The First Studies of Antidepressant Withdrawal
The history of antidepressant withdrawal dates to the first articles on imipramine in the late 1950s. It is useful to compare discussion of both generations of psychiatric drugs and focus on shared efforts to deny and minimize their withdrawal syndromes.
How Psilocybin-Assisted Therapy Changed My Life
I don’t drink or smoke. I’ve never taken any drugs till four years ago. Yet today, my life revolves around psychedelic medicines—heavily stigmatized substances still illegal in this country and most others across the world. How did this happen?
You’ve Got to Be Crazy to Go to a Psychiatrist
To those who say that major scientific/medical advances since 1975 have made going to a biological psychiatrist a rational choice, I say: What advances?
45 years have passed: Is any psychiatric “diagnosis” now verified by lab test, x-ray, or physical exam finding?
Addiction Treatment: How Many Meds Does It Take to Get Sober?
I started to wonder, “How many medications does it take to get sober?” In fact, the biggest correlation I’ve noticed with relapse and overdose is the amount of psychiatric medications being prescribed.
How Mindful Awareness Can Reduce Suffering
Suffering can be altered when people learn how to respond differently to their pain. This is the principle behind mindfulness-based stress reduction, which was designed to incorporate Buddhist practices into chronic pain treatment.
Suicidal Thoughts, Psychiatric Diagnosis, and What Really Helps: Part Two
This piece is the second of a two-part essay about suicide, diagnosis, what doesn't help, and what does help. This part is about barriers to seeking help and about the ways we actually can be of help to people who are considering suicide.
Suicidal Thoughts, Psychiatric Diagnosis, and What Really Helps: Part One
This piece is the first of a two-part essay about suicide, diagnosis, what doesn't help, and what does help. This part is about suicide, diagnosis, and some of what fails to help.
A Conversation with Nev Jones
A dialogue between Nev Jones and Sandy Steingard about Mad in America, critics of psychiatry, medication for psychosis, Open Dialogue, and the need for racial and class justice.
VICE, MIA and The Movement Against Psychiatry
The Vice article was presented as an exploration of the “movement against psychiatry,” and yet you can see, once it is deconstructed, how it told a story that surely pleased the promoters of the conventional narrative, and put the “critics” on the defensive at almost every turn.
Why Is the APA Proposing Sweeping Changes to Training Requirements?
The American Psychological Association has proposed sweeping changes to training, focusing on the behavioral health model, which reduces the complexity of the human experience to observable behaviors.
Malcharist: Fact or Fiction? Big Pharma, Psychiatry’s Key Opinion Leaders and their Ghostwriters
Malcharist, by Paul John Scott, is a fictional account of one of psychiatry’s most influential key opinion leaders (KOLs), his ghostwriter, and a journalist on the trail of a big scandal in the world of Big Pharma.
The Mirror Repeats: The Art of Phoebe Sparrow Wagner
It is uncomfortably difficult to look at Phoebe Sparrow Wagner’s art. That much is intentional. She shakes up the viewer’s sense of wellbeing and security so that they can better identify with the plight of the mental patient.
Stop Saying This, Part Four: Does Time Heal All Wounds?
In part four of this series, Megan Wildhood takes on the tropes of "That's not about you," "The outer world is a reflection of your inner world," "I didn't mean to," and "Time heals all wounds."
CAUTION: Spin Ahead! There is No Evidence That Psychostimulants Reduce the Risk for Infection...
Debunking a recent study on ADHD and COVID-19: It suffers from a series of manipulations and spins that are inappropriate in scientific research that aspires to objectivity and that aims to reveal truths.
Hearing Voices: Let the Community Lead
A collective knowledge of lived experience is a straightforward answer for improving millions of lives, but it has become clear that it will take an organized community of voice-hearers and their allies to take back credibility and authorship on the narrative of our own lives.
A Positive Change for Mad in America Continuing Education
We are going to organize webinar events, starting this fall, that will be easier to register for (sign-up on Zoom), free (donations will be accepted), and often feature two or more speakers (or a panel), with more time devoted to an interaction with the audience.
An Obituary for My Colonizer: Reflections on the Legacy of DJ Jaffe
When I heard this morning that DJ Jaffe was dead my face went through its own mutation; a moment of surprise and wonderment followed by swift elation, and then, very quickly and now for so many hours afterward, an enraged, frustrated, quick-breathed grimace.
Can We Allow Suffering?
After 9/11, no psychiatrist, nurse, or social worker asked me what it felt like to watch as nearly 3000 souls left this planet in flames; what it felt like to be so afraid. There was a strange silence around it, as if this horrible event was unrelated to my mental state.
UN Special Rapporteur Dainius Pūras: Biomedical Approach “Still Has an Important Role to Play”
In Pūras' new UN report, his use of biomedical language seems at odds with his message to move beyond the medicalization of distress.
Dear “Psychology Today”: Believe Incest Survivors
Incest survivors are the neglected heroes of the #MeToo movement. Yet when it comes to entrenched narratives that silence incest survivors, mainstream media continues to propagate these harmful myths unchecked.
Deep Sleep “Therapy” in Australia in the 1960s & ’70s: Could Something Like This...
Psychiatry has a history of continuing to perform harmful, even deadly procedures. But does it still happen? Medication-induced akathisia filled two and a half pages of the DSM-IV. Why was it written out of the DSM 5?
Inequities in Mental Health Services: It’s Time for a Reckoning and Rectification
Clinical education must include more training in macro skills that help build the supports, policies, and community infrastructures under-served clients need.
SSRI Withdrawal’s Elephant in the Room: Tardive Akathisia
Slower tapering of antidepressant dose is generally more comfortable. However, success or failure after stopping completely mostly relates to whether tardive akathisia occurs.
Do We All Need Tinfoil Hats? Considering Schizophrenia
If alien species wanted to intervene in human society without fully revealing themselves, how would they do it? Choose a select number of individuals who are easily discredited by others in the group. In other words: Turn people into schizophrenics.
An American History of Drugs and Addiction, Part Two: Immigrating to a Temperance Culture
As Prohibition was taking hold on the East Coast in response to European immigrants, equal efforts for Prohibition were occurring on the West Coast, fueled by racist caricatures of Chinese immigrants.
