Peer-Support Groups Were Right, Guidelines Were Wrong: Dr. Mark Horowitz on Tapering Off Antidepressants

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In an interview with MIA, Dr. Horowitz discusses his recent article on why tapering off antidepressants can take months or even years.

ADHD: A Destructive Psychiatric Hoax

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Nobody is denying that inattention, hyperactivity, and impulsivity can be real problems. The issue at stake, however, is whether it makes any sense to conceptualize this loose cluster of vaguely-defined problems as an illness.

Antidepressant Use Tightly Correlates with Increased Suicide Rates

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While the study can’t confirm causality, it does contradict the notion that antidepressants reduce suicide at the population level.

Jon Jureidini–Evidence-Based Medicine in a Post-Truth World

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In this interview, Jon Jureidini talks about the issues with evidence-based medicine and describes what led to the debasement of a system originally conceived to challenge extravagant claims and poor science.

Robert Whitaker Answers Reader Questions on Pharma Marketing and Psychiatric Drugs

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In Part 2 of our reader Q&A podcast, MIA founder Robert Whitaker answers questions on pharmaceutical marketing and issues with psychiatric treatments including psychiatric drugs and electroconvulsive therapy.

My Lived Experience Helps Others Heal: Working with Families on the Path to Recovery

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If one person is struggling, everyone in the family is struggling. Families need support.

The False Memory Syndrome at 30: How Flawed Science Turned into Conventional Wisdom ...

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Soon after states finally began providing adults who remembered childhood abuse with the legal standing to sue, the FMSF began waging a PR campaign to discredit their memories—in both courtrooms and in the public mind.
mania

Antidepressant-Induced Mania: When My Mind Became a Literal Hell

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The amount of anxiety I felt on these medications — and for a couple of years after — was unfathomable. I felt as though I was trapped in an air-tight vat, constantly gasping for breath. And my thoughts were guided by my state of constant worry and panic.
Illustration of a red pencil circling a group of people

How Psychiatrists Responded to the Launch of Our New ECT Survey

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Amid mostly rude and unprofessional jibes, there were also some legitimate points, which are addressed here.

Interpersonal Caring as an Act of Resistance Among Socially Marginalized

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Some of the most marginalized and stigmatized people in a community are those with psychiatric diagnoses and those who are HIV positive.

Benzodiazepines in Canada: Is a Withdrawal Crisis Looming?

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Why are benzos, for short-term use only, being doled out, in some cases, for years? Nicole Lamberson and Mark Horowitz weigh in.

Branding Diseases—How Drug Companies Market Psychiatric Conditions: An Interview with Ray Moynihan

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MIA’s Ayurdhi Dhar interviews Ray Moynihan about the marketing of disorders, broadening of diagnoses, and harmful treatments.

‘It Was a Joint Effort’: Deborah Kasdan on Bringing Her Late Sister’s Story to...

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Author Deborah Kasdan discusses her memoir of her late sister, "Roll Back The World."

Psychiatric Hegemony: A Marxist Theory of Mental Illness

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In Psychiatric Hegemony: A Marxist Theory of Mental Illness, Bruce Cohen explains the expanding power and influence of psychiatry in terms of its usefulness to the capitalist system — the more useful it is, the more power it is given, and the greater its power, the more useful it becomes.

The Trauma of Psychosis: My “Bipolar” Journey

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Somatic therapy helped me process the trauma of my psychosis: the two days of my brain telling me the world was ending and awful things were being done to my family.
A young man sitting on steps outside looking sad

Trauma and Resources Within Social Context

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What is seen as pathology is a complex web of surviving strategies learned in aversive circumstances that can cause distress later.
3D render of placebo pills isolated over wood background

Placebo Effect—Not Antidepressants—Responsible for Depression Improvement

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In adolescent depression treatment, those who received a placebo but thought they received Prozac improved more than those who received the drug and knew it.

Not Just a Dream: Finding the Mental Health Community I’d Been Longing For

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I dreamed of a place where healers weren’t afraid of intense states like madness. They embraced it; maybe they’d been through it themselves.
Young man refusing to take prescribed pills in clinic

Antipsychotics Lead to Worse Outcomes in First-Episode Psychosis

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Those who did not get antipsychotics in the first month were almost twice as likely to be in recovery after five years.
Painting of Dostoevsky by Vasily Perov

Dostoevsky: A Psychologist We Can All Learn From

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Psychology has greatly broadened its scope since Nietzsche’s day and yet his implied criticism is one the discipline is still wrestling with.

How to Avoid Severe SSRI Withdrawal Symptoms?

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After long-term use, most people are going to have serious symptoms when stopping SSRIs. Many people are going to have transient, mild to moderate difficulty and some are going to end up falling down the akathisia rabbit hole. That is a long, difficult drop.

May Cause Side Effects–Radical Acceptance and Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal: An Interview with Brooke Siem

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Brooke Siem discusses her experiences of being medicated with antidepressants as a teenager, her withdrawal from a cocktail of psychiatric drugs and her debut memoir, May Cause Side Effects.

Hyperbolic Tapering off Antidepressants Limits Withdrawal

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New research by Jim van Os and Peter Groot finds that using hyperbolic tapering to discontinue antidepressants reduces withdrawal effects.

ADHD Drugs Linked to Cardiovascular Disease

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Service users taking drugs to treat ADHD may be at increased risk for hypertension and arterial disease

Stuart Shipko – SSRI Withdrawal: Shooting the Odds

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We interview Dr. Stuart Shipko, a psychiatrist and author who has a particular interest in the side effects and withdrawal effects of SSRI antidepressants and the need for informed consent when prescribing.