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).

The Ghost of Research Future

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Two facts about Robert Califf are beyond question. He is an expert on clinical trials, who is already seen as a leading architect of the future of medical research. And as the New York Times put it, he has “deeper ties to the pharmaceutical industry than any FDA commissioner in recent memory”. A lot of senior figures in medicine support Califf in spite of his ties to Pharma. The guy is just so bright, and understands the nuts and bolts of drug research so well! Surely a person like this is more useful than some outsider who offers only a squeaky-clean resume, they argue.

Bewitched, Bothered & Bewildered

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In Salem Village in the winter of 1692, nine-year-old Betty Parris and her 11-year-old cousin Abigail Williams began exhibiting strange behavior.  A local doctor could find no physical evidence of any ailment. When other young women in the village started exhibiting similar behaviours, Sarah Good, a homeless begger, Sarah Osborne, a woman who rarely attended church, Tituba, a slave from a minority ethnic group, and Dorothy Good, a four-year-old child, were accused of bewitching the girls. They were interrogated and sent to jail.

It’s Possible — and Beneficial — to Stop Feeling Guilt and Shame

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I believe the emotions of guilt and shame are culturally induced negative emotional experiences that almost all of us are tragically made to feel from infancy or childhood on. But guilt and shame are not now, nor ever were, hard-wired human emotional necessities.

Adolescent Suicide and The Black Box Warning: STAT Gets It All Wrong

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STAT recently published an opinion piece arguing that the black box warning on antidepressants has led to an increase in adolescent suicide. It is easily debunked, and reveals once again how our society is regularly misled about research findings related to psychiatric drugs. STAT has lent its good name to a false story that, unfortunately, will resonate loudly with the public.

The End of Psychiatry

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People are very confused about what psychiatry is. Psychiatry is a bit confused. Collapsing psychiatry into neurology would be clearer. If you want an evaluation to understand possible medical causes of your problem go to the nerve doctor. If you want to know if there is a pill for you, go to the nerve doctor. If you want to understand your experience as a human and the nature of your suffering, leave medicine out of it.
healthy guilt

Healthy Guilt and Doing Right By Those We Have Wronged

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Therapists tend to view guilt as a toxic emotion. They are often over-sensitized to the psychological effects of too much guilt—of unwarranted guilt—yet often under-sensitized to the interpersonal effects of someone having too little guilt—the absence of guilt when it is warranted. Guilt is one of the primary social emotions that keeps people socially aware.
sad child full of woe

Rethinking the Nature of Our Woes

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Parents must inform themselves about the flaws in the current paradigm if they are to have any chance of thinking sensibly about what might be distressing their child. Toward that end of providing information about those flaws, I interviewed Richard Hallam, author of the new book Abolishing the Concept of Mental Illness: Rethinking the Nature of our Woes.

Pierce v. Pemiscot Hospital: Federal Judge Takes a Psychiatric Inmate’s Rights Seriously

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On June 13, 2014, United States District Court Judge Carol E. Jackson issued a Memorandum and Order decision holding that a former psychiatric inmate was allowed to bring federal civil rights claims under 42 U.S.C. §1983 against hospital personnel when the hospital continued to hold her against her will after authorization had expired. In her Memorandum and Order decision, Judge Jackson took Ms. Pierce's rights seriously and, reading through it, one gets a sense that the court was offended by the cavalier attitude of hospital personnel towards their patients' rights. It is clear that if the Court's ruling is upheld, it can result in dramatic improvement in the way people are treated in Missouri psychiatric hospitals.
Photo of a boy sitting against a brick wall with his hands covering his face

Why Is Child Sexual Abuse So Common in Institutions?

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Where ableism and adultism allows disabled children to be seen as unreliable narrators of their own experience, sexual violence in institutions will continue to be pervasive.

What Is Biological Psychiatry? Pt. 3: Thoughts on Hastening Its Demise

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In Part 1 of this blog I attempted to summarize and define the evolution of psychiatry into its present day incarnation of Biological Psychiatry. In Part 2, I focused on analyzing the anatomy of its enormous power and control within our present day society. Given the difficult circumstances we now face in confronting such powerful institutions, I still believe there are many opportunities to expand our struggle and grow our movement. History has taught us that “where there is oppression there will always be resistance.” With each person and family abused by this system, combined with every lie the system tells us, there is a constant regeneration of favorable conditions to expose them and gather allies.

Is Xanax Really the Bad Guy?

