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Once again, I just finished another consultation with someone from out of state who was desperate to find a therapist who he could talk to. He didn’t want to be pigeon-holed into some DSM-5 reductionistic diagnosis. He didn’t want psychiatric drugs. He was desperate to find a psychiatrist who would understand him, who he could relate to, and could treat him with real psychotherapy. There should never have been a reason for me to consult with anyone from out of state. Unfortunately, the cynical and fraudulent takeover of psychiatry is all but complete. How many real psychiatrists are left?

On May 5, 2012,  MindFreedom International is holding its Occupy the American Psychiatric Association protest at the APA's annual convention in Philadelphia.  Momentum is building for the...

When plans for the DSM-5 were first announced about ten years ago, most folks’ reaction was “Why?”. Many of us asked that same question several times as the publication date for the new tome kept on getting pushed back. Finally, the curtain enshrouding the DSM-5 Task Force and its several committees began to part and proposed revisions/additions began to appear on its website. To our dismay, we found our question answered.

I remember looking out of my living room window, drawing on my connection to all the women in the world who had felt this energy before, all that were in that moment, and all that would in time to come. This energy, this incredible power, was like a wave that I was riding for a brief window of my life, and sharing with my baby to move us through time into a new type of union. To me, this wasn’t anything to resist, to be afraid of, or to suppress. All I had to do was be there to witness, and keep my mind from getting in the way.

Shane Neimeyer had just tried to hang himself. It, too, had failed. Like much of his life to that point, which had been spent in and out of state custody since his adolescent years, his road had hit a dead end. But in the depths of his despair, thoughts of a different kind surfaced, with one idea in mind: Ironman. Sitting in his straight jacket, awaiting sentencing as a homeless heroin addict, he had turned the pages of an endurance magazine to pass the time. As he began to read more about triathlons, there was something about the discipline, the drive, the pursuit of a difficult goal, which began to consume him. The thought entered his mind. Maybe he could be one of them. Maybe his life could change forever.

In the past few years, a number of pharmaceutical companies have admitted to federal charges that they illegally marketed psychiatric medications for non-approved uses,...

Back in December,  when I decided to turn madinamerica.com into a webzine, I envisioned it as serving several purposes. I wanted to create a...

For those of us who have been labeled by medical model psychiatry, it is frightening to watch the wolf of social prejudice being cloaked in the guise of mental health reform. The reality for many of us is that our lives and well-being have been profoundly affected – not only by the bad science and good marketing of pharmaceutical companies - but also by a wholesale refusal to listen. The result is a mental health system that many of us do not trust to operate in good faith. The Murphy bills add fuel to this fire.

The basic idea of the experiential democracy project is to supplement conventional legislative or other forms of diplomatic and moral deliberation with person-centered (“I-Thou”) principles of encounter. These principles, which derive from existential-humanistic psychology and person-centered therapy, stress the attempt to engage participants to more intimately understand each other, and through this context to more intimately understand each other’s often conflicting positions on issues of moral import.

Most doctors still affect surprise at the idea SSRIs might come with withdrawal problems. Regulators knew very clearly since 2002 about the problems, but have decided to leave any communication of these issues in company hands.

The official announcement of the NIMH's new director proudly proclaimed he had been studying things such as “the role of the hippocampus, a brain structure known to be important for memory and emotional processes associated with anxiety and depression.” Is there any evidence that anything will come of these theories — and the expenses demanded of such endeavors?

A few years ago, I was asked to see a man called Chris Rushworth. He was referred to me for anger issues. Chris had a restlessness about him, frequently shifting his legs from side to side. He had been on antipsychotic medication for 25 years.

Irving Kirsch (the psychologist who has argued that antidepressants offer a marginal advantage over placebos) has agreement from an unlikely source- advertisements from a pharmaceutical company, which agree completely...

It may sound a bit cliché, but one of the best definitions of forgiveness I’ve ever heard was actually stated by Oprah Winfrey. Oprah’s definition of forgiveness is, “to accept the fact that the past can’t change.”

As politicians, media, and pro-gun and anti-gun lobbies all converge to agree on one thing, that those of us labeled mentally ill are fair game for dumping blame on and restricting of our civil liberties and constitutional rights, despite the fact that there is no rational evidence for such profiling - our community is responding with grief and anger.

The logic of equating forced psychiatry with torture is undeniable, it is a severe injury to the body, soul, mind and spirit, and it is only because of discrimination that such violence has enjoyed social and legal approval in western societies and unfortunately spreading throughout the world. The logic that comes from a non-discrimination analysis is rooted in our self-respect and pride, our unwillingness to let go of the last spark of identity and resistance that makes us who we are. Non-discrimination is advancing in the world, it represents the best of humanity and we are part of this truth.

In July of 2014, I published an article explaining my concerns about the push to allow prescription privileges for psychologists across the country, after news of the recent legislation in Illinois sanctioning this practice.  I cited four main areas of concern, which I will revisit below.  More discussion is necessary regarding these issues if we as psychologists, and the general public, are going to be fully informed.

Even projects and people that have the best intentions of listening still block people out. Basically, coalitions are based on mainstream funding sources and mainstream moderators, and that tend to override the ability to hear challenges to the status quo. If the funding source and the project management is mainstream, the project will draft back to the status quo no matter how well people intend to follow good service user input processes.

Bob-- I want to share with you a success story that has played out over the last three months. I have been working with a woman...

I worked as an IHS psychologist from 2000 to 2004 and personally witnessed disturbing practices all around me at that time. I’ll likely hark back to encounters with those IHS dysfunctions from time to time on this blog, but I want to make an important point right away with respect to understanding at least some of them: Follow the money.

A complex set of cultural forces that have come together in a way that amounts to prejudice against children. A range of professionals who care for children, including psychiatrists, pediatricians, occupational therapists, educators, and many others, must join together with parents to overcome this prejudice. We must recognize the value and necessity of protecting time and space to listen to these youngest voices.

MindFreedom believes in the dignity and VOICE of every human being, no matter how mentally or emotionally distressed. We all have the right to CHOICE and true, informed consent in mental health care. We alert the mental health activism community to the proposed Texas House Bill 2212, which will dramatically expand the population eligible for assisted outpatient commitment. In a blatant assault on the right to bodily integrity, the bill would allow psychiatric interventions including what the state says is “clinically necessary medication” to be administered by force to law-abiding citizens living in the their own homes based on a few, elastic criteria.

In Salem Village in the winter of 1692, nine-year-old Betty Parris and her 11-year-old cousin Abigail Williams began exhibiting strange behavior.  A local doctor could find no physical evidence of any ailment. When other young women in the village started exhibiting similar behaviours, Sarah Good, a homeless begger, Sarah Osborne, a woman who rarely attended church, Tituba, a slave from a minority ethnic group, and Dorothy Good, a four-year-old child, were accused of bewitching the girls. They were interrogated and sent to jail.

Personality tests function for an employer, intentionally or otherwise, much like diagnostic criteria function for the mental-health system: these labels determine who gets resources that capitalism itself makes scarce — not only basic necessities like food, clothing and shelter, which require money to obtain, but empathy, understanding and support, which are kept in short supply.

On Monday a new study was published with the finding that there is a three- to four-fold increase in the rates of Autistic Spectrum Disorder and Developmental Delay in children, especially boys, born to mothers who have been on antidepressants through pregnancy. There are further studies with comparable findings in the offing. Not only this but it looks as though the SSRIs may redefine what it means to be a teratogen. Other teratogens produce their effects in the first trimester of pregnancy when organs are first being formed. But it looks like antidepressants used in the third trimester can lead to autistic spectrum disorder and developmental delay.