Mad In South Asia
While conducting research in rural Northern India, Ayurdhi Dhar spoke to a woman whose mother had vivid visual hallucinations of Indian wedding processions. When...
Default Depression—How We Now Interpret Distress as Mental Illness
The Situational Approach provides an alternative to the poor outcomes seen with the medicalisation of distress.
Kyrie Therapeutic Farm: Distress Understood as Part of the Human Condition
KTF aims to combine supportive community, holistic care, and meaningful opportunities for participating in a natural farm setting.
Beyond Techniques: The Common Factors That Drive Healing
Common factors, rather than the intricacies of any single modality, are the real engine of therapeutic transformation.
“There’s No Word for Depression in Zulu”: Inside South Africa’s Mental Health Crisis
High levels of childhood adversity interact with violent crime, poverty, and lack of access to education.
Don’t Include Involuntary Commitment as a Treatment Tool in Seattle
As someone who has experienced the trauma of involuntary mental health treatment, I am deeply concerned.
The Ouija Board and the Skeptic
Skepticism, especially from those with lived experience, is necessary. It forces us to question whether our tools and methods truly help.
Guided Dreaming Can Transform Psychosocial Issues: 11 Case Studies
Dreaming problem-solves various waking concerns creatively through memory consolidation and emotional processing.
Schizophrenia and Homosexuality: My Experience and Case Studies
During my confinement, I became convinced that the forced repression of my homosexuality was the true etiology of my schizophrenia.
For-Profit Healthcare Is a Predator; Its Main Prey Is Our Young
Labeling kids with “brain diseases” sets them up for failure. This explains why the U.S. has so many youth crises.
From Auctions to Moral Treatment
In less than 25 years Oregon moved from auctioning off the “care” of the "insane" to the lowest bidder to creating a safe place focused on recovery.
Mad in America’s 10 Most Popular Articles in 2024
A roundup of Mad in America's most read blogs and personal stories of 2024 as chosen by our readers.
Modern Psychology and Its Colonial Legacy
I question the modern rhetoric of ‘primitive’ cultures not having enough ‘knowledge’ about mental health and needing to be ‘educated’.
Who Can Consent to Research—and What Does That Mean for Forced Treatment?
What the doctors are not seeing is the health in people—except when it’s convenient for them and their research projects.
The Fallacy of Modern Psychiatry: Treating Symptoms, Ignoring Causes
To truly understand a person’s actions and behaviors, one must ask: What was this person exposed to? What did they experience?
Mental Illness Prophesies Society’s Spiritual Sickness
The rising prevalence of mental illness in the west is a warning to society to take a good, hard look at itself.
Set, Setting, Forgetting: Silence on Abuse in Psychedelic Therapy Histories
The failure to address therapist abuse in MDMA-AT perpetuates a dangerous silence that distorts the field's history and compromises future practice.
Exile: My Cure for Psychosis
Psychiatry infantilizes the patient. Living in exile allows formerly psychotic people to achieve mature, healthy independence.
Rights, Responsibilities and Resources–Peer Support in Mental Health Services
Service users and peer support experts should be taking inspiration from the Recovery movement and the defense of rights.
The Schizophrenic and the Dreamer
If delusions contain symbolic content, like dreams, then the language of the schizophrenic may be intelligible after all.
What Are Waking Dreams, and Why Should You Care?
Indigenous cultures around the world recognize and intentionally cultivate waking dreams for both personal and community well-being.
The Consciousness of Voices and Visions
Alan Robinson reviews a 30-year journey working with his voices and visions in directing actors and creative writing.
The Two Earliest Stories of Recovery in Oregon
In the early 19th century, frontiersmen Pelton and Day experienced recovery from "mental illness" after traumatic experiences.
Seriously Misleading Testimony by Psychiatry Professor in Oslo District Court About the Effect of...
Lawsuits are a means to obtain changes in an inhumane psychiatry.
Smoke ‘Em if You Got ‘Em: Rethinking Smoking as a Trauma Response
For people with trauma-impacted brains, smoking is a tool to quiet an ever-present storm.
