Over-stressing Stress: American Psychological Association Report Omits Oppression
Despite noting financial problems, global conflict, and climate crisis, the report was on how individuals could work on their own stress.
The New WHO and UN Guidance: Psychiatry Must Entirely Change
According to the preeminent health and rights bodies in the world, the WHO and the UN, psychiatry has to change entirely.
How the Psychosocial Approach Provides an Alternative to the Biomedical Model
The biomedical model ignores the social context in which mental distress exists, despite a large body of evidence of that link.
Why Do Only Some People Experience Severe Antidepressant Withdrawal?
Much of the vulnerability to antidepressant withdrawal may be related not to bipolar disorder, but a trait called “bipolarity.”
Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 16: Is There Any Future for Psychiatry? (Part Six)
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
Although it professes to divert calls away from carceral responses, #988 may actually be increasing involuntary interventions.
The Challenge of Presenting Antidepressant Risks and Benefits
Two goals are in direct conflict for doctors when it comes to antidepressant prescriptions: fully informed consent versus maximizing placebo value.
Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 16: Is There Any Future for Psychiatry? (Part Five)
Discussing how psychiatric drugs lead to a more chronic course for depression and psychosis.
Madness and Method: Exploring the Realm of Unconventional Reasoning
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
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
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.
Antidepressant Withdrawal: A Clinician’s Middle View
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.
Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 16: Is There Any Future for Psychiatry? (Part Four)
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
The American Journal of Psychiatry will not be retracting the fraudulent STAR*D study.
The War on Suicide Is Making Things Worse
While allegedly intended to help, institutionalizing people against their will does more harm than good. Psychiatric coercion is dehumanizing.
Dostoevsky: A Psychologist We Can All Learn From
Psychology has greatly broadened its scope since Nietzsche’s day and yet his implied criticism is one the discipline is still wrestling with.
Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 16: Is There Any Future for Psychiatry? (Part Three)
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
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’
Sam Ruck shares an excerpt from his book "Healing Companions," which describes his life with, and love for, his wife and her “alters.”
Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 16: Is There Any Future for Psychiatry? (Part Two)
Peter Gøtzsche discusses how critics of psychiatry are silenced in top medical journals and in the media.
Reflections on the RADAR Study
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
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
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.
Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 16: Is There Any Future for Psychiatry? (Part One)
Peter Gøtzsche discusses the myths perpetuated by mainstream psychiatrists and the dishonest way they respond to critics.
Not Before Time: Lived Experience Led Justice and Repair
A landmark report has been released exploring possibilities for acknowledging the harms people experience in mental health systems.