Blogs

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.

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.

This anecdote is offered as a story in praise of families and a recognition of their importance to the process of recovery.

I've been working on starting a business that can use market forces to create benefit for our communities. This is called social entrepreneurship. Different models...

MIA's Family Resources and Arts sections are co-sponsoring an online teen multimedia art exhibition with the theme “Beyond Labels and Meds: What It Feels Like to Be Me.”

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.

Every year at this time, from Canada to Ireland, from Turkey to South Africa, both determined and not-so-determined folk make a very unusual list, known traditionally as New Year's resolutions. What follows are antipsychiatry resolutions—ones that people may borrow from at will.

I’m not sure how I feel about horseback riding. Well, actually, I know that the act of horseback riding itself terrifies me, but really what I mean is: I’m not sure how I feel about the process of ‘breaking’ a horse to make it rideable. However, when I conducted some (admittedly superficial) research on the topic, I came up with an abundance of information.

I am a psychiatric survivor of over thirty-six years. Since my nervous breakdown in 1978, I have undergone multitudinous experiences ranging from the subtly humiliating to the horrifically debilitating at the hands of incompetent psychiatrists and psychopharmacologists who, in the name of medicine, did more harm than good.

Bob-- I had an interesting case today. A friendly, 24 year old, very slender and slightly distracted Vietnamese woman who has a 18 month-old...

Conferences, trainings and seminars can play an important role in changing the culture of a community. As Margaret Mead said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” The work is formidable but the results… man it is worth it!

By Ana Keck, Afiya The person who answered your call to stay at Afiya could have been me. When I answer the phone at the respite, I often find myself wondering what the caller thinks of me. When I called to stay at Afiya myself, I had a quite radically different vision of what the person on the other end of the phone was like. I pictured someone very much in charge, with their life together, who maybe had some hard times years ago. Now being on the other side of the phone, I can tell you I have not reached some recovery nirvana. I don’t actually want to get there, because I personally don’t think it exists. I could be in the midst of a variety of hard or wonderful or transformative life experiences right now. I just happen to have the emotional space to support other people, too, and so here I am at work today.

My name is Mark Foster. I am a family physician and writer from Colorado, and the co-Founder and president of a new non-profit called...

The stories we tell ourselves and others have the power to heal or to harm. This is a story about how we define mental health, the challenges we face in pursuit of it, and the power of transforming our stories.

This wave of emotional distress is a perfectly reasonable human response to living our lives in an increasingly isolated and uncertain world.

I first learned about the significance of our country’s Bill of Rights around the same time I started on my first doses of SSRIs for depression and suicidal feelings. At the same time I was learning in school about the “inalienable” freedoms to which citizens of the United States are entitled, I was learning in a psychiatrist’s office about how I might be a “danger” to myself and lose some of these freedoms “for my own good.” I don’t claim that I was conscious of the contradictions at the age of 13 or 14, but the significance is not lost on me now.

On August 13, Mad in America and three partner organizations will present four international experts to discuss the problem of the widespread psychiatric drugging of children—and seek solutions.

It takes courage and integrity to make changes to your beliefs and approach. In 2008 Professor Roger Mulder, head of psychiatry at Otago University, published research in which he concluded “Antidepressant treatment is associated with a rapid and significant reduction in suicidal behaviours. The rate of emergent suicidal behaviour was low and the risk/benefit ratio for antidepressants appears to favour their use.” In Dr. Mulder's conference presentations last week, he stated that the medical/psychiatric paradigm that has dominated approaches to suicide since WWII has largely failed to influence suicide rates. In Dr. Mulder’s view “New approaches are required – possibly public health, sociological, community or combinations in addition to, or instead of, medical approaches.”

If you're on psychiatric drugs or you're a psychiatric survivor, chances are others told your story for you in their words. Like it or not (I hope you like it), you're going to have to retell your story in your own words, in your own way. If you choose to do this through blogging, social media, video or any other digital approaches, having your story read, seen and/or viewed by many could be very satisfying. You may not be ready to share it so publicly yet, but once you are, there are some tools to get your story out there to the masses.

The field of psychiatry is awash with systematic reviews, meta-analyses and other published articles proclaiming various discoveries. But can this research be trusted? Let's examine one such article, "Suicide prevention strategies revisited: 10-year-old review," in which the author claims that the "anti-suicidal effects of clozapine and lithium have been substantiated."

Investigative Reporters and Editors recently named Anatomy of an Epidemic as the winner of its 2010 best “investigative journalism” award in the books category. Here...

The line between legal and illicit, "addictive" vs. "necessary", becomes vanishingly thin when it comes to the medications prescribed in areas of the country that are being stripped of their natural resources. The mechanisms of science, medicine and our government that were once thought to protect and serve are instead leaving residents on a trail of pain, addiction, dependence and poverty produced by the intersection of two highly profitable industries. (Editor's note)

In May 2014, the RIAT team asked GSK what the children who became suicidal in the course of Study 329 have since been told. The consent form says that anyone entering the study would be treated just the way they would be in normal clinical practice. In Study 329, the children taking imipramine were by design force titrated upwards to doses of the order of 300 mg, which is close to double the dose of imipramine given in adult trials by GSK or in normal clinical practice. In normal clinical practice it would be usual to inform somebody who had become suicidal on an SSRI that the treatment had caused their problem.

I lost almost four years of my life, and I’ve not a doubt that it was due to those “life-saving” pills. To that end, they did work. At a time when I was doubled-over with depression, those four prescriptions kept me alive. But then they killed me slowly and brought me back as a stranger.

The winding path is very often the only path that a human being can follow. It has to become an acceptable path. We have to stop pushing young kids because WE want them to be somewhere without regard to what they are ready for.