Response to Criticism of Our Serotonin Paper
Criticisms of the paper were contradictory. Some psychiatrists said that no one ever really believed the serotonin theory. Yet the public does believe it, and are very surprised to learn that it is a myth.
Psychiatry’s Failure Crisis: Are You Moderately or Radically Enlightened?
The moderately enlightened acknowledge some of psychiatry’s failures but, in common with the unenlightened, desperately attempt to preserve the institution of psychiatry.
New WHO QualityRights e-training: Advancing Mental Health, Eliminating Stigma, and Promoting Inclusion
QualityRights is WHO’s global initiative to improve the quality of care and promote the rights of people with mental health conditions or psychosocial disabilities.
Are Antidepressant Drugs Being Prescribed Too Widely? A Review of “Evidence-biased Antidepressant Prescription”
Depression was considered a condition that most spontaneously recovered from, until drug companies changed that narrative.
A Diagnosis and Its Damages: Orna Ophir’s “Schizophrenia: An Unfinished History”
Ophir is a psychoanalyst in private practice and also a historian, which proved to be a fascinating combination as far as her latest book was concerned.
The Transformative Potential of Psychosis
For some, myself included, the “psychosis” became a catalyst for greater connection to self, others, and a sense of purpose.
July is Both Disability Pride Month and Mad Pride Month: Happy Bastille Day!
The National Council on Independent Living (NCIL) supports both Disability Pride Month and Mad Pride Month: Both are July!”
MIA Webinars: Past, Present and Future
We are pleased to announce that Charmaine Harris, who is a part of the POD team, will join the peer-supported Open Dialogue panel on Wednesday as a co-host.
The UK’s IAPT Service Is an Abject Failure
Despite the hype, the IAPT is hardly “world-beating.” In fact, it is a doubtful model for other countries to follow. Over half of IAPT clients don’t even attend two sessions.
Expanded Mental Health Services Won’t Stop Mass Shootings
“Easier access” to mental health treatment is likely to translate to getting more kids in front of more prescribers to produce more lifetime customers.
Peer Values Versus Violence: A View from Lived Experience
Some of us have survived violent, coercive forms of socially condoned mental health treatments. But many of us grow past the pain, into healing and compassion.
Cargo Cult Psychiatry
Cargo Cult Psychiatry uses the courts to force people, who are otherwise assumed to have the right to refuse treatment, to submit to their pseudoscientific approach to "mental health."
The Power of Activism
Getting support from other psychiatrized people, outside of the system, has the potential to be mutual. You are not being “treated” or talked down to. The contact is genuine and natural.
Open Season on Mental Patients
No one is safe from psychiatry’s project of medicalizing every variation of human emotion and behaviour, especially people viewed with suspicion and contempt by the powerful.
Behaviorists Must Confront Psychiatry’s Pseudoscience
Despite the well-documented greater effectiveness of behavior therapy, psychiatry's choice of treatment for mental disorder heavily favors drugs.
Psychiatry’s Medical Model: How It Traumatizes, Retraumatizes & Perverts Healing
The beginning of healing from trauma requires stripping power away from disconnecting violators like psychiatry's medical model.
The New York Times Comments Section: A Literary Rorschach Test for the Masses
Bergner’s piece in The New York Times challenged the illusions of psychiatry. That made some people angry, outraged, or scared. The result is their comments section.
A Hopelessly Flawed Seminar in “The Lancet” About Suicide
The Lancet seminar is one of the most misleading articles about suicide I have ever seen. Depression pills double the risk of suicide in children and adolescents.
Icarus, Let Me In: Songs For a Better Story
Mark Lipman made the album he wished his 23-year-old self would have heard. He needed a way to tell an integrated story instead of one of stigma and diagnosis, and here it was in music.
A Different Psychiatry Is Needed for Discontinuing Antidepressants
The problems related to the use of antidepressants cannot be solved by an oversimplified psychiatry brainwashed by the pharmaceutical industry.
The Shady World of Shock Treatment
The risk of undergoing shock treatment remains. As the FDA warns, “The long-term safety and effectiveness of ECT treatment has not been demonstrated.”
The Alternative to Psychiatry Has Been Discovered—We’re Just Not Using It
The psychiatric solution and the psychological solution to psychopathology are fundamentally incompatible with each other.
Peer Support Research: Is It Time Yet?
Researchers could be doing a better job of defining peer support. We could also have a better understanding of what the “positive effects'' of peer support really are.
The Emperor’s New Clothes: The Upcoming NICE Depression Guidelines
The new NICE depression guideline is a reflection of the field: you don’t really know what you’re doing, and you lack confidence that it’s doing any good.
Review of the Conference on Withdrawal and Side Effects: IIPDW
The online conference Withdrawal From Psychiatric Drugs was held on Friday May 6th and 7th. Here we summarize each of the speakers' points.
