‘Delusions’ and ‘Paranoia’: What Are They, Really, and How Can We Engage Them in...
Sam Ruck shares a second excerpt from his book "Healing Companions," which describes his life with, and love for, his wife and her “alters.”
The Power Dynamics of Psychedelic Therapy
I want people who have gone through psychedelic therapy to not feel alone if they felt silenced, controlled, or interpersonally hurt.
Q&A: What Is Executive Function, and How Can Parents and Teachers Help Kids Focus?
Ask anyone who’s ever taught kids, and they’ll tell you a story about one student who sticks in their memory.
Much of U.S. Healthcare Is Broken: How to Fix It (Chapter 1, Part 2)
Les Ruthven addresses off-label prescribing as well as physicians’ anti-science pushback against the use of well-conducted clinical trials.
Systemic Insanity
Is the answer to numb ourselves and learn to deal with lives that we don't feel good about? Shouldn't the solution be to heal and live lives that don't make us stressed, unhappy, and sick?
Beyond Pills: UK Parliament Must Support Social and Psychological Services Instead
Davies calls on the UK Parliament to support the Beyond Pills initiative, and follow the evidence to put social and psychological help first.
Mental Disorder Has Roots in Trauma and Inequality, Not Biology
The scientific evidence is of social/psychological, not biological, causation: negative environmental conditions, not disease.
You Have the Legal Right to Informed Consent
My doctor didn’t tell me about any side effects, and I didn’t ask. I assumed that if there were any risks with taking Paxil, he would tell me.
A Remarkable Feat: A Psychiatric Patient Changed the Law on Restraints
The case of Silas Dam obliged the Danish government to increase rights for psychiatric patients subjected to belt restraints.
Much of U.S. Healthcare Is Broken: How to Fix It (Chapter 1, Part 1)
On the difference between basing a medical system on clinical belief versus one based on scientific evidence.
Decolonizing Psychiatry in Pakistan: A Reckoning with our Colonial Past and a Call for...
Psychiatrist Yousaf Raza details the problems with psychiatric health care in Pakistan and shows how to find a way forward.
The Drug Taper Paradox
When we look to pills to solve one problem, we forget the opponent processes the body will naturally employ to return to homeostasis.
The Lie That Antidepressants Protect Against Suicide Is Deadly
Antidepressants do not protect against suicide. According to placebo-controlled trials, they double the risk of suicide.
Much of U.S. Healthcare Is Broken: How to Fix It (Preface)
Medical practitioners base their practice on clinical experience, rather than the sound published health research, which they distrust.
Pigs in the Hospital: The Collapse of Venezuela’s Mental Health System
The directors of the hospital, considering the empty spaces provided by its lack of services, decided to allow “milicianos” to move in, along with their pigs.
Psychiatry, Violence, and the State: California’s Systematic Failure of Its Unhoused Population
California has decided to systematically restrain, incarcerate, forcibly strip, and drug its now sizable unhoused population.
Withdrawing From Psychiatric Drugs: How to Produce Smaller Doses Than Those the Drug Companies...
Peter Gøtzsche: To reduce the risk of withdrawal symptoms, it is necessary to respect the form of the binding curve.
The Psychiatric Diagnostic Evaluation: Medical Expertise or Smoke And Mirrors?
Even though psychiatrists don't use any medical knowledge when making diagnoses, they do have MD degrees, and that's enough.
Over-stressing Stress: American Psychological Association Report Omits Oppression
Despite noting financial problems, global conflict, and climate crisis, the report was on how individuals could work on their own stress.
The New WHO and UN Guidance: Psychiatry Must Entirely Change
According to the preeminent health and rights bodies in the world, the WHO and the UN, psychiatry has to change entirely.
How the Psychosocial Approach Provides an Alternative to the Biomedical Model
The biomedical model ignores the social context in which mental distress exists, despite a large body of evidence of that link.
Why Do Only Some People Experience Severe Antidepressant Withdrawal?
Much of the vulnerability to antidepressant withdrawal may be related not to bipolar disorder, but a trait called “bipolarity.”
Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 16: Is There Any Future for Psychiatry? (Part Six)
In the final blog in Peter Gøtzsche's series, he presents his concluding thoughts and suggestions for the future of psychiatry.
I Secret Shopped #988 and Three Cop Cars Showed Up Outside My House
Although it professes to divert calls away from carceral responses, #988 may actually be increasing involuntary interventions.
The Challenge of Presenting Antidepressant Risks and Benefits
Two goals are in direct conflict for doctors when it comes to antidepressant prescriptions: fully informed consent versus maximizing placebo value.
