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).

Psychiatric Diagnoses:  Labels, Not Explanations

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It has long been my contention that psychiatric "diagnoses" have no explanatory value, and in fact constitute nothing more than vague, unreliable re-labeling of the presenting problems. The only evidence for the so-called illness is the very behavior that it purports to explain. There is nothing more to it than that. Psychiatry consistently fails to respond to this particular criticism, and with equal consistency presents these labels as if they did have explanatory value.

Is Listening the Key to Living?

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We have silenced voices that need to speak. An epidemic of pill-pushing over the past 40 years has not repaired us, brought us closer together or happier and it certainly hasn’t cured us of any mass delusions. In fact it’s given us all new delusions to contend with, ones that are easy to spot if our minds and hearts are set on progress.

Will US Agency New Head End Stonewalling About Money for Involuntary Outpatient Mental Health?

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Hopefully, one of the first actions Dr. Delphin-Rittmon takes at SAMHSA will be ending the stonewalling about support for involuntary mental health care.

The Sunrise Center: A Place For Adults To Recover From Psychiatric Drugs

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Many people now using psychiatric drugs have been convinced or forced to use them while being treated in the mental health system. A good number of people are eager to stop using these drugs, but are often discouraged by others from doing so. Many psychiatric survivors believe that they can never stop using these drugs because they were told they would need to use them the rest of their lives. We hope the Sunrise Center will become a catalyst for a movement of people creating places for people who want to stop using psychiatric drugs.

With the Launch of Mad in Denmark, a Global Network for Radical Change Grows...

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Mad in Denmark, which is newly launched, is the 11th affiliate in the MIA network, and three others are expected to launch later this year.

Sweeping Benzos Under the Carpet

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Being an ex-accountant I am always interested in figures (not to mention that prescribed benzodiazepine drug addiction has played such a major part in my life). According to a yearly booklet released by the Home Office in the UK, benzodiazepine drugs accounted for more deaths than ALL the so-called hard drugs put together.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

How Should We Think About Mental States? The Contribution of Wittgenstein

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The important point that Wittgenstein makes is that mental states, including mental disorders like depression or psychosis, are not just private events — we understand them through the public expressions by which they are manifested.

2023 in Review: A Paradigm Shift Is Underway

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Our growing community is eager to change the narrative of psychiatry. And that is how paradigm shifts occur: the collective voice for radical change grows ever louder.

SAMHSA, Alternatives, and the Story of an Opportunity Lost

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In the last chapter of my book Anatomy of an Epidemic, I noted that if our society is going to stem the epidemic of...
introverted

I’m Introverted, Not Depressed!

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Urging introverts to act more extroverted as a pathway to greater life satisfaction is wrongheaded. Elizabeth's case is one where the demoralization and despondency she experiences—forced to sacrifice her needs as an introvert to comply with the social scripts required to live in an extroverted world—masquerades as depression.

April 30, 2011

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Bob-- I have found that many patients, and even many physicians, don't appreciate the basic differences between psychology and psychiatry. For most of your readers,...

Culturally Numb

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Experiencing emotional pain is a necessary part of life. Emotional pain often contains valuable lessons to help us on our journeys. We need to make sure we are not numbing our hearts to those that are hurting. We need to de-stigmatize the struggles, joys and pains that come with being human. We need to not just mindlessly pursue happiness - though we might think of that as an inalienable right - and avoid pain. We need to do the only thing that brings true joy: embrace all of life and each other, as we experience together all that makes us human.

From Protesting to Taking Over: Using Education to Change Mental Health Care

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As we develop critical awareness about the mental health “treatments” that don’t work and that often make things much worse, the question inevitably comes up, what can those who want to be helpful be doing instead?
Photograph of Free Britney rallygoers holding signs in front of the White House in DC

#FreeBritney Takes the Capitol: Rallygoers Seek Momentum for Guardianship Reform

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Members and supporters of Free Britney America staged their third demonstration so far this year in Washington, DC, in support of ending conservatorships.

Big Brother Is Watching: Children and Older Adults, Part I

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If involuntary outpatient commitment, popularly known as Kendra’s Law, is to be ended in New York when it sunsets or expires in 2015, the reductive stereotypes used to characterize the individuals most likely to be affected, viz., those persons labeled with serious mental illnesses and caught up in the public mental health system, must be discredited and discarded.
Illustration of prison bars made of prescription drugs with hands holding them

Are Antidepressant Drugs Being Prescribed Too Widely? A Review of “Evidence-biased Antidepressant Prescription”

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Depression was considered a condition that most spontaneously recovered from, until drug companies changed that narrative.

For a Well Mind, Try Revolution? Creative Maladjustment Week 2015

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Your mental wellness requires a global revolution. In fact, your physical wellness requires one, too. For many years, I have noticed that there are people doing good social change work for mild reform. That is nice, but during my work in what we affectionately call the “mad movement,” I have often called for revolution, because the change we need is so big! We have the technology, a solution is affordable, but we need to act urgently and the main question is, “Do we have the collective will?”

Witty A: Report to the President

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Faced with questions about the $3 Billion fine imposed on GSK – is it just the cost of doing business? - Andrew Witty snapped back: “Although corporate malfeasance cases end up looking very big, they often have their origin in just… one or two people who didn’t quite do the right thing. It’s not about the big piece. The 100,000 people who work for GSK are just like you, right? I’m sure everybody who reads the BMJ has friends who work for drug companies. They’re normal people… Many of them are doctors."

The Chemical Imbalance Theory:  Still Being Promoted

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On November 28, Psychiatric Times published an article titled Psychiatric Diagnosis and Treatment of Somatizing Neuropsychiatric Disorders. It addresses the phenomenology, epidemiology, and developmental course of the so-called somatization disorders. Under the heading "Postulated pathogenic influences," the authors present working hypotheses from psychoanalytic theory, learning theory, behavior analysis, social-affective neuroscience, autoimmune sensitization, and theories of dissociation. But they advocate a discussion of the role of medications in "normalizing brain neurotransmitter function."

In Memoriam: Leonard Roy Frank

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  Editors' Note:  We at Mad in America have all known and loved Leonard. He truly represents the best of why we are engaged in these...

The Culture of Fear and the Lost Art of Organizing for Social Change

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Fear. Omnipresent. Difficult to ward off or ignore. Just to advise readers, this long, somewhat involved article has been written for purely didactic purposes. Frankly, I’d like more folks to learn how to challenge their fears, how to organize and do systems change work. I trust readers will find it useful and that I managed to at least approximate what I intended.

So, You Still Say Trump is Crazy?

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By calling Trump 'crazy' for making wildly racist, sexist, and other hateful remarks and out-of-control tweets (among other things), you fail to actually promote an end to such violence and bigotry. Instead, you are simply asking that it be redirected to another group.

Colonization or Postpsychiatry?

I believe the video ‘Voices Matter’ has, quite apart from capturing the spirit of the Hearing Voices movement, filmed the first signs, the first moments of professional interest, hinting at the dangers that inevitably are present when a movement threatens the established order of things.
wooden people sculpture

Knowledge of Mental States and Behaviour: Insights From Heidegger and Others

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Applying the methods of natural science to human activity is sometimes necessary, but it cannot enlighten us about the nature of that activity or the reasons that motivate and sustain it. Instead, insights must come from our own and others’ experiences.

How to Parent a Dead Child

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Being the parent of a dead child is hard. Being the parent of a child who died from suicide may be even harder. I love my son and am proud of him and work to make sure that his having lived makes the world a better place.