What Isn’t Broken, Part 2: The Descent
My method had to involve some kind of loophole so that my death wasn’t technically by my own hand. Then it came to me: my eating disorder.
Service Users Face Abuse From Mental Health Professionals
People with mental health diagnoses are often the victims of violence and abuse, both within and beyond mental healthcare systems. Media reports of sexual...
Is Psychiatry’s Myth of Mental Health as Damaging as Its Myth of Mental Illness?
Does "mental health" mean more than to be well-adjusted to a dehumanizing, irrational, and homicidal world?
What Isn’t Broken, Part 1: A Temporary Fix
I didn't want a diagnosis to be put on meds, I wanted a diagnosis in order to validate the pain I was in and to be taken seriously by the adults around me.
Facing Existential Challenges, WHO Shuts Down its Policy, Law, and Human Rights Unit
Global activists react to the news and vow to keep up the fight for human rights in mental health.
Are We Allowed to Criticise Mental Health Professionals?
When I started recording the worrying incidents I was witnessing as a student nurse, I was advised that my complaints would go nowhere and make it difficult for me to pass the course.
Patriarchy Leads To Insanity
I am hopeful that for me and others, DSM-driven diagnoses like “bipolar” can be seen as more transient states, as part of a greater journey of the soul.
UberTherapy and the Enshittification of our Relational Lives: Part 1 of our Interview with...
With UberTherapy, Elizabeth Cotton follows the gig-economy playbook into psychotherapy, where platforms lower costs by depressing wages and standardizing treatment.
What 776 ECT Recipients Want You to Know
What stands out is the consistency between individuals’ experiences. Most of the costs were lasting, life-altering consequences.
Visual Snow Syndrome: Can SSRIs Literally Change How You See the World?
SSRI antidepressants have been linked to a number of adverse effects. A recent study presents evidence that a new condition may need to be...
Winning Mad Liberation with a New Strategy: Solidarity
The mad movement must build connections with everyone challenging the roots of our cruel gangster capitalism imperialist system.
None of the 22 FDA Approvals for Psychiatric Drugs in the Last Decade Were...
Established drugs were repurposed, “me-too” drugs were approved, and even the few new biological approaches lacked clinical utility.
Psychobabble of the Month: ECT Hailed as Method to Gain Consent for Forced Drug...
Refusal to take clozapine was considered evidence of mental illness, and forced ECT changed her mind; the researchers call this "consent."
A Mother’s Story of Love, Loss, and a Fight Born from Tragedy
My daughter, London, was only 12 years old when she tragically died from an overdose of pills, shortly after being prescribed an SSRI.
AI Undermines Medical Education—Trainee Doctors May Never Learn Vital Skills
Medical trainees using chatbots to do their homework and write their papers will not develop the skills needed to be a successful doctor.
Did the FDA Black Warning Cause Suicides? Reply to Soumerai and Lu
The idea that the FDA black box warning led to increased suicide is just as easily refuted by the data now as when it was first proposed.
Doing Harm: The Human Cost of Turning Mourning Into a Disorder
Grief has long been understood as a normal and healthy response to loss. However, over the past decade, American psychiatry has rebranded that time...
Leaving Psychiatry: Two Weeks In, 10 Years to Exit
With time, my body is healing, and I’m slowly learning how to feel my emotions. I was only hospitalized for two weeks, but it took me over 10 years to exit.
ADHD Diagnoses, Examining the Psyche, Withdrawal and PSSD Risks, ECT Harms and More: Robert...
In our first podcast of 2026, Robert Whitaker joins us to answer questions submitted by Mad in America readers and listeners. We discuss the validity of ADHD diagnoses, withdrawal and sexual dysfunction risks of SSRI antidepressants, the harms of electro-convulsive therapy (ECT), the rise of AI-generated misinformation and much more.
Case Studies Contradict Accepted Wisdom About AI Psychosis
Many of those who experience AI psychosis have no psychiatric diagnosis, but were experiencing social and environmental stressors, isolation, and lack of sleep.
Nearly All ECT Recipients Report Negative Effects, Study Finds
A new international online survey published in the Journal of Affective Disorders gives voice to the lived experiences of people who have undergone electroconvulsive...
Anti-inflammatory Drugs Fail for Depression
Response and remission rates failed to beat placebo in a new Harvard meta-analysis, throwing the inflammation hypothesis into question.
All in the Family: My Unlikely Connection To Nick, Rob and Michele Reiner
As a certified paranoid schizophrenic who inadvertently took my own mother’s life while going through my first major psychotic breakdown, I feel a great deal of empathy toward Nick Reiner.
Psych Drugs Linked to Increased Risk of ALS
Psychiatric drugs linked to increased risk of the rare, incurable neurological disease that causes loss of motor function.
New Evidence in Support of Tapering Protocols for First-Episode Psychosis
The study shows that tapering can be successfully and relatively safely done by most people after first-episode psychosis.
