A colorful pattern made up of tiny MDMA tablets with various designs

A Win for Science, with Profound Implications for Industry: FDA Rejects MDMA

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Concerns, from functional unblinding to sexual assault in the clinical trials, led this week to a full repudiation of Lykos' MDMA-assisted therapy.

Anders Sþrensen – Tackling Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal Through Research and in Practice

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Anders SĂžrenson is a Danish clinical psychologist with a special interest in psychiatric drug withdrawal. He has undertaken research which assesses the state of guidance on psychiatric drug withdrawal and paid close attention to tapering methods with the aim of identifying approaches which might make withdrawal more tolerable for people.
akathisia

Akathisia: Very Nearly the Death of Me

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Akathisia is truly an indescribable thing—and has to be one of the most hellish experiences on earth. It’s like your brain is hijacked. Every day I thought could be my last.

The Nurtured Heart Approach Goes Mainstream: Research and Experience Support “Celebrating Greatness in Every...

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The Nurtured Heart Approach represents a massive shift in thinking—about schooling, about children and how to raise them, about how we regard those with intensity, and about the medical model pathologizing them.

Trusting People as Experts of Themselves: Sera Davidow on the Wildflower Peer Support Line

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Sera Davidow is a filmmaker, activist, advocate, author, and mother of two very busy kids. As a survivor of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse...

Words from My Heart to ‘My Heart’: What Might Have Helped My Late Friend?

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More than two and a half years later, I’m still processing my grief, still picturing our happiness and innocence as kids, and still acknowledging our struggles and pain.
Close-up of hands, sunlight between them, above tiny growing pink flowers

A Bicultural Māori/European Vision for a Truly Healing Hospital

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Our therapies need to treat the root causes of mental distress—especially trauma and environment—and not just numb the pain.

How Western Psychology Can Rip Indigenous Families Apart: An Interview with Elisa Lacerda-Vandenborn

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An interview with Elisa Lacerda-Vandenborn about the consequences \psychology and mental health treatment can have for indigenous children.

“Holy Shit!” Psychiatry’s Cognitive Dissonance on Display

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Even those who would seek to reform the profession of psychiatry cannot confront the reality that exists in the research literature
Photo of broken glass

Iatrogenic Practices in Psychiatry: Kindling

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Psychiatric practices can have very painful and destabilizing consequences, including "kindling" or neuronal sensitization.
An engraving depicting water being shot at two prisoners; hydrotherapy

Everything About Us Without Us

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Between 1883-1955, there was little attention given to the value and contributions of those who were “patients” at the Oregon State Insane Asylum.
Illustration of a magnet pulling the glowing word "data" out of a laptop computer

“Confidential” 988 Conversation Records Shared with Corporations

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Recordings of 988 callers’ voice, text, and chat conversations are being shared with researchers, AI developers, and corporations without consent.

Ten Years of Rocking the Boat: Reflecting on Mad in America’s Mission and Work

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Continuing our 200th podcast, staff members join us to discuss reinvigorating MIA continuing education, science writing and blogs, personal stories, community commenting and family resources.
Photo of a prison cell with an uncomfortable-looking bed in the corner; a guard stands by the door

Inside a Forensic Psychiatry Unit: Earning the Right to Sleep on the Floor

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Life in the DC was far too complicated for me to be able to just listen to my body and sleep on a thick yoga mat placed on the floor to alleviate my severe back pain.

Dorothea Buck’s Memoir Tells of the Horrors of Twentieth Century Psychiatry: A “Hell Amidst...

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Sterilized under Nazi law, Dorothea Buck fought throughout her life for psychiatric reform.

The TikTokification of Mental Health on Campus

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Many people view their social media feeds as reflections of their identities—and when posts center on a specific diagnosis, it can feel like the platform is diagnosing them.
Three photos: Saraceno on the left, the statue of Giordano Bruno in the middle, and Oaks on the right.

Allies for Human Rights in Mental Health: Psychiatric Survivor David W. Oaks Interviews WHO...

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"Psychiatric practice is too often violating human rights, too often incapable of understanding the suffering of people, too often unable to provide help to people who need housing, work, money, respect, inclusion and instead are receiving psychotropic drugs, electroshock, physical restraint, isolation."
A black and white photo of Andrew Rich

In Andrew’s Honor: Attorney Elizabeth Rich’s Fight Against Unjust Commitments

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Anyone detained and then formally committed under Wisconsin’s civil mental health laws can initially be held and forcibly drugged for six long months. Yet, for years, not a single person has been able to appeal the six-month commitments in court.

Psychiatric Drugs Do Not Improve Disease or Reduce Mortality

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Nassir Ghaemi: “Most psychiatric medications are purely symptomatic, with no known or proven effect on the underlying disease. They are like 50 variations of aspirin, used for fever or headache, rather than drugs that treat the causes of fever or headache.”
Generic city map with icons representing beds in 1950 and 2023

Busting the Deinstitutionalization Myth: We Actually Have More Beds Than Ever Before

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New data upends common beliefs about asylum closures, deinstitutionalization, and rates of psychiatric coercion.

The Connection Cure: An Interview with Julia Hotz

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Julia Hotz is a solutions-focused journalist based in New York City. She is the author of the forthcoming book, The Connection Cure: The Prescriptive...
A screenshot from Dr. Strangelove depicting Major Kong riding a bomb and waving his cowboy hat

How to Explain Top Psychiatrists’ “Dr. Strangelove Exuberance” Unchecked by Reality

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Leading psychiatrists appear unfazed that their theories and treatments are repeatedly proven to be scientifically invalid and discarded.
Photo depicting a close-up of hands handcuffed behind someone's back, holding a cell phone

Psychiatric Detentions Rise 120% in First Year of 988

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As contacts to the new 988 suicide hotline number have risen, so have call tracing and police interventions.

For Native People, the Past is Present: David Edward Walker on Oppressive Mental Health...

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David Edward Walker is the author of Coyote’s Swing: A Memoir and Critique of Mental Hygiene in Native America, which was published in February...
marijuana psychosis

Mania or Marijuana?

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Is marijuana to blame for my mental health issues? Strange things started happening in my mind once I started using the medical-grade weed.