to do. I don’t actually outright say I’ve stopped, but I use the past tense and thus I suspect most hear it as implied. Somehow, the pressure to appear outwardly ‘all better’ in that way still seems big. Self-injury (of that type) ranks pretty high up there on an awful lot of people’s scary meters. Just saying you are someone who has ever done that sort of thing seems disconcerting enough for most.

This blog was prompted by an invitation to do a guest post on the site of one of my favorite bloggers, 1 Boring Old Man. This is my response to the notion that there are certain conditions - Schizophrenia among them - that correspond more directly to biomedical conditions

Anoiksis (the Dutch association of and for people with a psychotic vulnerability) has introduced a new name for the disease schizophrenia: Psychosis Susceptibility Syndrome (PSS). Together with the old name, its attached prejudices, misleading significance and stigma can be thrown overboard.

When I pick up a pen, I put down my fear. Sorry, they don't both fit into my hand at once. Meditation teachers often say the hardest part is getting to the cushion. The hardest part of writing is probably picking up the pen. So, pick up a pen, I dare you. Write even if you think no one will read it, even if you don't want anyone to read it.