Blogs

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

Reflections on ā€˜Montage of Heckā€™: The Life and Art of Kurt Cobain

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The Greeks understood that there was a function for theater and art. Through art, lifeā€™s tragedies could be enacted on stage, where the audience could vicariously participate in a drama and live through it in their imagination. In a world with no art, people enact the dramas in reality. Without an imaginary war in art, there would be a real war in life. Certain artists like Kurt Cobain put their art into the world. Music is the art form that communicates feeling directly. Kurt couldnā€™t connect in feeling in his real life, which is so much the story of a life of extreme pain.

Why an Assassinated Psychologist ā€” Ignored by U.S. Psychologists ā€” Is Being Honored

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On November 16, 1989 in El Salvador, liberation psychologist Ignacio Martin-BarĆ³ was murdered by a Salvadoran governmentā€™s ā€œcounter-insurgency unitā€ created at the U.S. Armyā€™s School of the Americas. This year, 25 years after his assassination, peace and justice activists around the world will honor Martin-BarĆ³. Embarrassingly, the vast majority of U.S. psychologists and psychiatrists know nothing about Martin-BarĆ³ and liberation psychology. Why would mainstream mental health institutions keep U.S. psychologists and psychiatrists and the general public ignorant of the life and work of Martin-BarĆ³?
Handcuffed hands of a prisoner

When Psych Diagnosis Means Life-or-Death

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One label in the DSM that applies to cognitive abilitiesā€”ā€œIntellectual Disabilitiesā€ā€”is crucial in determining whether people accused of crimes in some US states will be executed.

What the Government Knows About Suicide and Depression That We Are Not Being Told

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For nearly two decades, Big Pharma commercials have falsely told Americans that mental illness is associated with a chemical brain imbalance, but buried SAMHSA survey results tell us that depression and suicidality are associated with poverty, unemployment, and mass incarceration. And these results also point us to the reality that American society has now become so especially oppressive for young people that an embarrassingly large number of American teenagers and young adults are depressed and suicidal.

Providing Loving Receptivity Can Help People in Extreme States

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In this video I share about my lived experience of extreme states, and how that harrowing journey through madness almost fifty years ago sealed my fate. It set me on course for a vocation of being with others in their times of passage through madness, that has lasted for thirty five years now. I recount some of that journey as a therapist and in a brief tutorial, share a central lesson learned about risking to bring an open heart to those in need - to be present with loving receptivity.
life unarmed

Life, Unarmed

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When I was born, everyone was expecting me to have arms. The doctor's mind raced; how am I going to tell this mother and the father that their son has hands but not arms? If he's missing so much in his extremities, mustnā€™t he also be missing a mind? My mom looked into my eyes and knew - in a way that only mothers know - that I had a mind, and spirit.

Mad in America’s 10 Most Popular Articles in 2022

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A roundup of Mad in America's most read blogs and personal stories of 2022 as chosen by our readers.
Mad in America MIA

MIA at Eight Years: Are We Fulfilling Our Mission?

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Mad in America is about to turn eight years old, and as we are launching a fundraising effort to keep us going through 2020, I think itā€™s appropriate to ask the relevant question: Are we accomplishing what we set out to do?

Dismissing the Patriarchal Prescriptions

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I realized something after a recent occurrence that made me aware of how close any of us are to psychiatric lockup. What I realized is that I can protect myself now; I have tools that I didn't have at age 18. And that protecting myself doesn't mean obeying the patriarchal prescriptions for how to behave.

The Speech

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Iā€™ve given the ā€œthe speechā€ hundreds of times to skeptical young people, to frightened families and to many homeless men and women. Iā€™ve assured them all that ā€œmental illness is like diabetes and your medications are like insulin.ā€ I delivered this speech with all good intentions and unquestioned certainty of its veracity and helpfulness. I really bought the whole chemical imbalance narrative ā€” hook, line and Seroquel.

Behind Locked Doors: How I Got My Hospital Records, and What I Did With...

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ā€ØWhen people look at my poster, their most frequent response is, ā€œWow! How can I get my own records? I have always wanted to have mine!ā€ I tell them, ā€œJust do it! And be persistent. Even if the contents turn out to be upsetting, I doubt you will ever be sorry.ā€ This is the story behind how I finally received mine and what I did with them.

Itā€™s the Coercion, Stupid!

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Both Michel Foucault and Thomas Szasz dated the beginnings of a distinct Western institutional response to madness to the late 1500s-early 1600s. But while for Foucault it started in France with the creation of the public ā€œhĆ“pital gĆ©nĆ©ralā€ for the poor insane, for Szasz it began in England with the appearance of for-profit madhouses where upper class families shut away inconvenient relatives. Regardless of their different ideas on the beginnings of anything resembling a mental health system, both authors agree that it was characterized by the coercive incarceration of a specially labeled group.
Evan Durst Kreeger

Jinxed: The Persecution of Evan Durst Kreeger

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I am very concerned that Evan is about to be devoured by psychiatry's maw.Ā Things could be different if Evan were able to hire an attorney or attorneys to deal with all of these different legal actions coming at him and otherwise protect his interests such as sue the trustees for their unconscionable actions, but as I have indicated, his trustees have cut off his money so he can't hire such an attorney or attorneys.

