The Denial of Mystery and the Use of Medication to Replace Personal and Social...
I believe the question of whether to medicate or not cannot be kept separate from the question of whether or not to consider individuals...
What You Can Do TODAY About Managed Care
Some other bloggers have been talking about managed care, and I wanted to share some action points for all of us. There are many...
“You Can’t Go Home Again: New York’s Medicaid Health Homes”
Shortly after I posted a two-part blog on this site back in February about New Yorkâs just-approved Medicaid Health Homes, I got this crazy,...
Our Recovery Community is One of the Richest in Our Country
I built my entire community in the last eight years. Â Eight years ago I was recently divorced, unemployed, on six psych meds, and homeless....
Pharmed Out: An Interview with Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman
In June, I will be returning to Washington for the annual Pharmed Out conference, a project located at Georgetown University Medical Center. It is...
Letters from the Front Lines
I saw a patient recently, a 35 year-old woman who needed a refill of her Zoloft. She been started on it four years prior,...
DSM5 Boycott: Growing Some Legs
Just had to share this with you. Was copied on an e-mail from Allen Frances yesterday, wherein he informed colleagues that two blogs had...
Madness Radio: Daniel Hazen On Abolishing Prisons
First Aired 5-1-2012
What is it like for a prisoner diagnosed with mental illness? Should we have more mental health treatment in prison -- or...
How Many Deaths Will It Take Till We Know?
Each time I see the initials for Mad In America, MIA, I think of the Vietnam war and lost young men. I remember engraved...
Boycott DSM5? Why Not?
Captain Boycott was the British land agent for Lord Erne of County Mayo who, in 1880, was ostracized from the local community as part...
Risk Management vs. Dignity of Risk
What does âriskâ really mean? Is it something to be afraid of and avoided at all costs, or something to be embraced?
Shanghai’d in Recovery
I am honored to share the story of one family that has learned about the power of language, hope and letting go with love so that every family member can grab on to a life worth living.
CIAD & Community-Based Housing for Adult Home Residents in New York City: The Struggle...
Sixteen million dollars are sitting in Albany, waiting to be converted into fifteen hundred apartments for adult home residents presumed to have serious mental...
Coercion
I am a psychiatrist who believes that involuntary treatment is rarely effective in the long run but I am also a psychiatrist who sometimes forces people into hospitals against their will.
Fast-Moving Bill in Congress Would Weaken FDA Oversight of New Drugs and Devices
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 Torreyâs Review of Anatomy of an Epidemic: What Does It Reveal About...
E. Fuller Torrey, through his Treatment Advocacy Center, is the countryâs most prominent advocate for outpatient commitment laws, which typically force people with a...
Whose Recovery Is This?! Helping Families Heal
Last night I had the privilege of attending my first Family Den with other Mother Bears like myselfâparents, 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 Big Chill: Psychiatric Medications Now Are on Trial For Murder
The Canadian judge in the first North American criminal trial to find Prozac the sole cause of a murder ruled - "There is clear medical...
Is there Any Value In Psychiatric Diagnosis?
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...
Is Psychiatry “Salvageable”?
A reader in the commentary here asked me if I think âpsychiatry is salvageable.â This is a timely question that requires careful consideration.
First, Iâll...
Mad Pride and Spiritual Community: Thoughts on The Spiritual Gift of Madness
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.
Start with a Solid Foundation
How are we going to do this? Thatâs the question we asked ourselves when a few likeminded bureaucrats sat down and said, our current...
My “Head in a Bucket” Metaphor
âHow could I not have known?â This question has been asked of me, as a psychiatrist, with regard to prescribing psychiatric drugs. All those...
IOM report concludes that the FDA is not doing its job
Two weeks ago, I headlined my blog with this question: Is the FDA violating its own mandate to approve safe drugs? Four days later,...
Recovery through Learning Creatura, a Language of Life
There is a language underneath our familiar verbal language. Ordinarily it is called nonverbal communication. It is also called body language. I came to...
