When university attorneys play hardball with patients
Everyone knows that some attorneys have a reputation for playing hardball. In fact, many of us even seek out attorneys who play hardball. But...
Should Children Have Consent Rights For Psychosurgery, ECT and Sterilization?
"Madness!" was the vehement one word response from my friend when I told her that the Mental Health Minister of Western Australia has proposed legislation to allow children as young as...
Letters from the Front Lines
Dear Bob--
Here's a story of stark contrasts.
I saw a man for a physical recently, mid-50's. He was the picture of health, on no medications...
New Study on a Non-Toxic Intervention for Those at High Risk of Psychosis
A new multi-centered study was released about using cognitive therapy for young people who were seen as being at high risk of psychosis.
The article reporting the study is on the British Medical Journal website, available in full – http://www.bmj.com/content/344/bmj.e2233. It’s curious to see how it is being reported in the press.
Why We Should Be Customers and Not Charity Cases
Recently I posted about mental health social entrepreneurship, where we can use market based principles to solve our problems accessing effective care. Some people...
Working the assembly line at the human experimentation factory
If the past decade had an emblematic moment for clinical research, it was probably November 12, 2005, the day when Bloomberg Markets published its...
You Are What You Eat
Food is the most important thing any of us ingests and it seems foolish to not pay careful attention to the foods we choose to eat.
Hope
Hope is the emotional state, the opposite of which is despair, which promotes the belief in a positive outcome related to events and circumstances...
Why We Need Mental Health Social Entrepreneurship
A mental health social entrepreneurship is a business that uses market principles to maximize benefit instead of maximizing profit. For instance, my business, Wellness...
“Social Workers’ Malaise: What’s Our Mission?”
Just a few final words on this issue.
One of the readers of the blog I posted on March 27 on madinamerica.com identified himself as...
Playing Hide-and-Seek with Psychiatric Drug Studies
If I were in charge of distributing NIH grant money, I’d be sending a lot of it to researchers like Erick Turner, a psychiatrist...
Does It Matter if We Believe in Mental Illness?
It's clear that different people relate to the idea of "mental illness" and labeling differently. Many people find the experience of being diagnosed with...
Bipolar? When Quitting is the Answer
Whether it’s the Nurtured Heart Approach, or any other method that’s truly up to the task, we need these effective strategies and ways of thinking to be more widespread so we can lessen the pitfalls of the medical model’s limited prospective which has no idea of how to turn intense into immensely great.
Dialogical Recovery of Life
During a recent dialogue training, Dr. Peter Rober, from Belgium, said, "listening deeply, going beyond categories, creates dialogical space in which life can come......
1984 & DSM5, Revisited: Where Are the Social Workers?
Where are the social workers? Where are the NASW and its local and state-wide chapters? For that matter, where are the peer-run and -led...
Dyskinesia, Dissociation, and the Long Term Consequences of “Antipsychotic” Drugs
I recently receive a tweet from Intervoice, that said “This is a odd research finding in my view, what do you think? http://fb.me/L9cs3NTR”
Curious, I...
How Technology Worship Keeps Americans Ignorant about Depression Treatment
Technology is worshipped in U.S. culture, but when it comes to transforming depression and emotional suffering, is this predilection for technology justified?
Technology worship means...
What is in a Name: One Psychiatrist’s View of Psychiatric Diagnosis
What do I tell my patients about diagnosis? I try to explain what a diagnosis is and is not. It is a label that reflects that the person has reported certain symptoms. It is a label for the symptoms not for the person.
“Come Out for Health Week”: March 26-30, 2012
My personal + professional advocacy and mission work didn’t start with mental illness.
I Chaired the University of Washington’s Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender student...
Remembering Kate
I first wrote this story of my mother back in 2000, six years after her death. I share it today as my first entry on this important blog, in the hope that people will see that there is another way. In future entries I want to share with you why I don't believe in mental illness and the use of psychotropic medications, and how I believe people who are experiencing emotional distress can get well, stay well, and live the lives they want to live.
Thinking Holistically – Don’t Forget Tobacco
I am sitting at the annual meeting for the Society for Research in Nicotine and Tobacco in Houston, Texas because I am presenting some...
The Illegality of Forced Drugging and Electroshock
Court ordered psychiatric drugging and electroshock is illegal when measured against the constitutional requirements for forcing someone to ingest drugs, or be subjected to...
Madness Radio: Sharna Olfman on Medicating Children Diagnosed Bipolar
Professor Sharna Olfman has researched and written extensively about children in society, including education and sexuality, and her perspective on so-called bipolar disorder is...
I Don’t Believe in Mental Illness, Do You?
In November 2000, I anxiously stood before the gathered four hundred and fifty mental health professionals, administrators, peers and academicians and said, "Hi, I'm Michael Cornwall and I don't believe in mental illness!"
We Need Drugs
The truth is we live in a horribly miserable time. There is no getting around it. It cannot be candy coated. Self-help books about...
