Q&A: What Is Informed Consent, and What Should I Know to Help My Child?

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My experience caused me to look into the origin of including the patient in decision-making about treatment and informed consent.

Increasing Prevalence of Mood Disorders Among Teens and Young Adults

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Depression, serious psychological distress, and suicide attempts have risen substantially since the early 2000s among young adults – what’s changed?

Teacher Wellbeing Matters for Student Mental Health

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Teacher’s personal wellbeing plays a role in students’ mental health outcomes, suggests a new study.

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.

So You Say You Want a Revolution Part Two

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Establishing a comprehensive drug review map will make possible a complete assessment of the expenditures on psychiatric drugs. I predict that these expenditures are going to surprise and concern anyone responsible for managing these costs.

Data Challenges Superiority of Manualized Psychotherapy

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New data fails to support the promotion of manualized psychotherapy as superior to non-manualized forms of psychotherapy.
neurotoxins

What Should We Really Call Psychiatric Drugs?

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There is no rational way to argue against putting psychiatric chemicals into the category of neurotoxins. All psychiatric substances alter “the structure or functions of the nervous system,” disrupt “the normal function of nerve cells” and act “specifically on nervous tissue.” It is time to clean up the misleading mess of words in psychiatry.

Can Critiques of Psychiatry Help us Imagine a Post-Capitalist Future? An Interview with Hans...

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An interview with Hans Skott-Myhre on the seeds of post-capitalist subjectivity to be found in the writing of Franco Basaglia and R.D. Laing.
Close-up of a hand holding a tablet with a question mark on it. Below, scattered tablets with frowns or hearts.

Seriously Misleading Network Meta-analysis in Lancet of Acceptability of Depression Pills

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It is a futile exercise to rank depression pills based on flawed trial reports and—most importantly—when the patients prefer to be treated with a placebo.
antidepressant withdrawal

How Long Does Antidepressant Withdrawal Last?

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The patient experiencing the pain of withdrawal believed that they would feel better when they stopped taking their antidepressants. After all, they’re under the care of a board-certified medical professional who has vowed to do no harm. But despite those reassurances, they find themselves in a world of hurt.

From Madness to Mastery: Gaining Competence with Altered States

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Is madness good for something? If there is something positive about psychosis, then perhaps what we really need is a balanced view, somewhere between “romanticizing” it as being all good and “awfulizing” it as being all bad.
crowd in masks with signs

Mad in America and Activism

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The question that is presently unanswerable is whether this crisis will stimulate progress or regression. I choose to believe that it is an opportunity but that we must fight to make it happen. My dream: To build compassionate communities where people who look, act, or think differently are supported in ways for them to develop their innate potential.
Stock photo of unhappy little girl; adult woman is trying to make her do worksheets

A Therapist Tried to Explain CBT When I Was 11 Years Old, Ineffectively

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As a therapist, I feel that CBT is offered best on a voluntary basis. The therapist must move away from CBT-like interventions when it is not helpful.
Robin Williams RIP

The Creativity and Suicide of Robin Williams: A Phenomenological Study

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My purpose in writing this case study is not to suggest that creativity is a mere byproduct of trauma, or to deny the role of so-called mental illness in suicide, but to situate these phenomena within the context of human lives. To render them humanly (rather than medically) intelligible. With his mind and body disintegrating, Robin Williams took his life to thwart the eradication of self.
Photograph of the red and blue lights on top of a police car at night

New York Can’t—or Won’t—Provide Data on New Forced Treatment Plan

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When we requested specific numbers and data, the presenter suggested that there were so many different players, agencies, and moving parts it was hard to “make sense” of all the information. 

Childhood Trauma May Alter Immune Function

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A new study finds an important link between childhood trauma, immune activation, and the development of psychiatric disorders.

Fighting Outpatient Commitment in Massachusetts

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Massachusetts politicians are pushing for a law to increase involuntary treatment. This law will be far harder to get rid of once it’s on the books than it’s been to keep it from getting there.

Psychiatrist Offers Ecological Model for Psychotherapy

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Insights from phenomenological philosophy can assist in understanding psychotherapy and psychopathology as ecological rather than individualistic.
Photo of an open hand on a deep red background with scattered white pills

Much of U.S. Healthcare Is Broken: How to Fix It (Chapter 2, Part 6)

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Les Ruthven addresses the research showing that psychiatric hospitalization increases suicidality.
Doctor looking perplexed or angry pointing at a clipboard

How the Medical Profession Pathologizes Emotions and the Damage to Patients

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Doctors’ diagnostic inflexibility and unwillingness to take an integrative approach limits patients’ autonomy in their own treatment.
green movement mental health

System Change Toward a Green Movement in Mental Health

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As a counter narrative, I believe that understanding system change and reform in mental health with a "green" lens makes use of a powerful theme which is increasingly accepted — and it lays out a road map to make innovative programs and initiatives the new norm for system-wide responses to mental health challenges.

What Is the Role of the Prosumer in the Mental Health System?

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I believe "prosumer" is the best term to describe consumers of mental health services who are also traditional professionals in mental health care.

Why I’m Not Celebrating Being PMDD-Free

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I’m not celebrating because so many of my sisters are still stricken by this disease. They're remanded to the care of mental health professionals who ply them with therapy and scripts for SSRIs, SNRIs, and benzodiazepines, none of which offer long term relief from the horrors of PMDD.

Mad in the UK

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Mad in the UK describes its mission as “Fundamentally re-thinking UK mental health practice and promoting positive change.”
A vector illustration: A female-presenting figure in the middle holds her ears; a figure to her left shouting into a megaphone; a figure to her right throwing speech bubbles at her

The New York Times Comments Section: A Literary Rorschach Test for the Masses

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Bergner’s piece in The New York Times challenged the illusions of psychiatry. That made some people angry, outraged, or scared. The result is their comments section.