OCD and the Anxiety/Gut Connection
I never made the direct connection between my gut and how anxiety created physical problems! Why did not one single medical professional tell me this information?
Go/No-Go—How Mental Health Research Took a Wrong Turn: An Interview with Author Marianne Apostolides
Marianne Apostolides discusses how Go/No-Go grew from her search for new eating-disorder treatments into a critique of the metaphors, experiments, and technologies shaping contemporary neuroscience and psychiatry. She argues that efforts to reduce distress to circuits, algorithms, and biomarkers often overlook subjectivity, agency, and the human relationships that meaningful care requires.
A Story of Bad Science: How Defenders of Antidepressant Efficacy Make Their Case
Psychiatric leaders should be in jail because they knowingly spread falsehoods about psychiatric drugs that kill.
How the Moral Panic on Psychiatric Bed Shortages is Fueling a ‘Competency Crisis’ in...
The number of people referred to state hospitals as ‘Incompetent to stand trial’ (IST) has surged over the last decade. In response, states are refurbishing or rebuilding their state hospitals— even as their own experts say this will only make the crisis worse. Why?
From Church to Clinic: The Cult of Compliance
It was jarring to realize that the rigid protocols in the church were mirrored in the clinical settings where I began my career.
Yet Another Claim About the Benefits of Antidepressants Bites The Dust
Former FDA officials write that claims that the black warning led to an increase in youth are "factually inaccurate in ways that are directly verifiable."
“Assault” and “Torture”: Patients Recall the Institutional Violence of Forced Drugging
A new article published in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology finds that patients often experience forced drugging in psychiatric contexts as dehumanizing and violent....
Psychedelic Therapy Paper Linked to Sexual Abuse Faces Possible Retraction
The Expression of Concern published by JHP serves to inform the public that retraction of the article is now under consideration.
In the Lindsay Clancy Case, Polypharmacy Will Be on Trial
Lindsay Clancy worsened while under the influence of psychiatric drugs, and at each step she desperately sought medical help.
When Therapy Makes Things Worse
This week, Mad in America examines three articles related to negative effects of psychotherapy. The first reviews the literature around negative effects in therapy,...
The Diagnostic Off-Ramp
Once you have been labeled as “Borderline,” anyone who wants to hurt you can use this against you.
Unlearn Your Pain: Harnessing the Power of Neuroplasticity – A Conversation With Howard Schubiner
Dr. Howard Schubiner joins us on the MIA podcast to discuss his work and the power of neuroplasticity to address psychological or physiological pain.
What Medicine Does Not Yet Recognize in Psychiatric Tapering
Together, we can create a new way to support patients tapering psychiatric medications and the medically orphaned will finally feel welcomed.
“Every Time I Took a Pill, I Felt I Was No Longer Myself”: Young...
A new study published online by the Journal of Humanistic Psychology examines young adults’ experience of taking and discontinuing antipsychotic drugs after completing a...
Inside the Hot Flush Gold Rush: The Medicalization of Menopause Spreads to Perimenopause
Many brands promising to help women actually make their suffering worse by reinforcing the belief that menopause is a time of deterioration.
Antidepressants Linked to Suicide Risk, Irregular Heartbeat, and Sudden Death
This week Mad in America examines three studies related to adverse effects of antidepressants. The first study finds that antidepressant use is linked to...
Depression Drug Approved by FDA Had 11 Failed Trials and an Advisory Committee Vote...
Rejected by the FDA four times; an advisory committee vote against approval. Yet in 2023, gepirone (Exxua) was approved for depression.
How Psychiatry Launders Our Debts: An Interview with Khameer Kidia
Physician-anthropologist Khameer Kidia examines how violence and inequality shape mental distress, arguing for patient autonomy, community care, and structural change beyond diagnosis, medication, and individualized psychiatric treatment.
Shifting Acute Mental Health Care to the Home Limits the Cycle of Rehospitalization, Study...
Intensive home treatment (IHT) is an approach to acute psychiatric care that avoids the stressful psychiatric ward admission procedures and allows the patient or...
What’s Been Lost in Medicine Is Shameful in Psychiatry: Reflections on Bernard Lown
Mental health professionals are trained to be technicians rather than provided with the opportunity to discover the craft of healing.
How Can Soccer Coaching Help People Who Hear Voices?
Voice hearing might be conceptualised as reflecting disowned or dissociated aspects of self, often occurring as a result of life events.
Doctors Who Avoid Conversations: How Psychiatry Made Me Ill
Not one of the doctors ever asked how I was feeling or doing. They were never willing to have conversations or sort through problems with me, even though they said I was ill.
A Mother’s Journey Through Psychiatric Drug Harm and Healing
Chelsea McVeigh joins us to discuss her journey through antidepressant withdrawal. At 31, during a new pregnancy, she suffered a severe adverse reaction that turned her world upside down.
Therapy as a Rite of Passage
If we turn toward ourselves with enough sincerity and curiosity, we will see that there is always something wanting to happen next.
Nobody Told Me to Do This: What It Means to Be a Dissident Psychiatrist
Reckoning with my own story became the vehicle for reckoning with my profession—and with what psychiatric care does to the people we care for.
