Existential Therapy Assists Patients Withdrawing From Psychiatric Drugs
Confronting existential anxiety through “Basal Exposure Therapy” shows promising results in people withdrawing from psychotropic drugs.
When Facebook Sent the Cops to My Shelter
Somehow, something I had said in this “secret” Facebook group had been made known. And now, at almost midnight, a cop was banging at the door of the lady who had been keeping me safe in a secret place. How did a “secret” Facebook conversation bring the cops to an address I didn’t have to perform a suicide prevention “welfare check”? Here’s what their “safe” meant to my safety.
Institutionalization: An Unacknowledged Cause of Psychiatric Outpatients’ Deterioration
Psychiatry didn’t really stop institutionalizing people; it just found new ways to do it. Institutionalization, rather than drug toxicity, best explains patients’ downhill course and their
worsening after coming off meds, as they have lost the skills needed to cope with life’s challenges due to disuse.
A Tale of Two Studies
With increasing evidence that psychiatric drugs do more harm than good over the long term, the field of psychiatry often seems focused on sifting through the mounds of research data it has collected, eager to at last sit up and cry, here’s a shiny speck of gold! Our drugs do work! One recently published study on withdrawal of antipsychotics tells of long-term benefits. A second tells of long-term harm. Which one is convincing?
Psychiatry and a Near Mass Shooting at Cornell
Nearly all perpetrators of mass violence have had some contact with psychiatry or related mental health services. The idea of giving more power and money to psychiatry to prevent violence is a great political talking point but it is disastrous for public health and safety. Psychiatry seems averse to recognizing violent patients but eager to give them violence-inducing drugs.
Psychology Textbooks Promote Misinformation About Intelligence
In a new study, researchers examined 29 popular introduction to psychology textbooks and found that almost 80% included misinformation about intelligence.
The Antidepressant Wars in the Post-Truth Era
We have at least some solid, incontrovertible evidence available to all that the claims about antidepressants in the press do not directly match the text of the source article in the Lancet. Nowhere in the original article did the authors make the extreme or even controversial claims appearing in the mainstream media.
Changing Mental Health, One Published Case Report At A Time
Lifestyle interventions are the only corrective measures that are sufficiently complex to resolve the stress response factors that drive pathology. This case draws from twenty years of published scientific literature on psychoneuroimmunology and the connection between the gut, immune system, endocrine system, and the brain.
Meta-analysis Links Childhood Trauma to Psychosis Symptoms
The study results suggest that experiences of childhood trauma impact the development of symptoms associated with psychosis.
Female Researchers Still Less Likely to be Published in High-Impact Psychiatry and Psychology Journals
Even as overall female authorship increases, imbalances remain in high-impact psychiatry and clinical psychology journals.
My Encounter with the University of Minnesota’s Psychiatric Department
The voice came to me for three nights in a row, and changed me at my core. I believe my voice was, and is, the voice of G-d, of love. But one devoted friend, an influential physician at the University of Minnesota, felt strongly that I had “lost it” and tried to persuade me to see his psychiatry buddy at the university.
Dr. Duncan Double: On Being a Critical Psychiatrist
An interview with Dr. Duncan Double, consultant psychiatrist in the UK. Duncan is a founder of the Critical Psychiatry Network and runs a critical psychiatry blog. We talk about Duncan’s experiences as a critical psychiatrist working within a bio-medically oriented profession.
Antidepressant Anarchy in the UK
In this blog, I want to give some personal reflections on the events of the last few weeks in relation to the Lancet antidepressant meta-analysis and the lodging of a formal complaint with the UK Royal College of Psychiatrists. The issue of antidepressant withdrawal has been brought into the public eye in the UK like never before. What happens next will be very interesting.
Psychosocial Explanations of Psychosis Reduce Stigma, Study Finds
A review of mental health anti-stigma campaigns finds psychosocial models are effective in reducing stigma, while biogenetic models often worsen attitudes.
How Would We Know If We Overthrew the Mental Health System?
What would it take to go about abolishing psychiatry? If we truly eliminated all the horrid practices that are currently committed by the mental health system, what would the world look like? What follows are 15 ways our society would need to change before we could be confident that we are free from the tyranny of the mental health system.
Childhood Trauma May Alter Immune Function
A new study finds an important link between childhood trauma, immune activation, and the development of psychiatric disorders.
So What is Mental Disorder? Part 2: The Social Problem
The English Workhouse was designed to deter people from seeking state assistance, and Victorian asylums were designed to care for poor people whose behaviour was disruptive to Workhouse routines. Madness, previously viewed as an interesting, if inconvenient, manifestation of humanity, came to be seen as a social problem in need of correction.
New Study Concludes that Antidepressants are “Largely Ineffective and Potentially Harmful”
A new study published in Frontiers in Psychiatry concludes that “antidepressants are largely ineffective and potentially harmful.”
Psychiatrists Warn Policymakers Benzodiazepine Overuse Could Lead to Next Epidemic
Although opioid addiction and overuse have garnered significant national attention, similar trends in benzodiazepine overprescription and overuse continue to go unnoticed.
Psychiatry Poured Oil Down the Hill I Was Climbing
I have nothing good to say about the psychiatric drugs prescribed to me or about the psychiatrists that prescribed them. I did not have a condition that needed to be medicated. There was no informed consent about the severe and indefinite damage that the drugs caused me, and I did not have the appropriate help withdrawing from them.
Stop the Shocks: Torture in Massachusetts
For 7 hours, Andre McCollins was strapped to a 4-point restraint board and shocked 31 times while he screamed and begged and apologized. What happened to him is still legal. It wouldn’t be legal for anyone else — not convicted terrorists, not captured enemy combatants, not anybody. And it shouldn’t be: torture should not be legal. But it happens every day to disabled people.
Professor John Read: The Royal College of Psychiatrists and Antidepressant Withdrawal
Patients, academics and psychiatrists formally complain that the president of the UK Royal College of Psychiatrists has misled the public over antidepressant safety. Professor John Read talks to us about recent events.
Creating “Mental Illness” – An Interview with Christopher Lane
The story behind how the ICD and the DSM came to include certain mental disorder descriptions is a fascinating one. Christopher Lane, a 2005 Guggenheim Fellow, wrote about these seminal events in Shyness: How Normal Behavior Became a Sickness. We discuss what led him to write this book a decade ago, and why the questions he posed are still relevant today.
Rewarding the Companies That Cheated the Most in Antidepressant Trials
When I first saw this Lancet 2018 network meta-analysis of antidepressant trials, my thought was that the authors had rewarded those companies that had cheated the most with their trials. My suspicion was strengthened when I looked at the results in their abstract and the three drugs they claimed were more effective and better tolerated.
Outdoor Education Tied to Psychological and Academic Benefits
How the satisfaction of basic psychological needs (BPN) in outdoor education environments can peak student interest and boost intrinsic motivation.
