Psychologists Push For New Approaches to Psychosis: Part 1

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Psychologists and people with experience of psychotic symptoms publish a report on new ways of understanding psychosis.
child abuse

Child Abuse, Mental Health and Mental Illness

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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

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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.
rethink

Rethinking the Validity of Schizophrenia on World Mental Health Day

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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.”

New Research Documents Widening Mortality Gap for Bipolar and Schizophrenia

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Analysis of longitudinal data from 2000-2014 demonstrate mortality gap is widening between persons with a diagnosis of bipolar or schizophrenia compared to the general population
dead end

Our Movement Has Failed (So Far) – Here’s How To Change That

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The leadership of our mental health advocacy groups agree that money has corrupted democracy in the US and this has resulted in blocking potential for real reform. But they aren’t willing to act on connecting their small single-issue efforts with the larger movement against corruption. Why?
MIACE withdrawal course

The Continuing Education Course on Withdrawal from Psychiatric Drugs is Here!

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A full picture of the seven webinars that comprise our upcoming psychiatric withdrawal course, with presenters including Sandra Steingard, Peter Breggin, Kelly Brogan, Carina Hakansson, Will Hall and a panel of survivors. The course begins on October 24th and slots are filling fast!
puppet master

The Misuse of Collaboration and Therapy to Deter People From Discontinuing Medication

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Gabriel Ivbijaro and Lucja Kolkiewicz produce five pages dedicated to improving adherence with psychiatric medication through collaborative care and the implementation of modified CBT. The use of the word ‘collaborative’ in this context is misleading.

JAMA Article Challenges CBT as Gold Standard for Psychotherapy

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A review of CBT research findings raises questions about its status as the “evidence-based” psychotherapy of choice.
World Mental Health Day

Seven Points to Ponder for World Mental Health Day

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Why do I inwardly cringe at the approach of things like “Mental Illness Awareness Week” and “World Mental Health Day”? Because I’m mentally preparing myself for the onslaught of societally-approved messages about human suffering, messages ranging from the ill-informed to the downright dangerous.

World Mental Health Day 2017: Challenging the Messages – A Call to Action

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If we can have a presence and visibility, this could be life-changing for individuals with no current access to the bigger truths about psychiatric theory and practice. So let's infiltrate and disrupt the hashtags #WMHD2017 #worldmentalhealthday and share messages of hope, healing, validation and solidarity!

School Culture May Contribute to Overdiagnosis, Study Finds

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Officials at a school that was more focused on ADHD diagnoses described children’s behavior in terms of individual illnesses, taking children out of the context of their social interactions, race, gender, and socioeconomic status.
wooden people sculpture

Knowledge of Mental States and Behaviour: Insights From Heidegger and Others

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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.

A Story of Forced Hospitalization From a Legal Perspective

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If I had any legal rights, I knew nothing about them. And the hospital cared even less about them. As a law student, I would like to share the legal rights I did have in the state of California and how they were violated from the very start.

Bonnie Burstow and Nick Walker: An Introduction to Cognitive Liberty

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This week on the Mad in America Podcast we launch our series on forced treatment, interviewing antipsychiatry scholar Bonnie Burstow and neurodiversity scholar Nick Walker. Central to both Nick and Bonnie’s work is the concept of cognitive liberty, or freedom and integrity of the mind.
Child's Mind Space

Your Child’s Mind Space

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Your child has a room or a shared room where he sleeps, reads, plays video games, and all the rest. But what about that other room where he really resides, the room that is his mind? He takes that room with him everywhere.

Childhood Victimization Connected with Experiences of Psychosis

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Childhood victimization associated with experiences of psychosis later in life, and in persons without childhood victimization, there is a bidirectional association between psychosis and adult victimization.
cemetary

Elimination of the Bereavement Exclusion: History and Implications

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The bereavement exclusion was formally eliminated in the spring of 2013, with the publication of DSM-5. The history of its elimination provides an interesting example of psychiatry's relentless expansion of its net.

Using Participatory Action in Bioethics Research

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Participatory action approaches in bioethics research used to decrease coercion and seclusion in psychiatric treatment.
candles

And They Said it Wouldn’t Last – Rethinking Psychiatry Celebrates its 7th Year

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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.

Self-Compassion Course Supports College Students to Support Themselves

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New research on a brief self-compassion focused course aimed at the college students.
puritan

Stimulants: The Long View

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When the ADHD literature speaks of scattered attention, it uses terms with historical resonance. Ever since the Puritans, reformers have attached high importance to the regulation of attention. But the standard treatment of ADHD is designed for immediate, not eventual, benefits. It conflicts with its own rationale.

Antidepressants Increase Risk of Death, Study Finds

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Antidepressants are commonly considered safe and effective treatments. However, research has questioned their efficacy, and now, their safety.

Electroconvulsive Therapy Class Action Filed

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DK Law Group LLP has just filed a class action in federal court in the Central District of California against the manufacturers of electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) devices on behalf of every person who has been injured by electroconvulsive therapy in California since May of 1982.

Researchers Identify 27 Categories of Emotion

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A new study finds that emotions may be represented by 27 categories, with each category relating to others in a more complex and continuous fashion than previously understood.