Blogs

This piece is the first of a two-part essay about suicide, diagnosis, what doesn't help, and what does help. This part is about suicide, diagnosis, and some of what fails to help.

A dialogue between Nev Jones and Sandy Steingard about Mad in America, critics of psychiatry, medication for psychosis, Open Dialogue, and the need for racial and class justice.

The Vice article was presented as an exploration of the “movement against psychiatry,” and yet you can see, once it is deconstructed, how it told a story that surely pleased the promoters of the conventional narrative, and put the “critics” on the defensive at almost every turn.

The American Psychological Association has proposed sweeping changes to training, focusing on the behavioral health model, which reduces the complexity of the human experience to observable behaviors.

Malcharist, by Paul John Scott, is a fictional account of one of psychiatry’s most influential key opinion leaders (KOLs), his ghostwriter, and a journalist on the trail of a big scandal in the world of Big Pharma.

It is uncomfortably difficult to look at Phoebe Sparrow Wagner’s art. That much is intentional. She shakes up the viewer’s sense of wellbeing and security so that they can better identify with the plight of the mental patient.

In part four of this series, Megan Wildhood takes on the tropes of "That's not about you," "The outer world is a reflection of your inner world," "I didn't mean to," and "Time heals all wounds."

Debunking a recent study on ADHD and COVID-19: It suffers from a series of manipulations and spins that are inappropriate in scientific research that aspires to objectivity and that aims to reveal truths.

A collective knowledge of lived experience is a straightforward answer for improving millions of lives, but it has become clear that it will take an organized community of voice-hearers and their allies to take back credibility and authorship on the narrative of our own lives.

We are going to organize webinar events, starting this fall, that will be easier to register for (sign-up on Zoom), free (donations will be accepted), and often feature two or more speakers (or a panel), with more time devoted to an interaction with the audience.

When I heard this morning that DJ Jaffe was dead my face went through its own mutation; a moment of surprise and wonderment followed by swift elation, and then, very quickly and now for so many hours afterward, an enraged, frustrated, quick-breathed grimace.

After 9/11, no psychiatrist, nurse, or social worker asked me what it felt like to watch as nearly 3000 souls left this planet in flames; what it felt like to be so afraid. There was a strange silence around it, as if this horrible event was unrelated to my mental state.

In Pūras' new UN report, his use of biomedical language seems at odds with his message to move beyond the medicalization of distress.

Incest survivors are the neglected heroes of the #MeToo movement. Yet when it comes to entrenched narratives that silence incest survivors, mainstream media continues to propagate these harmful myths unchecked.

Psychiatry has a history of continuing to perform harmful, even deadly procedures. But does it still happen? Medication-induced akathisia filled two and a half pages of the DSM-IV. Why was it written out of the DSM 5?

Clinical education must include more training in macro skills that help build the supports, policies, and community infrastructures under-served clients need.

Slower tapering of antidepressant dose is generally more comfortable. However, success or failure after stopping completely mostly relates to whether tardive akathisia occurs.

If alien species wanted to intervene in human society without fully revealing themselves, how would they do it? Choose a select number of individuals who are easily discredited by others in the group. In other words: Turn people into schizophrenics.

As Prohibition was taking hold on the East Coast in response to European immigrants, equal efforts for Prohibition were occurring on the West Coast, fueled by racist caricatures of Chinese immigrants.

If the cultural and socioeconomic structures of society had, from the beginning, allowed me to function, and even thrive, I undoubtedly never would have felt a need for antidepressants and “therapy.”

Do you love hiking, backpacking, gardening or taking walks in beautiful places? Ecotherapy explores how our relationship with nature is an essential and therapeutic part of our humanity.

It is encouraging to hear leading scientists such as Plomin acknowledge that psychiatric diagnoses are fundamentally arbitrary and that the idea of a “cure” does not make sense with regards to psychological issues.

Two recent mental health reports from Oregon are steeped in the medical model, written by "experts" without lived experience and sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry.

Let’s start only accepting real relational offerings that do not make us contort, disavow comfort, strong-arm ourselves into appearing strong, or shoulder responsibility that is not ours.

A "mental illness culture" means that full time work is seen as impossible and discouraged, and your social world only consists of other mental health "consumers" and mental health workers.