What Video Games Can Teach Us About Effective Parenting
There is a secret to the programming of these games that seems to stir children to a level of greatness. Fortunately, that magic is completely transposable to our interactions with them.
What is a Warm Line and What Should I Expect When I Call One?
A warm line is an alternative to a crisis line that is run by âpeers,â generally those who have had their own experiences of trauma that they are willing to speak of and acknowledge. Unlike a crisis line, a warm line operator is unlikely to call the police or have someone locked up if they talk about suicidal or self-harming thoughts or behaviors. Most warm line operators have been through extreme challenges themselves and are there primarily to listen.
A Peek Inside the Modern Asylum
The psychiatric hospital of today is a panopticon, a modern prison for the daring mind and for weird behavior. I was once inside and thus, am inviting you to have a look. I will take your hand, and encourage you to join me, on an exploration of the inside of the psychiatric institution. We'll have a small peek, but in reality, it is much more distressing for the one who is being observed.
Black Movement Leaders: Lost & Found
As some of us get caught up in lamenting the whiteness of our movement, we are actively losing the stories of Black leaders.
“Hidden Valley Road” and Schizophrenia: Do Genes Tell the Story?
The âgenetics of mental disordersâ story told in Kolker's "Hidden Valley Road" involves omission and misrepresentation of genetic research.
Weâre Obsessed with Labelling Suffering, But Our Power to Think about it Matters More
I needed Kierkegaard and Freud; my psychiatrist prescribed cereal bars. My despair was an imbalance to be corrected, rather than a relationship with the world.
Helping Children to Overcome OCD: 6 Creative Strategies for Parents
Here, Dr. Ben Furman offers a creative approach to helping children who struggle with OCD. Explaining why behaviors like reasoning, reassuring, and superstitious rituals donât work, he suggests engaging alternatives that teach kids how to manage their âworry monsterâ and make sense of their distressing experience.
Prescripticide: A Proposal for Action and a Request for Your Help
The primary factor protecting psychiatryâs unwarranted power and authority is that it is perceived as shielding society from folks who are believed to be dangerous. It would seem, then, that one logical step toward reducing societyâs trust in biological psychiatry would be to reveal the evidence of a significant correlation between the use of prescribed psychoactive drugs and the commission of violent acts against oneself or others.
Psychiatric Hegemony: A Marxist Theory of Mental Illness
In Psychiatric Hegemony: A Marxist Theory of Mental Illness, Bruce Cohen explains the expanding power and influence of psychiatry in terms of its usefulness to the capitalist system â the more useful it is, the more power it is given, and the greater its power, the more useful it becomes.
The Functions of the Mental Health System Under Capitalism
The mental health system is a system of care and control, legitimated by the concept of mental illness, and playing an important role in capitalist and Neoliberal societies.
The Spravato Controversy: A Row Over the Drugâs Efficacy Compels a Reassessment of...
The UK's drug regulator rejected Janssen's esketamine nasal spray. Why did the US FDA approve it?
The Most Dangerous Thing You Will Ever Do
I am a psychiatrist and I have been watching my profession deteriorate for many decades. This is my most direct written statement about the dangers of stepping inside a modern psychiatristâs office. My conclusions are the culmination of mountains of research authored by me and by an increasing number of other psychiatrists, scientists and journalists.
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.
Problem-Solving Through Skills-Building: Motivating Kids to Change
Children can overcome all sorts of difficulties by learning specific behavioural or emotional skills with the help and support of their social network.
The Culture Is the Poison: Why Psychedelics Are Dangerous Medicine in a Neoliberal Society
Extraction of psychedelics from the ritual process has dissociated them from community, connectedness, and responsibility, which used to define psychedelic drug use.
The Mad in the World Network: A Global Voice for Change
Mad in Ireland is the newest Mad in America affiliate. The network of affiliate sites is becoming a global voice for change.
We Must Not Remove Legal Protections for People at Risk of Forced ECT
Written testimony submitted to the Connecticut State Legislature in opposition to a bill removing legal protections for those at risk of receiving ECT against their will.
Holistic Approaches: A Proven Treatment for Psychotropic Drug Withdrawal
Published in the peer-reviewed journal Advances in Mind Body Medicine, this case series is the first of its kind to document the methodology employed in the successful discontinuation of a range of psychotropic medications, with holistic support interventions providing long-term mood support.
Three Suicides: Honoring Lives Lost to Benzodiazepines
I am still trying to reconcile what these chemicals are capable of, how the urge can morph into an action, how we maybe just donât understand suicide all that well. For me, the suffering was so intense it was too painful to stay alive. I understand how my friends felt in their last moments.
The Alternative to Psychiatry Has Been DiscoveredâWeâre Just Not Using It
The psychiatric solution and the psychological solution to psychopathology are fundamentally incompatible with each other.
E. Fuller Torreyâs Review of Anatomy of an Epidemic: What Does It Reveal About...
E. Fuller Torrey, through his Treatment Advocacy Center, is the countryâs most prominent advocate for outpatient commitment laws, which typically force people with a...
Psychiatric Diagnosis is a Fraud: The Destructive and Damaging Fiction of Biological âDiseasesâ
Everywhere you turn, you see âOCD, ASD, MDD, ADD, ADHD, BPD, GAD, PD, SAD, PTSD, NPD," etc. The problem is not limited to this acronym soup, but the pseudo diagnoses they represent. Patients today get stained by the specious medical diagnoses of biological psychiatry. And furthermore they are brainwashed to believe that these fictitious brain âdiseasesâ are genetic. Biological psychiatry treats people like they are mechanical objects, renaming them almost as they are re-branding products. The one I like the best is the renaming of âmanic-depressiveâ to âbipolar.â Instead of a name which accurately describes the states of suffering, it was turned into something mechanicalâââa battery with two poles. Weâve gone from something human to something Frankensteinian.
The Real Myth of the Schizophrenogenic Mother
Acknowledging the role of trauma inflicted by a given individualâs mother is not the same as laying all blame for âmental illnessâ at the feet of motherhood. Meanwhile, a mountain of evidence has accumulated linking schizophrenia to sexual, physical, and emotional abuse and many other categories of adverse childhood experiences.
Denmark Is the Only European Country Where the Usage of Depression Pills Has Dropped
Between 2010 and 2020, the consumption of depression pills increased by 37% in 24 European countries. Denmark was the only country where usage dropped (a 4% drop).
The Mental Health Industry Speaks Volumes About Our Society’s Priorities
An educated public has a much better chance of advocating from the grassroots for safe and effective treatments in the face of a pharmaceutical industry more interested in profits than people.