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This is the world that lies in store for us. It is not the world of traditional medicine, where drugs treat diseases to restore the social order. It is a world in which medical interventions will potentially change that order.

Public perception of mental health stigma does not entirely reflect a reality that exists. Many of you reading this that have experienced truly negative reactions from others (due to mental health concerns and/or treatment) may be angered or offended by this proposition. However, no one (especially myself) is saying that stigma is not a serious concern that doesn’t need to be addressed. It is. Although in some ways I do feel that people can seek out treatment with less apprehension today than decades ago, there is no doubt that many still experience negative reactions (intentionally or unintentionally) from what others perceive in them.

I learned of the Hiawatha Asylum for Insane Indians in 2001 through the paper, “Wild Indians,” by psychiatric survivor and activist Pemina Yellow Bird. Pemina movingly described the notorious history of this federal facility which operated from 1899 to 1933. When I finished reading, I searched up Pemina’s email address, and we began a series of lengthy virtual exchanges that helped galvanize my spirit through the many emerging battles with IHS’s psychiatric labeling and medicating approach to treating Yakama reactions to oppression, and the related psychosocial stress. In short, I began to fight back.

Racially motivated invective and abuse are directed against people purely and simply on the basis of their skin color. Anti-psychiatry invective and abuse, however, are based on the activities of psychiatrists. For the past several decades, psychiatrists have been telling their clients, and the general public, and journalists, that virtually all significant problems of thinking, feeling, and/or behaving are caused by chemical imbalances in the brain. They have stated clearly and unambiguously that these putative imbalances constitute "real illnesses, just like diabetes," and that the imbalances are corrected by psychiatric drugs. So when we mental illness "deniers" point out that the various problems of thinking, feeling, and/or behaving listed in the DSM are not real illnesses, we are actually using the term illness in the same sense as is entailed in psychiatry's scandalously deceptive assertion.

“The substantial hereditary component in schizophrenia,” a pair of researchers wrote in 1993, “is surely one of the two or three best-established facts in psychiatry.” But is it really? For mainstream psychiatry and psychiatric genetics, schizophrenia is “a severe mental disorder with a lifetime risk of about 1%, characterized by hallucinations, delusions and cognitive deficits, with heritability estimated at up to 80%,” or a “highly heritable neuropsychiatric disorder of complex genetic etiology.” Many commentators have challenged these claims, and some have challenged the concept of schizophrenia itself.

People with mental disorders or differences are often experienced as “hot stoves” in society — at work, at school, at home, in friendships. In addition, providers and consumers who embrace the medical model and those who don’t are often “hot stoves” for one another. The result of arguments for and against those and other divisive perspectives is interference with empathy, understanding, creative solutions, and forward movement as a mental health community.

The bill will require prescribers to obtain written informed consent including the risks of psychiatric drugs.

When people seeking help are relegated to “the Other,” how can they ever form a “therapeutic alliance”? Without collaboration, treatment devolves into coercion and oppression. We must change our language and relationships so new narratives can be born.

When Carina Håkansson sent out an invitation for a symposium on "Pharmaceuticals: Risks and Alternatives," some of the world's top scientists, along with experts-by-experience, came from 13 countries to explore better ways to respond to people in crisis.

Street drug dealers and stimulant-peddling doctors both get clients high and addicted for profit. So there is really no difference between what they do except that doctors are more ‘successful’ at it, since they enjoy many advantages over illicit dealers and can get away with doing it legally.

Drugs, social support, placenta encapsulation: How can we approach the specter of postpartum depression?

Earth Day 2013 is a good time to reflect on how problems in our mental health system reflect deep flaws in “normal” conceptions of what it means to be a human being. These flawed conceptions then contribute in a critical way to the climate crisis that threatens us all.

When my son was born six years ago, the word “disabled” was suddenly all around me. It came from everywhere – the nurses, the doctors, the physical and occupational therapists, friends and family. I remember looking into his ice blue eyes and so marveling at the lines of white that extended so symmetrically from his irises that I began calling him Star Boy. I felt a new mother’s sense of protection. The label surrounding my Star Boy was a smoke so thick I felt I could barely breathe.

The theatre of the oppressed directly challenges societal problems of oppression. Here the involved learn much from the enactment—concrete possible solutions and possible practices of resistance.

Huffington Post’s “TED Weekend” asked several of their bloggers, including myself, to respond to Philip Zimbardo’s TED talk on “The Psychology of Evil.” Zimbardo’s message about the systemic sources of evil and the value of deviants is a good one, however, I questioned the effectiveness of his solution. I believe that our young anti-authoritarians — our potential heroes — have far less of a need for Zimbardo’s hero courses in their schools than a need for help in battling against the systemic, authoritarian aspects of the institutions that rule their lives.

Roxanne fled to Canada, and received formal refugee status, as a psychiatric refugee after being threatened with psychiatric imprisonment and forced drugging in Jamaica.

Les Ruthven addresses the lack of evidence for antidepressants being better than placebo, as well as a note about ECT.

On 6 January 2014, I published the article “Psychiatry Gone Astray” in a major Danish newspaper (Politiken), which started an important debate about the use and abuse of psychiatric drugs. Numerous articles followed, some written by psychiatrists who agreed with my views. For more than a month, there wasn’t a single day without discussion of these issues on radio, TV or in newspapers, and there were also debates at departments of psychiatry. People in Norway and Sweden have thanked me for having started the discussion, saying that it’s impossible to have such public debates about psychiatry in their country, and I have received hundreds of emails from patients that have confirmed with their own stories that what I wrote in my article is true.

Last night, 60 Minutes presented the work of Irving Kirsch, who has been researching the placebo effect in antidepressants for many years. We discuss.

Since mainstream “mental health” care directly affects the public, the public deserves an overview of the issues raised by the critics of these practices. For this reason, I have created a short video lecture titled The DSM and the Medical Model, summarizing criticism of the medical model of mental distress and offering a sharp rebuke of psychiatry and its narrative.

Starting on September 17, Mad in America will be offering a series of monthly webinars how to make changes in real-world programs that reflect the progressive reform agendas that embody a "green" revolution in mental health care. Enroll now!

While allegedly intended to help, institutionalizing people against their will does more harm than good. Psychiatric coercion is dehumanizing.

Consider these findings: The antidepressant drugs, used to treat depression and many other mental disorders have limited effectiveness, they have significant side effects, and...

There is a great deal of discussion about youth being diagnosed - by general internists as well as psychiatrists - with ADHD, bipolar disorder, autism, irritability and depression and then joining the ranks of the pathologized and overmedicated on a march towards long-term distress. Less attention has been paid to the 27 million children who, covered by federal and state Medicaid programs, are at high risk due to dangerous mismanagement of second-generation anti-psychotic drugs (SGAs). Recent reports have documented the brutal facts.

Western culture has instilled the idea that women are inherently weak and must trust authoritative doctors to manage their distress for them.