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I have concerns about how Mad In America deals with diagnostic terminology. When psychiatric diagnoses are used without signaling that they are constructs and unscientific, I feel alarmed for those who will be strengthened in their mistaken beliefs about the labels. 

Yale study finds that training parents how to react to child behaviors is as effective at reducing anxiety as providing therapy to the child.

New clinical case studies have found that many young children who spend too much screen time—on TV’s, video games, tablets and computers—have symptoms labeled as “autism.” When parents take away the screens for a few months the child’s symptoms disappear.

There is a large-scale failure to appreciate the risks involved in taking drugs that alter brain function on a long-term basis. The fact that it has taken single-minded and dedicated campaigners, many of them users of the drugs concerned, to bring these effects to the attention of the scientific and professional community is shameful.

Politics play an important role in the therapeutic relationship and political disclosure now common for psychotherapists.

Three Identical Strangers is a riveting film describing the story of identical triplets separated at six months of age and reunited in early adulthood. Their story provides no evidence in support of the genetic side of the nature-nurture debate, but it does supply some evidence in favor of the environment.

New study finds that people who felt they were coerced into being hospitalized were more likely to attempt suicide later.

A study conducted on college-aged students finds strong correlations between biomedical characterizations of mental illness, pharmaceutical treatment, and social stigma.

There has been little engagement between the survivor and LGBT movements despite a shared interest in critiquing and resisting the normalization project of the psy disciplines — that is, psychiatry and psychology’s clinical categorization of what is ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ or ‘healthy’ and ‘sick’. Why might this be?

New qualitative study seeks to examine the implementation of the Open Dialogue approach in the UK.

An interview with Doctor Lee Coleman in which we turn our attention to the need for action to address the inherent power held by psychiatry and how society might respond.

Recent claims about antidepressant effectiveness have been based on misleading statements and misunderstandings of the science.

The Resilience Investment, Support, and Expansion (RISE) From Trauma Act, legislation designed to increase support for children who have been exposed to Adverse Childhood Experiences, includes $50 million in funding for a “mental health in schools” program. Exactly what these programs would entail remains unclear.

A new article explores Mahi a Atua, an affirming indigenous Māori healing practice which stands in contrast to the Western psychiatric methods typically promoted by the Movement for Global Mental Health.

Upon review of hundreds of the "informed" consent forms received from those suffering permanent cognitive impairment after receiving ECT, the overwhelming majority do not provide the patient with any form of disclosure that "brain damage is a risk that can potentially occur from ECT, whether performed properly or not."

Despite burnout being officially recognized as a syndrome, research suggests it overlaps considerably with current understandings of depression.

Here and now, I am Ativan-free and slowly tapering off Wellbutrin after 25+ years. Unable to work due to the severity of iatrogenic injury, I sometimes think of myself as a healing journeywoman. When the terrain is especially rough, I reflect on the words: "The best revenge is living a happy, healthy life." When circumstances and symptoms permit, I’m doing just that.

Sufferers are desperate for mental health professionals to understand Lyme so that they will know to consider it as a potential differential diagnosis before plying a patient with psychotropic meds that may make matters worse.

MIA's Peter Simons interviews David Cohen, PhD, on his path to researching mental health, coercive practices, and discontinuation from psychiatric drugs.

It seems one mostly needs to already know what they’re looking for in order to find the most established criticisms of this particular organization. And even with knowledge and intent, it can require some fairly persistent Googling efforts to unearth all there is to be found.

The latest issue of the journal Behavioral and Brain Sciences features several prominent researchers arguing that mental health concerns are not “brain disorders.”

“For your own good” is oppressive. Embedded in that four-word phrase is the idea that each of us doesn’t understand who we are or what we need. Someone else is the expert. Someone else has the privilege to hold all the answers, and if those answers don't work for us then somehow it's our fault.

MIA's Gavin Crowell-Williamson interviews PharmedOut founder Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman about Big Pharma's influence on medical education.

Afraid of facing me in court, the state gave up entirely and a young man was freed from involuntary ECT treatment. It was a total victory. Meanwhile, the Psychiatric Industrial Complex is finding more subtle ways to inflict electrical energy upon the brains of children labeled with ADHD.

I was desperate to get off the medication. I wanted to be in control of myself again; independent and capable. The label of Bipolar Disorder made me feel like I was seen as a crazy person who did not fit into society. I wanted my dignity back!