Wendy Dolin – Making Akathisia a Household Word
An interview with Wendy Dolin who talks about the work of MISSD, the Medication-Induced Suicide Prevention and Education Foundation in Memory of Stewart Dolin, a non-profit founded to raise awareness of the tragic consequences of drug-induced akathisia.
The Prescription that Changed My Life
What I have learned is that benzos don’t discriminate. They don’t care that you have a master’s degree or that you are a good person in the community or that you were just doing what the doctors told you to do and you were woefully ignorant and misinformed of their dangers.
Why Failed Psychiatry Lives On: Its Industrial Complex, Politics, & Technology Worship
By embracing the widely popular technology-worship “religion,” psychiatry is permitted to ignore the reality that its repeated failures are evidence that its fundamental paradigm is misguided.
Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 3: Are Psychiatric Disorders Detectable in a Brain Scan?
Peter Gøtzsche discusses how textbooks portray brain imaging data for psychiatric diagnoses and the flaws with that body of research.
How Providers Can Support Psychiatric Drug Discontinuation
Supportive patient-practitioner relationships are crucial to the successful discontinuation of psychiatric medication.
Cured: A Memoir—Sarah Fay on Giving Everyone the Chance to Heal
Author Sarah Fay joins us to discuss why "cured" is such a seldom-used word in psychiatry.
Beverley Thomson–Antidepressed: Antidepressant Harm and Dependence
We talk with author Beverley Thomson about her latest book, entitled Antidepressed: A Breakthrough Examination of Epidemic Antidepressant Harm and Dependence.
Police Violence Victims at Increased Risk of Psychotic Symptoms
Researchers examine links between police victimization and psychotic symptoms in a topical new study.
My Son and the “Mental Health” System
As a father whose 27-year-old son is trapped in the mental health system, I am painfully aware that I have been unable to protect him. At age 19, my son naively told his mother and his doctor that he was hearing voices, marking the beginning of a hellish nightmare which he is still unavoidably immersed in. I would like to explain my perspective on why this is the case.
Open Season on Mental Patients
No one is safe from psychiatry’s project of medicalizing every variation of human emotion and behaviour, especially people viewed with suspicion and contempt by the powerful.
Troubled by Individual and Collective Psychosis? Maybe Compassion and Dialogue Could Help!
We need to learn to listen and respond in a caring way to the disturbed and disturbing voices within the population—to really engage with them, while also not believing any lies or distortions or letting destructive forces take over.
Smartphone Based Interventions for Depressive Symptoms
New meta-analysis of smartphone based interventions demonstrates small-to-moderate effect.
Suicides Are Increasing – And So Are Antidepressant Prescriptions
Disturbingly, our study and others reveal that the black box warning is now ignored in many countries, since antidepressant prescriptions for children are on the rise again. Despite increasing certainty that antidepressants are ineffective and likely cause suicidal behavior in young people, psychiatry continues to claim that they reduce suicide risk.
From Stoned to “Schizophrenic”: My Mental Healthcare Journey
During a period of self-doubt, I chose to see a psychiatrist because I was engulfed in negative thoughts and couldn't find a direction in life. The slightest joys came only when I was high. Though my weed addiction was likely causing all of my symptoms, my psychiatrist’s response was to prescribe antipsychotics.
Grief and Burnout: The Challenge of Staying Out of Psychiatry
No matter how many times I scatter, I gather my pieces every time and get down to my garden where souls dwell, waiting to be tended.
Antidepressant Withdrawal: A Psychiatrist’s 30-Year Challenge to Conventional Wisdom
For thirty years, Dr. Giovanni Fava has sounded the alarm on the long-term effects of antidepressants and the risks of withdrawal, pushing back against pharmaceutical narratives.
What Helped—and What Didn’t Help—My Recovery
In order to recover, it was necessary to give up the psychiatric treatment system, and the idea that I need something from that system, that I belong there.
“The Angry Consumer”: Embracing Difficult Conversations
Judgments of the so-called ‘angry consumer’ deeply reinforce divisions within mental health policy and services. The only way we can engage in meaningful co-production is not to gloss over histories of collective exclusion and disempowerment and all the pain and anger that goes with it, but rather to validate and work through difficult emotions.
A Personal Perspective on the Development of the Survivors’ Movement in Israel
In order for there to be a real chance for significant positive changes, a strong and independent advocacy organization of our people must be established. There is no such body right now in Israel. Our deep hope is that the younger generation will establish an advocacy organization that will act on policy issues and promote rights.
UN Report Criticizes Biomedical Approach to Mental Health
UN official writes that States should focus instead on resolving social inequality and injustice as determinants of health and human rights.
ADHD: Disempowerment By Diagnosis
Giving a diagnosis of ADHD can profoundly disempower students and lead to what psychologists call “learned helplessness.” Isn’t it time for those of us in education to reclaim our profession? Who are the teaching and learning experts? Doctors? Drug companies? We are! And if we don’t stand up—for our students—against disempowering diagnoses and harmful drugs, who will?
New York Can’t—or Won’t—Provide Data on New Forced Treatment Plan
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.
The Culture Is the Poison: Why Psychedelics Are Dangerous Medicine in a Neoliberal Society
Extraction of psychedelics from the ritual process has dissociated them from community, connectedness, and responsibility, which used to define psychedelic drug use.
Stop Saying This, An Encore!
Continuing the series, we look at discussions of "chemical imbalances," medications, and diagnoses, as well as telling people to "calm down" and a further look at the "observer."
Unbecoming
If the wounded healer doesn't work on their wounds, they become the wounded wounder, keeping the client and themselves trapped in their roles.
