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).

watercolor portrait of a sleeping woman

What Are Waking Dreams, and Why Should You Care?

12
Indigenous cultures around the world recognize and intentionally cultivate waking dreams for both personal and community well-being.
Vector illustration of a man with a maze for a head with someone confused inside it

The Emperor’s New Clothes? The Psychiatrist as Expert in a Post-Modern World

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Psychiatry has fallen to too many fads and abusive treatments over the decades to hold current treatments with any confidence.
A male doctor appears to scream in frustration. His glasses catch the light

Are Psychiatrists More Mad Than Their Patients?

100
Misconceptions among psychiatric leaders are at variance with the scientific evidence. They suffer from a serious, collective delusion.

DOOCE: A Case Study on the Failure of Psychiatry

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Heather Armstrong’s life was taken by psychiatry, and our unwillingness to scrutinize their methods of madness.
A wooden hand touches post it notes of smiling and sad faces on wooden figures

Family Traditions and the Inheritance of “Madness”

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Families are not merely a source of comfort and support but also a breeding ground for dysfunction, unhealed trauma, and emotional neglect.

Exploring How Muslim Therapists Work With Jinn Possession

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How do Western-trained Muslim therapists work with clients that believe they are possessed? How do they balance their belief in Jinn with their knowledge of psychological/sociological theory? How do they formulate and work with a client in the British context?

How to Avoid Severe SSRI Withdrawal Symptoms?

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After long-term use, most people are going to have serious symptoms when stopping SSRIs. Many people are going to have transient, mild to moderate difficulty and some are going to end up falling down the akathisia rabbit hole. That is a long, difficult drop.

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.

Catherine’s Story: A Child Lost to Psychiatry 

146
A year ago today, our youngest child died, thanks to the adversarial actions and toxic treatments foisted on her by medical-model psychiatry. By telling her story, we hope to promote systemic change.

Reimagining Healthcare

23
The conventional Western classification systems of health conditions are based on flawed science shaped by reductionist, hierarchical, and profit-driven ideologies. THEN wants to create a new paradigm built upon principles drawn from systems science, the life course perspective, developmental neurobiology, and other evidence-informed studies.

Victim Blaming: Childhood Trauma, Mental Illness & Diagnostic Distractions?

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Why, despite the fact that the vast majority of people diagnosed with a mental illness have suffered from some form of childhood trauma, is it still so difficult to talk about? Why, despite the enormous amount of research about the impact of trauma on the brain and subsequent effect on behaviour, does there seem to be such an extraordinary refusal for the implication of this research to change attitudes towards those who are mentally ill? Why, when our program and others like it have shown people can heal from the effects of trauma, are so many people left with the self-blame and the feeling they will never get better that my colleague writes about below?
Pop art style. Two workers carry a bandaged brain on a stretcher.

What Helped and What Hindered My Recovery from PSSD and Protracted Withdrawal from Antidepressants?

8
To recover from protracted withdrawal, I did everything I could to survive the process and help my body and mind heal.
Unhappy Woman In Converstion With Friend Or Counsellor

“Get Over It”? A Response to Empower Parents to Repair Instead of Victim Blame

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An epidemic of children blaming their parents in therapy? In my 20 years as a psychologist, I've seen the opposite.

Making Peer Counseling Radically Accessible

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I imagined a world in which anyone can hit a button on their phone and be connected with a compassionate and empathetic listener, 24/7. So in 2019, I founded Peer Collective. Today, there are 30 peer counselors on the platform offering 30-minute counseling sessions for just $14.
Photo of young woman in a therapy group

The Quiet Crisis in Mental Health: The Medicalization and Deskilling of Psychotherapy

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The focus on the "worried well" and the exclusion of the "mad" serves to legitimize psychiatric control and surveillance.
Abstract design made of thick canvas paint relevant for human connections with the world's colors and textures

Schizophrenia in Philosophy and Theology

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From Socrates to Jesus to Nietzsche, all experienced divine Beatific Visions, just as I have.
Flat illustration of an anxios person holding their head with their hands.

A Reflection on “Unshrunk: A Story of Psychiatric Treatment Resistance”

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The act of diagnosis is so influential on a person’s sense of self that its limitations need to be repeated again and again and again.
Two hands holding pills, one with a smiley face, the other with x's for eyes and a frown

Observational Studies Confirm Trial Results That Antidepressants Double Suicides

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Depression drugs don’t work, and they increase suicide.
A normal distribution curve appears on a tablet screen

Bad Science Revisited: “The Bell Curve” Turns 30

25
Critiquing the wildly popular 1994 eugenicist book, which purported to link IQ and race, by reviewing the supposed genetic evidence.
Cartoon illustration of a yellow brain lifting weights on a purple background

ADHD and “Weak Muscle Disorder”

10
"ADHD" doesn’t explain inattentiveness, just like "weak muscle disorder" doesn’t explain muscle weakness, just describes something improvable.
A man hiding behind a large wooden table, only his head and hands showing

The Trauma Craze: How the Expansion of Trauma Diagnoses Fueled Victimhood Culture

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Exploring the paradox of increasing trauma diagnoses in a safer world and the proliferation of trauma culture.
A photo of RFK Jr. emerges from a pile of blue pills

RFK Jr. May Be Wrong on Many Medical Issues, But He’s Right About Antidepressants

120
Documented cases show a link between SSRIs and school violence, but pharma has suppressed the data that could prove this link.

Spiritual Side Effects of Psychiatric Medication: From Helpful to Harmful

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The larger narratives put forth by psychiatry and neuroscience often eclipse the equally important stories of lived experience. The easiest way to understand how people are engaging spiritually with their prescriptions is to hear it in their own words.
empathy or compassion

Having Empathy Doesn’t Mean That You Also Have Compassion!

103
There’s a very common, pop-psychology, new-age misconception that conflates being empathic with being caring and compassionate. But some of the most highly empathic people I’ve ever known have been con artists, grifters, unrepentant thieves, cynically manipulative fearmongering politicians, and heartless predators of every kind.

The History of Madness Network News and the Early Anti-Psychiatry Movement

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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.