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Many of you may be aware that I am co-producing a film with PJ Moynihan entitled "Healing Voices." You may not be aware of all that has led up to this and why I think this type of film is so important for our movement, which is the purpose of this post. When I first encountered the mental health system 13 years ago after attempting to fly my car, I was shocked to see how people were treated. I basically felt I was thrown out of the human race. I had just been through an amazing, spiritual experience, an emergence really, yet nobody wanted to talk about what led up that moment.

Just being “safe and effective” is not a strong endorsement, and it lacks any justification for the exorbitant amounts of money that have been paid for these medications. Their commercial success was due to the fact that they were advertised as “better” not just safe. Texas and 36 other states have now realize that they were misled about second-generation antipsychotics being better, and they are recouping their money.

Taking away the power of psychiatry? How naive, some of you say. It can never happen. Anyway, some others say, why would we even want to do that? This comes especially from those who have been appointed by the psychiatric establishment to be our leaders, some of whom imagine themselves as becoming the leaders of psychiatry themselves.. And some people who I greatly respect say we should just focus on creating alternatives to the present system.

1) We need to unite with other health care improvement advocates. 2) We can make money doing this. 3) Time to get more mental health folks on Twitter. 4)Have a good conference networking system. 5) Allow serendipity to happen.

All power structures throughout history have sought to use groups of people, especially among so-called professionals, who will control the population from rebelling against injustices. Power structures have used clergy—that’s why clergy who cared about social justice and who were embarrassed by their profession created “liberation theology.” Power structures have certainly used police and armies, as has been done throughout American history to try to break the U.S. labor movement. And the U.S. power structure now uses mental health professionals to manipulate and medicate people to adapt and adjust and thereby maintain the status quo, regardless of how insane the status quo has become.

The fundamental importance of connection to a child helps us to understand the use of "Time-Outs" which, used improperly, can be like pouring gas on a fire in a situation that is already not working; causing a distressed child to go further awry and potentially contributing to symptomatology that puts them at risk of being identified as ADHD, anxious, or bipolar.

If people who work in mainstream biological psychiatry are willing to consider referring people in severe psychiatric crises to a program that operates under both a completely alternative philosophy and model to their own, then I see hope for our world’s mental health system. If our local psychiatric emergency room is willing to refer to a program like ours, then other psychiatric emergency rooms elsewhere in the United States and the world must be willing at least to consider doing the same. For this reason, I do not feel like Don Quixote tilting at windmills. I feel the system can change.

This is a brief description of the project design and some reflections on “lessons being learned” at Second Story, a Peer Run Respite service in California. Second Story invites people to come before they are in crisis, to take personal responsibility and prevent spiraling into a crisis, which often results in an involuntary hospitalization. Former guests often stop by to talk, and visit with current guests. Sometimes they ask to volunteer, to give back to the community by running a group, gardening, cleaning, cooking, whatever they wish to offer. They are growing their own support community.

Thanks to Ginger Breggin for posting about Stephen Sheller's FDA Petition to Revoke the Pediatric Approval of Risperdal on her Facebook Page. Many of you know that Mr. Sheller recently settled a case against Johnson & Johnson over Risperdal causing breasts to grow in a young boy. What is not yet well-known is that on July 27, 2012, Mr. Sheller filed what is known as a "citizen's petition" to revoke the approval of Risperdal (risperidone), and its cousin Invega, for use on children and youth.

A recent Medscape article by a prominent US psychiatrist sheds light on why there is inadequate attention to non-pharmacological treatments of mental distress.

I have almost four months to go until I am done with the little pills. After that, I’m told it will take two to nine months until my brain will regulate, until I will be able to eat normally, to stand without shivering, to hold my children without fear of falling. I will make it. But I am here to state the obvious: Benzodiazepines are dangerous. We need more research. We need to know that an invisible epidemic is in our midst and there is much that can be done.

I co-led a day long Continuing Education Training with that title last month in Oakland. Almost 100 people attended this first ever in the United States, taxpayer funded CEU training that explored the spiritual dimensions of psychosis. But it wasn't preaching to the choir of those who are true believers in that possibility, because the majority in attendance were front line professional county mental health staff!

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.

The 17th International Conference on the Treatment of Psychosis included nurses, psychologists, psychiatrists, and other clinicians as well as several persons with lived experience and at least one philosopher, anthropologist, family member, and chaplain. I will try to summarize what I learned and experienced.

"To optimize the function of the healing system, you must do everything in your power to improve physical health, mental/emotional health, and spiritual health... One must see the whole picture of health, and understand the importance of working on all fronts." Andrew Weil, Eight Weeks to Optimal Health

On August 16, 2003, six individuals who had travelled from all over the country – Brooklyn; Wilmington, Delaware; Chicago; Portland – to Pasadena, California,...

I am committed. Fully committed to creating a solution. Are you with me? I think medications and labels for people experiencing emotional distress should be almost entirely eliminated, and should not be applied first, for everyone and forever, to people experiencing extreme states. Our current mental health system is a permanent solution to a temporary problem. We need mental health exit ramps, we need human ways to help each other in crisis and through adversity, we need compassion and love and friendship in times of struggle. We need each other.

How does a straightforward, common-sense idea - guaranteeing the elemental pleasures of fresh air and access to nature to those in inpatient and residential psychiatric/mental health facilities – repeatedly fail on a policy level?

In January 2012, The Journal of Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology published a study which suggests that providers who prescribe neuroleptics are unaware of how impacted their patients are by the adverse effects of these drugs. Now more than ever we need to reevaluate the benefits and harms that can come with psychiatric drugs. The power inherent in this kind of practice -- exercising a marginalized voice or tending to our mistakes -- is the very essence of healing.

What follows is my attempt to report on the Pre-Seminar program from the 17th International Conference on the Treatment of Psychosis.

Both addiction and “mental illness” are far more prevalent where there is poverty, patriarchy, and other forms of mental and physical violence; all this creates fertile ground for various forms of trauma experiences on a daily basis. Addiction and extreme states of psychological distress will never be fully eradicated, or even humanely treated on a broad scale, until the material conditions from which they have emerged are transformed in a truly revolutionary way.

Prozac Nation stands as a reminder of the failed promise and language of bio-psychiatry. It also highlights what the first and real problem was for me at age 16. Still underlined are the words that drew me in, made her an ally, and which could have inspired great dialogue had they not been sidelined by psychiatric drugs. She writes, “I feel like a defective model, like ... my parents should have taken me back for repairs before the warranty ran out.”

The conventional wisdom is that antidepressant medications are effective and safe. However, the scientific literature shows that the conventional wisdom is flawed. While all prescription medications have side effects, antidepressant medications appear to do more harm than good as treatments for depression.

The Hope Concept Wellness Center + HOPE Project just held our first national conference in the City of Freedom (Philadelphia) much to everybody’s and to our amazement. Here is some of what I learned from producing Wellness Solutions 1.0 Uncensored Innovation.

Did you know that West Virginia has the second highest rate of deaths from prescription drug overdoses in the country? I didn't, until I...