Blogs

Congress is moving quickly to pass a bill that would authorize higher industry fees for the FDA in exchange for speeding up the approval...

E. Fuller Torrey, through his Treatment Advocacy Center, is the country’s most prominent advocate for outpatient commitment laws, which typically force people with a...

Last night I had the privilege of attending my first Family Den with other Mother Bears like myself—parents, spouses, siblings and adult children. All of us have family members who have experienced mental health challenges. All of us had a story to tell.

The Canadian judge in the first North American criminal trial to find Prozac the sole cause of a murder ruled - "There is clear medical...

The medical model of diagnosis has become a dominant idea in the field of mental health, but it hasn't always been this way. As...

A reader in the commentary here asked me if I think “psychiatry is salvageable.” This is a timely question that requires careful consideration. First, I’ll...

Let our Mad Pride movement be grounded in humility and kindness for each other in our diversity of life experiences, a recognition that social movements need good communicators and organizers more than charismatic leaders and messianic visions, and that the beautiful language we use to describe ourselves is only as powerful as the grounded actions we take to back up our words.

How are we going to do this?  That’s the question we asked ourselves when a few likeminded bureaucrats sat down and said, our current...

“How could I not have known?” This question has been asked of me, as a psychiatrist, with regard to prescribing psychiatric drugs. All those...

Two weeks ago, I headlined my blog with this question: Is the FDA violating its own mandate to approve safe drugs? Four days later,...

There is a language underneath our familiar verbal language. Ordinarily it is called nonverbal communication. It is also called body language. I came to...

My son is dead. He hanged himself at 17 but meh… whatever… that’s yesterday’s news and I’m totally over it now. I don’t long for...

To Readers: I've decided to sway, briefly, from my traditional story-telling style on this blog in order to post my short speech from this...

What an amazing ride I’ve had in the past few days on the tsunami of commentary from my previous post. While it’s been fun (dare...

Robert Whitaker’s book, Anatomy of an Epidemic, has provoked all manner of responses.  Some outraged, dismissive, but many supportive and relieved to hear the...

Preface: Failing in my efforts to get this article published for the general public, apparently only here can I talk about a “cool subculture...

One of the subtle but underlying factors that keep the great divide active between psychiatry's medical model of human emotional suffering, and the alternative...

I seem to have generated unexpected ire with my biographical information. This deserves more than just a few lines in the reply section. When...

These are not happy times for the embattled drug maker AstraZeneca.  The patent for Seroquel has expired; the company’s profits have plummeted; and its...

Ok, I’ll admit to trying an academic title to talk about bureaucratic history. What a combination! But I think it adds up to something. We...

“Rethinking Madness: Towards a Paradigm Shift In Our Understanding and Treatment of Psychosis” by Paris Williams, Ph.D., describes how our current mental health system...

This morning I remind myself to point my eyes forward. I tend to want to re-do the past and try to make bad things...

We've been discussing a potential role for psychiatrists on this site, and I wanted some of the doctors to understand why many mental health...

Health disparities between the seriously persistent mentally ill (SPMI) population and general population exist which are alarming (MHA, 2008).  A report issued by the...

Is the Food and Drug Administration violating its own mandate to approve safe drugs? That was the question that Donald Light, co-author of The...