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).

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Over-stressing Stress: American Psychological Association Report Omits Oppression

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Despite noting financial problems, global conflict, and climate crisis, the report was on how individuals could work on their own stress.
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The New WHO and UN Guidance: Psychiatry Must Entirely Change

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According to the preeminent health and rights bodies in the world, the WHO and the UN, psychiatry has to change entirely.
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How the Psychosocial Approach Provides an Alternative to the Biomedical Model

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The biomedical model ignores the social context in which mental distress exists, despite a large body of evidence of that link.
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Why Do Only Some People Experience Severe Antidepressant Withdrawal?

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Much of the vulnerability to antidepressant withdrawal may be related not to bipolar disorder, but a trait called “bipolarity.”
A sign in the desert reads "ROAD CLOSED"

Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 16: Is There Any Future for Psychiatry? (Part Six)

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In the final blog in Peter Gøtzsche's series, he presents his concluding thoughts and suggestions for the future of psychiatry.

I Secret Shopped #988 and Three Cop Cars Showed Up Outside My House

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Although it professes to divert calls away from carceral responses, #988 may actually be increasing involuntary interventions.
Blue background, transparent pill bottle, blue and white pills out of the top

The Challenge of Presenting Antidepressant Risks and Benefits

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Two goals are in direct conflict for doctors when it comes to antidepressant prescriptions: fully informed consent versus maximizing placebo value.
Illustration: Man trapped in a bottle of pills tries to scream for help

Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 16: Is There Any Future for Psychiatry? (Part Five)

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Discussing how psychiatric drugs lead to a more chronic course for depression and psychosis.
Vector illustration. Head shape with broken prison bars; a man in a suit launches out on a jetpack into a blue sky with clouds.

Madness and Method: Exploring the Realm of Unconventional Reasoning

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What if madness isn’t a defective form of reasoning, but a distinctive style of reasoning?

Healing From Psychiatric Drug Harm, Part 2: Rational Approaches to Recovery

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How do I want to live with what happened? I can't change the past, but I can choose how to move forward, focusing on progress, not perfection.

Medication-free Ward in Tromsø, Norway May Soon Close

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The Tromsø ward has shown that offering patients the option to forgo psychiatric medication, or to taper from the drugs, can be a successful model of care.
Blue background, white pill bottle, blue and white pills out of the top

Antidepressant Withdrawal: A Clinician’s Middle View

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In the debate about antidepressant withdrawal, I present a middle ground, where the views of both sides are understood to have origins in wanting to help people.
3D illustration of an upside-down maze with business-people falling out of it into a white void

Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 16: Is There Any Future for Psychiatry? (Part Four)

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On the failures of the publicly funded long-term studies and psychiatry’s fraudulent reporting of these results.

The American Journal of Psychiatry’s Answer to MIA: A Silence that Speaks Volumes

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The American Journal of Psychiatry will not be retracting the fraudulent STAR*D study.
A girl looks sad, blurry through a rainy pane of glass, dark

The War on Suicide Is Making Things Worse

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While allegedly intended to help, institutionalizing people against their will does more harm than good. Psychiatric coercion is dehumanizing.
Painting of Dostoevsky by Vasily Perov

Dostoevsky: A Psychologist We Can All Learn From

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Psychology has greatly broadened its scope since Nietzsche’s day and yet his implied criticism is one the discipline is still wrestling with.
Stock photo of a white-coat male doctor holding a screwdriver to the head of a male patient as if to "fix" him.

Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 16: Is There Any Future for Psychiatry? (Part Three)

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Psychiatry forcefully maintains its delusions, even when the most reliable science has shown that their beliefs are wrong.

Grant, Interrupted: An Introduction and Report Back from Oregon

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We hope the Oregon Health Authority can overcome its critics and get back on track to doing what it set out to do: creating peer support respites led by grassroots groups.

Reality According to Whom? Listening to My Wife—and The Problems with ‘Psychosis’

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Sam Ruck shares an excerpt from his book "Healing Companions," which describes his life with, and love for, his wife and her “alters.” 
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Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 16: Is There Any Future for Psychiatry? (Part Two)

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Peter Gøtzsche discusses how critics of psychiatry are silenced in top medical journals and in the media.
Prescription pills and red bottle on Rx form

Reflections on the RADAR Study

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We still do not have adequate data to guide us on how to best reduce relapse risk; however, I think there are reasons to taper slowly.

Survivors and Families Working Together For Change: A New Project 

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Based on his lived experience, Ron Bassman describes his efforts to create an educational and support program that links families with survivors.

Medication Overload, Part II: The Explosion of Drugs for Kids

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An analysis of the huge increase in drugs for children, the role of Big Pharma, and a look at the impact on families and communities.
Dark, vignetted black and white illustration: a lighthouse on an island. Below the water, the island becomes a skull.

Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 16: Is There Any Future for Psychiatry? (Part One)

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Peter Gøtzsche discusses the myths perpetuated by mainstream psychiatrists and the dishonest way they respond to critics.
Illustration from above of a group of people in circle from diverse culture holding hands

Not Before Time: Lived Experience Led Justice and Repair

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A landmark report has been released exploring possibilities for acknowledging the harms people experience in mental health systems.