Dr. Pies and The Chemical Imbalance Deception
Dr. Pies claims that the "chemical imbalance" theory was never really professed by psychiatrists. Yet he himself wrote an essay in "Creative Nonfiction" in 1999 that purveyed it directly to the layperson.
Grief and Its Potential Lessons
Within the current mental health paradigm, profound grief is often shoved into the universal category of depression and treated as a malfunction according to the biomedical model.
Insane Medicine, Chapter 8: Treatment Traps and How to Get Out of Them (Part...
Sami Timimi provides a discussion of the ways medication may be helpful for some, and advice and information on discontinuing psychiatric drugs.
Can Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) Hurt You?
What I was able to learn about the injury inflicted by TMS and the culture surrounding it is an incredible insight into the treatment itself and the nature of the medical model in its current form.
The History of Madness Network News and the Early Anti-Psychiatry Movement
Madness Network News, founded in 1972 by two women inmates of Agnews State Hospital, was an anti-psychiatry journal that served as the focal point for organizing throughout North America, and even overseas.
An American History of Addiction, Part 4: “Drugs Are Bad”
The disease theory of addiction had been ingrained in our culture for 200 years when Nixon signed this law. But had we ever actually checked to see if it was all true?
Now I See a Person: A New Model for Breaking Free of Mental Health...
NISAPI helps people achieve recovery by pairing the normalcy of a ranch and the nurturance of horses with a philosophy of postmodern collaborative practice.
Insane Medicine, Chapter 8: Treatment Traps and How to Get Out of Them (Part...
Deconstructing diagnosis, the nature of psychological injury, and how identifying a problem can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Finding One’s Way Through Withdrawal
Prescribers are taught to prescribe psychiatric medication, but they are often not well-educated about the effects on patients of discontinuing these medications.
Looking Under the Lamppost: Confinements of the Prevailing Mental Health Paradigm
The mental health field's focus on the biomedical paradigm is like looking for your keys in only one spot, just because it's the most well-lit.
Insane Medicine, Chapter 7: Industrialised Psychotherapy Markets Western Folk Psychology (Part 2)
Contrasting the folk psychology brands of CBT and McMindfulness with empowering frameworks such as Open Dialogue and the Power Threat Meaning Framework.
The Professionalization of Mental Health Services Is Ruining Friendship
The emphasis on getting "professional" help allows people to abdicate responsibility to their real-life friends, rather than learning how to contribute meaningfully to relationships.
Appealing the FDA’s Denial of ECT’s Harms
More than 200 people signed an open letter to the FDA requesting electroconvulsive therapy’s safety studies and electrical dosing protocols.
Insane Medicine, Chapter 7: Industrialised Psychotherapy Markets Western Folk Psychology (Part 1)
Sami Timimi explores the common factors that influence therapy’s success, the evidence base for psychotherapy, and the over-promotion of CBT.
Out of the Bubble: Now or Never?
Never in human history did a powerful institution, no matter how harmful and corrupt, slide into self-inflicted irrelevancy. Institutions like the current psychiatric system can only be toppled by a powerful social movement.
Insane Medicine, Chapter 6: Neoliberalism and the Compare-and-Compete Society
Neoliberalism teaches people that suffering has nothing to do with the inequality they experience, but that it comes from their own individual failures of body and mind, and requires "experts" to identify and treat it.
Stop Saying This, An Encore!
Continuing the series, we look at discussions of "chemical imbalances," medications, and diagnoses, as well as telling people to "calm down" and a further look at the "observer."
To the Young Person Who Doesn’t Identify with Their Disability Diagnosis Anymore
Your diagnosis should serve YOU. Not your parents, your doctors, your teachers, or the next door neighbor. We should be fighting for a future where the person being labeled has the ultimate say over how doctors and therapists view them.
No, Jill Biden Should Not Be Called “Doctor”… But Only Because No One Should
Jill deserves all the defense she is receiving. However, this rush to defend Jill’s honorific usage is missing a much bigger and far more pervasive point: NO ONE should be called “Dr. Last-name.”
Insane Medicine, Chapter 5: The Manufacture of Childhood Depression (Part 2)
The promotion of SSRI antidepressant use began with the pharmaceutical industry and occurs despite evidence that these drugs are harmful, not helpful, in children and adolescents.
Literally Indescribable: Are Antidepressants Addictive?
“My life was very, very good.” That’s how Michael sums up how things were for him—prior to his suffering from devastating withdrawal effects after discontinuing GlaxoSmithKline’s blockbuster drug Paxil.
Finding Meaning in Suffering: How Existentialism Can Help
Suffering is a universal human condition. But without making meaning of suffering, it can overwhelm us. Finding meaning in suffering might help to find the will to survive when life is difficult.
Insane Medicine, Chapter 5: The Manufacture of Childhood Depression (Part 1)
The medicalisation of our emotional lives has led to a horrific cultural shift in which we, and our children, have become alienated from and suspicious of our emotions, chipping away at our natural resilience.
No, Autism Is Not Over-Diagnosed
Autism is an umbrella diagnosis at this point. The broadness of the diagnosis doesn’t tend to be useful to clinicians. But it is very useful to the individuals who live with it.
Exploring Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal: A Town Hall Discussion Series
Our new discussion series aims to explore what we do and don’t know about safe withdrawal from antidepressants, antipsychotics, benzodiazepines and stimulants.
