Investigation Reveals Alarming ECT Practices in England
Audit of ECT usage, demographics, and adherence to guidelines and legislation raises concern over its continued use.
Mortality of People Using Mental Health Services and Medications
153,451 deaths were registered in Australia in the period 10 August 2011 to 27 September 2012. 75,858 of these deaths were registered for persons who had accessed mental health-related treatments. These deaths accounted for 49.4% of all deaths in this period.
Dr. Gordon Warme: The Relationship Between Culture and Psychiatric ‘Disorders’
This week we interview Dr Gordon Warme on the dominance of biological psychiatry and the relationship between culture and psychiatric ‘disorders’.
The State of Animal Psychiatric Research
Since animal research is the foundation for moving on to clinical trials despite its poor quality, it is likely that this leads to many superfluous trials in humans based on false hopes. This leaves a risk of adverse events for the participants in the trials, and subsequently the patients.
Ending ECT: From a Lawsuit to a Novel – The Moment is Now!
In the midst of flagrant professional misrepresentation of ECT, this is a call to arms. Quite simply, the time has come for a frontal assault on the ECT industry and on the professionals associated with it. The time has come to rid society of this barbaric “treatment” altogether.
Scales Assessing Child and Adolescent Psychopathology Lack Cross-Cultural Validity
Researchers find few existing "psychopathology scales" are appropriate for global utilization.
Admission: A Story of Solidarity and Survival
I survived not because I received excellent care from the staff on the ward. On the contrary, the treatment was objectifying and cold. It’s not surprising that many end up in suicide behind locked doors. I survived because I felt, however fleetingly, my experiences mirrored by others.
The Paradox of White Americans’ Mental Health
Are White Americans’ poor mental health outcomes caused by Whiteness?
UN to USA: Forced Treatment is Prohibited
The experience with the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention's visit to the US is a watershed for our work against forced psychiatry. Step by step, global and national advocacy support each other as part of a worldwide movement to abolish forced psychiatry using the UN human rights framework.
Brain Imaging Results Biased by Lack of Representative Data
What does "normal" brain development throughout childhood look like? It may depend on your demographics.
Warning to Parents: Psychiatry is How Kids Get High and Die in the USA
Street drug dealers and stimulant-peddling doctors both get clients high and addicted for profit. So there is really no difference between what they do except that doctors are more ‘successful’ at it, since they enjoy many advantages over illicit dealers and can get away with doing it legally.
Psychologists Push For New Approaches to Psychosis: Part 2
The authors of the report expand upon the traumatic and sociopolitical factors underlying presentations of psychosis and “schizophrenia.”
“Prisons Without Bars” – Forced Institutionalization of People with Disabilities
In the wake of deinstitutionalization, we no longer have the vast asylum system we once did. Instead, something more insidious has taken root — for-profit institutions that call themselves neurorehabilitation centers, group homes, and other official-sounding names.
David Mielke: Educating in the Era of Psychiatric Diagnosis
This week we interview psychology graduate and teacher David Mielke who has become increasingly concerned about the number of children in the education system that have a psychiatric diagnosis and are on psychiatric drugs.
Schizophrenia Genetic Research – Running on Empty
The time has come to halt the massive failure that has characterized schizophrenia molecular genetic research, and to thoroughly reassess what critics have always said are the severely flawed family, twin, and adoption studies that inspired and helped justify this research.
Antidepressant Use May Increase Risk of Diabetes
New study confirms previous evidence that antidepressant use is linked to developing type 2 diabetes.
Channeling Dead German Poets: Taking Other People’s Alternate Realities Seriously
I believe that the greatest problem that we have with “psychosis,” voicehearing, and “schizophrenia” in the modern world is a simple lack of comprehension on the part of other people that what we experience is actually real, even if it might seem intractably bizarre from the outside.
Study Examines Overdiagnosis of Mental Health Disorders in Childhood
Are diagnoses of mental disorders among children and adolescents in developed countries disproportionate to disease prevalence trends?
To See An Atom: Psychosis and Ecology
Having smelled colors, heard ghosts, grown ecstatic, glimpsed Gaia, chatted with cartoons, and been overwhelmed by persistent paranoia and fear while under the influence of LSD, a modified fungus, I cannot distinguish how such plant-induced experiences differ from what psychiatrists call psychosis.
Companies That Fueled the Opioid Epidemic Should Fund Efforts to End It
The quickest way to restore safe use of opioid prescription is to insist that the drug companies that promoted the overuse of opioids now create a pot of money to develop powerful TV, radio, and print ads, free continuing education offerings, and drug rehabilitation research.
Researchers Confirm That Relative Age Impacts ADHD Diagnosis
The youngest children in a class are more likely to receive an ADHD diagnosis than their peers.
Psychologists Push For New Approaches to Psychosis: Part 1
Psychologists and people with experience of psychotic symptoms publish a report on new ways of understanding psychosis.
Child Abuse, Mental Health and Mental Illness
Psychiatrists and medical doctors don’t ask who was hitting who and how often in your family. These questions would largely put them out of business and invalidate their industries. These questions would make a mockery of their many years of schooling and many prescription pad options. But these questions would also heal.
Olga Runciman: Moving Beyond Psychiatry
This week on the Mad in America podcast we interview Olga Runciman. Olga is an international trainer and speaker, writer, campaigner, and artist. In this interview, we discuss Olga’s professional and personal experiences of the psychiatric system and how she now helps and supports healing and recovery in others.
Rethinking the Validity of Schizophrenia on World Mental Health Day
An open letter launched on World Mental Health Day, supported by people with lived experience, friends, family members, workers and researchers, calls on Rethink Mental Illness, one of the major English mental health charities, to co-create a new conversation about the diagnosis “schizophrenia.”