Overtreatment, Bereavement, and Antidepressants

A recent paper argues that prescribing antidepressants shortly after the death of a loved one is problematic . . . and a few days later, a Harvard academic publicly suggests prescribing antidepressants FOR bereavement. Wait, what?

ļ»æOctober 14, 2010

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Bob-- Had two very interesting cases this morning: First, I saw new patient, a very thoughtful, intelligent retired pastor who is on Citalopram. We were visiting...

Dr. Pies and Dr. Frances Make a Compelling Case that Their Profession is Doing...

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Over the past two months, Ronald Pies and Allen Frances, in response to a post I had written, wrote several blogs that were meant to serve as an ā€œevidence-basedā€ defense of the long-term use of antipsychotics. As I read their pieces, I initially focused on that core argument they were presenting, but second time through, the aha moment arrived for me. Their blogs, when carefully parsed, make a compelling case that their profession, in their use of antipsychotics as a treatment for multiple psychotic disorders, has done great harm, and continues to do so today.

What Would Better Treatment for Those with Psychosis Look Like?

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In the post on the debate between Allen Frances and Bob Whitaker, Frances argues that we should all advocate better treatment for those with psychosis. I think that we all might embrace the goal of better, more empathic treatment. However, we will differ on what ā€œbetter treatmentā€ might entail. I would argue that a return to the state hospital systems of the 1960s would not constitute better treatment.

Response To Sandy Hook Report

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I do not claim to know how to heal the wounds from the tragedy that occurred in Newtown on December 14th, 2012. Nor do I claim to know how to prevent future tragedies of this sort. The intent of this post is to oppose ineffective and inhumane practices, prompted by reactions to the events in Newtown and other communities, that are falsely thought to be effective.

A Tribute to Bonnie Nelson

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Activist Bonnie Nelson was a force of nature. She and I definitely had our differences. So why am I writing to commemorate her? Among many other reasons, because she would have done the same for me. Bonnie Nelson was a person of principle, and once she decided what was right, the rubber hit the road.

NICE Guidelines for Bipolar Disorder- a Missed Opportunity

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There are some things to applaud about the recently released update of the NICE bipolar guidelines, not least the recognition that the diagnosis has been inappropriately applied to children with behavioural problems. Hopefully this will help curtail the worrying trend of using toxic bipolar drugs in this age group. As usual, however, the Guidelines overlook glaring problems with the evidence base for drug treatment in general, and miss an opportunity to stem the diagnostic creep that has come to the UK and Europe via the United States.

A Mental Patientā€™s View of the Body

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In 20 years of inpatient hospitalization, the psychiatrists that I encountered focused almost exclusively on treating my diseased mind and had no concept or interest in the body. While the wheels of ā€œprogressā€ turn slowly in mental health, I hope that along with ongoing advocacy there will be a focus on responsible health counseling and supporting people in healthier eating and living.
anxiety

The Meaningfulness of Anxiety

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Anxiety can be a clarion call from our better self, a nagging inner tension that will persist until real-life changes are made that attend to deeper needs. When anxiety is reduced to a symptom to be medicated away, or an aberrant emotion based on cognitive distortions in need of correction, the all-important representational value of that anxiety can be lost.
escape from AOT birdcage

Escaping from AOT: Letter to the Judge

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To the judge presiding over my upcoming AOT hearing: I would like a better way to take care of my own health care than the choices currently being imposed on me by community mental health centers, which involve forcibly injecting me with a drug that I do not want andĀ making me take a daily pill that I do not want to take. There is no reason that anyone should make my own health care choices for me.

A New Paradigm for Psychiatry

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Hereā€™s a newsflash ā€“ the hope for a molecular-biochemical explanation for psychiatry is a false hope. Most of my field has come to expect and believe that we are on the verge of a new paradigm. This paradigm is based on the illusion that the workings of the brain on the molecular level has anything to do with psychiatric conditions. The proponents believe we are on the verge of proving that psychiatry is a brain disease no different from cancer or diabetes. But all that the research has come up with is - nothing.

Largest Survey of Antidepressants Finds High Rates of Adverse Emotional and Interpersonal Effects

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I thought I would make a small contribution to the discussion about how coverage of the recent airline tragedy focuses so much on the supposed ā€˜mental illnessā€™ of the pilot and not so much on the possible role of antidepressants. Of course we will never know the answer to these questions but it is important, I think, to combat the simplistic nonsense wheeled out after most such tragedies, the nonsense that says the person had an illness that made them do awful things. So, just to confirm what many recipients of antidepressants, clinicians and researchers have been saying for a long time, here are some findings from our recent New Zealand survey of over 1,800 people taking anti-depressants, which we think is the largest survey to date.