Launch of Online Forum for Young People Who Hear Voices
I am very excited to announce that Voice Collective, a UK-based project supporting children and young people who see, hear or sense things others don’t, has launched the first-ever online forum dedicated to supporting young people who hear voices, as well as their parents, carers and supporters.
New Review Highlights Dangers of Electroconvulsive Therapy
Data shows that over a third of users experience permanent memory loss and that approximately half report not receiving adequate information about the risks from their doctors.
Mental Hell-Care: My Sibling’s Story
Doctors refuse to believe psychiatric medications have caused my sibling, Pat, any harm. Over a three-year period, however, Pat's insurance companies have paid out more than one million dollars to warehouse Pat and to provide "treatment" that has caused complete disability.
How I Learned to Safely Taper off Psychiatric Drugs, and You Can Too
I made a series of videos with psychologist and researcher Anders Sørensen, answering the questions that haunted me the most throughout my tapering process.
Stigmatizing Effects of the Psychosis-Risk Label
Study examines the effects on participants of being told they are at risk of developing psychosis.
Improving the Efficacy of Mindfulness in Schools
New research examines factors that make mindfulness interventions in school most effective for adolescent’s mental health outcomes.
Does Official Recognition of Peers Undermine Their Work?
Recognition of peers under Medicaid could undermine their interventions by morphing them into a hybrid of traditional medical and clinical recovery principles.
How Grief Became a Disorder and What This Means About Us: An Interview with...
MIA’s Zenobia Morrill interviews psychologist Kaori Wada about what the creation of Prolonged Grief Disorder reveals about our culture and the current status of psychology.
Knowledge of Mental States and Behaviour: Insights From Heidegger and Others
Applying the methods of natural science to human activity is sometimes necessary, but it cannot enlighten us about the nature of that activity or the reasons that motivate and sustain it. Instead, insights must come from our own and others’ experiences.
Some Principles of Human Design for a Post-COVID World
This essay contributes a biologist’s perspective to identifying humanity’s fundamental needs in our necessary transition to a new world order.
A Letter to the American Psychiatrist Who Labeled Me
The bipolar label and the drugs you prescribed after talking with me for half an hour robbed me of my humanity. What did they not do? Prevent any of the psychotic episodes I had after the first one.
Understanding Psychological Disorders: My Personal and Professional Journey
A conflict in my personal life made it possible for me to imagine the power of emotional trauma to trigger a mental health disorder—and gave me new insights about what can help heal it.
What Would a Truly Integrated System of Care Look Like?
Imagine that you were the director of a health insurance company and you had just agreed to provide health coverage to several hundred thousand people and you will have to fund health care including mental health and alcohol/drug care too. The purpose of this blog is to show the kind of system you would have to design.
A Racist Movement Cannot Move
Our movement is just as racist (and sexist, and classist, and transphobic, etc.) as any other. There are many reasons why this remains so, yet all of it co-exists alongside the fact that people of color are substantially more likely to be given what are seen as the harshest psychiatric labels, subjected to force, and injured or killed.
Stop Saying This, Part Five: Fake It Till You Make It
Megan Wildhood discusses the flaws in phrases like "fake it till you make it," "you can choose how you feel," and "no one is responsible for your life but you."
Why Mainstream Psychiatry is Ableist
Psychiatry offers medication that can only be tolerated by the extremely able bodied. Those who are already physically ill or disabled will be made more and more ill by psychiatry over time, and the field of medicine marginalizes disabled folks by not addressing these issues. Many differently abled people are not aware of how vulnerable their bodies may be to these drugs, and doctors are unlikely to tell them.
Researchers Propose Study to Test Whether Antidepressants Impede Recovery
Evolutionary theorists suggest that antidepressants interfere with the adaptive function of depression and propose a test of this theory.
And They Said it Wouldn’t Last – Rethinking Psychiatry Celebrates its 7th Year
Rethinking Psychiatry is proud to continue the work that began in 2010 in Portland, and we look forward to many more years of challenging the dominant paradigm in mental health and providing new perspectives and solutions.
Psychological Research Suggests Systemic Interventions to Tackle Racism
A new special edition positions psychological science as offering valuable contributions to the study of contemporary racism.
Social Support Improves Antipsychotic Discontinuation, Study Finds
A new study explores how people manage to discontinue antipsychotic medication and examines how social supports may improve outcomes.
Study Finds Deteriorating Mental Health Among Poor White Americans
Researchers find evidence of low socio-economic status White Americans’ rising distress and declining well-being since the mid-1990s.
We Are All in This Together
We need a new narrative of shared distress to replace the failed one of individual disorders. We need human connection and mutual support. We can learn to manage our feelings in a way that helps us through the crisis and gives us the energy to make much-needed social and environmental changes afterwards. The usual dividing lines melt away in the face of global emergency. We really are all in this together.
New NICE Guidelines for ECT Are Dangerously Inadequate, Say 50 Patients and Professionals
An open letter from patients, psychiatrists, and professors calls on NICE to rewrite the new ECT guidelines to avoid putting patients’ safety at risk.
Loneliness as Lethal: Researchers Name Social Isolation a ‘Public Health Threat’
Researchers present loneliness as a health threat facing a growing number of Americans.
As a Psychologist, I’ve Seen Many Children Misdiagnosed as Autistic—It’s a Clinical Catastrophe
The ASD diagnosis glosses over the many developmental specifics that might underlie a child’s challenges related to social communication.
