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If the cultural and socioeconomic structures of society had, from the beginning, allowed me to function, and even thrive, I undoubtedly never would have felt a need for antidepressants and “therapy.”

If I had any legal rights, I knew nothing about them. And the hospital cared even less about them. As a law student, I would like to share the legal rights I did have in the state of California and how they were violated from the very start.

A new study reveals many benzodiazepine users are misinformed about the risks of withdrawal and experience devastating consequences.

I lost three years of my life to my first psychosis. I am living proof that your entire world can be smashed into a trillion pieces and you can recover and turn the broken pieces of glass into a kaleidoscope.

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.

I didn’t know that I had never fully experienced my emotional pain until I was thrown into an altered state. With “psychosis” I plowed through layers and layers of pain, alone in the night.

The New York Times article paints a rosy picture of ECT, but it’s based on a misleading study and dismisses the plentiful research on ECT’s harms.

Psychiatric meds can shut down the emotions and consciousness enough to make it possible to tolerate dynamics that would inspire rage or surges of empowered activity without the meds. It can be helpful to look closely at these blocks and start to create a map to freedom, understanding that it is a complex process that involves not only the physiology of the body of the individual taking meds, but the architecture of the social system around that person.

A few years ago, I was asked to see a man called Chris Rushworth. He was referred to me for anger issues. Chris had a restlessness about him, frequently shifting his legs from side to side. He had been on antipsychotic medication for 25 years.

The researchers suggest that their finding implies a common genetic cause behind five different “disorders.” This is big news! If true, it validates the biomedical view of mental “illness” and suggests that future medical treatments could “cure” these conditions. However, that grand conclusion is not supported by the data.

Science is supposed to be evidence-respecting and thereby open-minded; psychiatry is presently not. But is psychiatry really unique in this respect? Is it the only field of medicine where dogmatically held theories contrary to evidence have held sway for long periods?

A new attempt to study the neurological effects of long-term exposure to antipsychotics uses healthy volunteers on minimal doses for 15 days.

As the Global Mental Health Movement attempts to address cross-cultural mental health disparities, a new article encourages integrating traditional healing practices with psychotherapy.

An analysis of last year’s positive finding in The Lancet about antidepressant efficacy shows errors, obfuscations, and misrepresentations.

The party would continue for a time, but an inevitable crash ensued. I left my family, was fired from my job for uncontrollably screaming at my boss, and gambled away whatever money I had left in the stock market. A debilitating depression soon began, of a magnitude I could not previously have imagined. I had lost everyone and everything in my life.

Researchers find that valproate decreases brain volume in a region associated with emotion processing across all participants.

Today on the MIA podcast we talk to Bobby Fiddaman about his experiences of the mental health system, his research and campaigning over the years and his relationships with the UK and US pharmaceutical regulatory bodies.

A new study finds that more than a third of Americans are taking prescription drugs that can cause depressive symptoms as a side-effect.

New prevention strategies are needed based on our increasing understanding of the impacts of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs).

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?

Researcher Dr. Silke Schwarz highlights how Western psychology’s construction of individual resilience deflects emphasized individual pathology and deflects efforts at structural change.

My own experiences have shown that specific exercises can help me to recognize the early symptoms of psychosis even earlier and more subtly, and reduce their intensity — even the delusions!

Researchers investigate the first-person experiences of people who disagreed with their psychiatric diagnosis of psychosis.

Peter Gøtzsche continues the discussion of the pharmaceutical industry’s manipulation of depression pill trials for children and adolescents.

A Vermont residential community program helps people taper or stay off medications with holistic care embedded in a pastoral setting.