Beata Pawlikowska, a blonde White woman, smiles while holding a manuscript and a pen, sitting at a table in a home.

Threatened for Telling the Truth: Polish Journalist Speaks Out

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Now I’m under attack, with threats of violence flung at me alongside threats of lawsuits. And all because I shared the large body of peer-reviewed research that contradicts the mainstream assumptions of psychiatry.

Researchers Seek Standardized and Safe Antidepressant Tapering Protocol

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A new study promotes the use of a standardized approach to antidepressant tapering.
Illustration depicting dna strands and molecule chains

“Hidden Valley Road” and Schizophrenia: Do Genes Tell the Story?

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The “genetics of mental disorders” story told in Kolker's "Hidden Valley Road" involves omission and misrepresentation of genetic research.
Photo of a magnifying glass sitting on an open textbook

Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 1: Why a Critical Textbook of Psychiatry?

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The discrepancy between opinion and science is prevalent in psychiatric textbooks. The coming generations of healthcare professionals will learn a lot during their studies that is incorrect.

Therapy Beats Drugs for Depression for Long-Term Outcomes

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Combining drugs and therapy also did not lead to better depression outcomes than therapy alone.
Three photos: Saraceno on the left, the statue of Giordano Bruno in the middle, and Oaks on the right.

Allies for Human Rights in Mental Health: Psychiatric Survivor David W. Oaks Interviews WHO...

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"Psychiatric practice is too often violating human rights, too often incapable of understanding the suffering of people, too often unable to provide help to people who need housing, work, money, respect, inclusion and instead are receiving psychotropic drugs, electroshock, physical restraint, isolation."
hindsight ECT

Hindsight is 20/20

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During my 2003 episode I received a series of ten shocks and at first they seemed to “magically” cure me. However, it only took a month for me to go back to feeling depressed and suicidal — again.

Project LETS: Building Peer-Led Mental Health Alternatives on Campus

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Founder and Executive Director Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu talks about the organization's work to support struggling students and end discrimination against them.

New York’s Mayor: We’re out of Ideas, so It’s “Back to the Cuckoo’s Nest”...

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A psychiatrist obsessed with violence among the mentally ill, Torrey is dedicated to promoting involuntary hospitalization.
A pay phone keypad on the left, looking old and decayed, and blurry red and blue lights as if seen through a rain-slick windshield on the right.

“You Can’t Coerce Someone into Wanting to Be Alive”: The Carceral Heart of the...

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“You can’t coerce someone into wanting to be alive. Force just doesn’t work. People must be invited to live while supporters (healthcare professionals, social workers, loved ones) make their lives and world more habitable.”

I Can Barely Breathe

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The psychiatrists broke my body and my brain and now they are washing their hands of me. When I think about what has been done to me and what has been taken from me, I can barely breathe.

Leading Psychiatrists Unwittingly Acknowledge Psychiatry Is a Religion, Not a Science

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Leading figures in psychiatry acknowledge that DSM psychiatric diagnoses and the chemical imbalance theory of mental illness are not scientifically valid, but are useful fictions that help people manage their emotions and comply with their medication treatments.

A Revolution Wobbles: Will Norway’s “Medication-Free” Hospital Survive?

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We interview Ole Andreas Underland, Director of the Hurdalsjøen Recovery Center in Norway which provides “medication-free” care for those who want such treatment or who want to taper from their psychiatric drugs. Ole Andreas explains why the success of this pioneering approach might threaten its future.
A boy is holding a head. He is unhappy and upset.

The Faulty Reasoning That Turned ADHD Into a Disease

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Leading ADHD researchers outline four mistakes that turned ADHD from a description of behavior into a medical disease.
Vector illustration depicting a hashtag symbol on the landscape, with people climbing upon it with cell phones out

Why Isn’t There a Popular Hashtag for Involuntary Commitment?

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As uses of psychiatric force expand, can social media be better used to focus critical attention?

The Power of Light and Dark

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It is possible to prevent and alleviate both depression and mania by managing the timing and intensity of exposure to light (and dark). I wasn’t sure these measures would work for me, but they did.
Close-up of a hand holding a tablet with a question mark on it. Below, scattered tablets with frowns or hearts.

Seriously Misleading Network Meta-analysis in Lancet of Acceptability of Depression Pills

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It is a futile exercise to rank depression pills based on flawed trial reports and—most importantly—when the patients prefer to be treated with a placebo.

Problem-Solving Through Skills-Building: Motivating Kids to Change

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Children can overcome all sorts of difficulties by learning specific behavioural or emotional skills with the help and support of their social network.

Mad in America’s 10 Most Popular Articles in 2022

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A roundup of Mad in America's most read blogs and personal stories of 2022 as chosen by our readers.

From ‘Madness’ to Self-Mastery: Overcoming a Life of Disconnection

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You are trained to trust a system, to trust a professional… But I was always following my intuitive self telling me that there was a way out of the madness and the labels.
Illustration depicting orange person looking frightened with orange ghosts swirling around them

Ghosts Popping out Everywhere: The Shifting Times We Live in and the Process of...

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We are living in challenging times. Every day we hear or read or hear stories of racism, sexism, inequalities, oppression. Emerging, there are experiences...
Close-up of therapist's hands explaining a problem to his patients

When Violence Hits Home, Can We Keep Growing?

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We want to share conversation we had coming out of these events in the hopes it might help others explore how to keep growing emotionally in an uncertain and sometimes violent world.
Profile of a bearded man head with a symbol of neurons in the brain

A Brain for Our Emancipation

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In times of crisis, we are required to adapt to conditions of suffering to safeguard capitalist production. We are asked to adapt our flexible brains to a hostile environment, and the possibility of transforming that environment is suppressed.

Antidepressants Plus Immune Response Terminate Pregnancies in Mice

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Also, male mice born to mothers with an immune response exhibited “autistic-like” behaviors, scientists report.
A photo of Mayor Eric Adams at a podium, with many other people behind him wearing suits.

Consumer Advisory Board Chair: NYC Mayor Adams Did Not Consult With Us on New...

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I chair the Consumer Advisory Board for the NYC Department of Mental Hygiene (DOMH). And I can tell you firsthand: We were not consulted before this plan came to fruition.