Blogs

Essays by a diverse group of writers, in the United States and abroad, engaged in rethinking psychiatry. (The directory of personal stories can be found here, and initiatives here).

Cognitive Therapy Found Effective in Unmedicated Psychotic Patients . . . And Other News

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For a long time, psychotherapy has been seen as providing little benefit to patients with schizophrenia or other psychotic disorders. However, two recent studies,...

Chapter Twenty: Russian Roulette

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After I left my research position on the acute inpatient psychiatric unit of a Boston hospital towards the end of 2006, my life started...

Answering the Critics: Massachusetts General Hospital Grand Rounds

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As many readers of Anatomy of an Epidemic know, I spoke at a psychiatric Grand Rounds at Massachusetts General Hospital on January 13, 2011....

Chapter Nineteen: Playing the Part

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In the months following my five-year high school reunion in the summer of 2006, I drifted about in a sea of indistinguishable days. Amidst...

Answering the Critics: Let’s Roll the Tape (Again)

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This past summer, Behavioral Healthcare ran a two-part interview with me about my book, Anatomy of an Epidemic. This stirred William Glazer, a well-known...

Answering the Critics: The Carlat Psychiatry Blog

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Daniel Carlat, an associate clinical professor of psychiatry at Tufts University, wrote a two-part review of Anatomy of an Epidemic on January 21 and...

Chapter Eighteen: Sentenced to Life

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A few weeks after my college graduation in the summer of 2006, my five-year high school reunion was upon me. I had expended a...

Healing the Body and Mind

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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...

A Rorschach Test for Psych Drugs

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On October 23, the New York Times ran a very nice feature story about a Los Angeles woman, Keris Myrick, who, even though she...

Anatomy of an Epidemic Down Under: Psychiatric Drugs and the Astonishing Rise of Disabling...

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During the past six months, I have traveled to a number of English speaking countries to speak about my book Anatomy of an Epidemic,...

September 15, 2011

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Dear Bob-- As I share with patients my new perspectives on the ineffectiveness and potential harm of psychotropic drugs, I have found that many, even...

Chapter Seventeen: Commencing to Self-Destruct

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While my fellow ‘Class of 2006’ graduates celebrated with embraces and high-fives on Commencement Day, jumping excitedly into group photos with caps and gowns,...

Chapter Sixteen: Inside a House of Cards

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Dazed and confused, I was discharged from ‘The Haven’ in September of 2004 and entered an intensive outpatient day program (IOP) on the grounds...

August 4, 2011

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Dear Bob-- I saw a very nurturing woman a few months ago, quite obese, for the symptoms of chest pain and fatigue. She had been admitted...

In Defense of Psychiatric Medications, Part Two

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Marcia Angell’s two-part essay in the New York Review of Books, which appeared in the June and July issues, has helped trigger a much-needed...

Chapter Fifteen: A Haven from Self

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A Note to the Reader: Thorough searches of my memory reserves have failed to provide me with a complete and detailed account of my...

July 12, 2011

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Dear Bob-- I want to share a case from this past week the reveals a disturbing misuse of stimulants in treating a poorly diagnosed case...

The New York Times’ Defense of Antidepressants

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The New York Times' Defense of Antidepressants Today, the New York Times published an op-ed essay by Peter Kramer titled "In Defense of Antidepressants" on...

Now Antidepressant-Induced Chronic Depression Has a Name: Tardive Dysphoria

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Three recently published papers, along with a report by a Minnesota group on health outcomes in that state, provide new reason to mull over...

Chapter Fourteen: Crossing the Threshold

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Although the drive to the psychiatric hospital in White Plains, New York, in September 2004 was a mere fifteen minutes from home, the trip...

Drug Companies ‘Just Say No’ to Psych Drugs

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The market for psychiatric drugs is, of course,  booming. In 2011, spending on psychiatric medications can expect to top $40 billion. Yet, in spite...

June 27, 2011

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Dear Bob-- I have been working again, taking temporary assignments filling in for other physicians and working in urgent cares while I get my practice...

June 17, 2011

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Bob-- Here is a letter that I wrote several months ago in response to an early reader of my blog here. She expressed concern about...

Chapter Thirteen: In the Muck and The Mire

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There I was on my first night of Outward Bound, lying under the big Texas sky in a little town called Redford, amidst waxy...

Summing Up the NIMH Trials: Evidence of an Effective Paradigm of Care?

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In the past 15 years, the NIMH has funded a number of major, multicenter trials of drug treatments for mental disorders in adults and...