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While any effort to generate awareness and potentially curb the benzodiazepine epidemic is commendable, we have to ask ourselves, is Xanax just the scapegoat in this situation? Will legislative action and media attention for only one benzodiazepine out of so many make any difference?
trapped in mental health system

My Son and the “Mental Health” System

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As a father whose 27-year-old son is trapped in the mental health system, I am painfully aware that I have been unable to protect him. At age 19, my son naively told his mother and his doctor that he was hearing voices, marking the beginning of a hellish nightmare which he is still unavoidably immersed in. I would like to explain my perspective on why this is the case.

Why Should Suicide (Or Voluntary Death) Be a Civil Right?

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Regardless of what one's moral stance is on the value of life, or the meaning of death, it is time to recognize that there are people whose views differ from ours, and that we do not have the right to force them to live (and die) the way we want to. We all die; it's the journey that matters, not the destination.

I Got a Break from Reality for Christmas!

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The more we worry about the separation from reality, the more scared we get and the more separated we get. This month I found out about another trap. When you can see the beauty and spirituality and mystery and magic of what is going on, it's tempting to do things to make it last longer and help yourself get further into it, like skip sleep or skip meals or use drugs. I had to fight those temptations often through this month, and still am, to be honest, because there is so much of this process that was not just scary, but glorious and giganticly interdimensional and impactful.

Mental Health Homes Open Their Proverbial Doors in New York: Caveats, Part II

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Given the length of this blog and the subject matter it addresses, I’ve divided it into two parts. Part II appears immediately below, Part...

How Many Deaths Will It Take Till We Know?

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Each time I see the initials for Mad In America, MIA, I think of the Vietnam war and lost young men. I remember engraved...

Understanding Mental Illnesses, and Ourselves

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I trained in psychiatry in the 1950s. I saw psychiatry switch from trying to help patients to understand themselves better to trying to find a drug that would relieve their symptoms.

The ‘Recovery’ Trap

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One of my very favorite questions: How long have you been ‘in Recovery’? These unnecessary delineations between those who are living ‘in recovery’ and those who are simply living continue to foster an ‘us’ and ‘them’ that inherently negates the truth that ‘us’ IS ‘them.’ All I can think to say in response is, “Just when was it decided (and by whom) that what you get to call ‘life,’ I have to call ‘recovery’?”

Lullaby

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On Monday a new study was published with the finding that there is a three- to four-fold increase in the rates of Autistic Spectrum Disorder and Developmental Delay in children, especially boys, born to mothers who have been on antidepressants through pregnancy. There are further studies with comparable findings in the offing. Not only this but it looks as though the SSRIs may redefine what it means to be a teratogen. Other teratogens produce their effects in the first trimester of pregnancy when organs are first being formed. But it looks like antidepressants used in the third trimester can lead to autistic spectrum disorder and developmental delay.

Decision-Making and Moral Injury

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Oppression and abuse have effects on a person's sense of self and experience of agency, or lack thereof; on one's ability to know one's self in the world as actor, and not only acted-upon. Some (and maybe all) aspects of oppression and abuse specifically entail moral injury and violation of moral integrity. This is particularly interesting to explore because it links psychological trauma as a result of oppression and abuse with an aspect of decision-making difficulty that some of us experience as psychiatrically-labeled people. There is something to be gained by reclaiming ownership of the truths of our own lives, and ownership over making decisions about where to take the discussion: in philosophy, psychology, law, politics, art or anywhere else.

7 Tips to Help a Distracted Child

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Simple changes such as keeping a calm home environment, limiting media distractions and enrolling your child in sports will help a child who is inattentive or having problems focusing on his or her school work. They are also useful for any child and can even prevent inattentiveness in an ever-more-distracting world.

Inside the Neuroscience Community: Peter Sterling Responds to Awais Aftab

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Dr. Aftab objects to my "tirade against psychiatric neuroscience." What Dr. Aftab does not do is address any of my substantive conclusions.
Illustration of trees shaped like human heads

Unity in Diversity: Rethinking Mental Health and Our Connection to Nature

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Meditation, walks in nature, and artistic and musical activities: These all have something in common—they have the power to dissolve the boundaries between us.

A Post-Racial Public Mental Health System: If Not Now, When?

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In answer to the question posed in the title to this article, probably not for a long, long time. Or perhaps more accurately, when...

Stimulate Your Vagus Nerve and Thus Chill Out: Simple, Natural, Uninvasive Methods

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The Low Histamine Chef published a post yesterday: The vagus nerve inflammation connection. I was tickled to get a list of various self-hacks on how to stimulate the vagus nerve. Once the vagus nerve is stimulated we calm down! It’s like magic. The vagus nerve is implicated in all sorts of stress.