Mental Health Survival Kit, Chapter 2: Is Psychiatry Evidence Based? (Part 5)
The psychiatrists have fought really hard to hide the terrible truth that depression pills double the risk of suicide, not only in children but also in adults.
Overprescribing Madness
Slick salesmanship, dishonest and incompetent medical practice (overlooked by timid regulators) and cultural, commercial, and political drivers now see Australians hooked on a cycle of over-diagnosis and over-medication.
Psycho-Bizarreness Theory: A Rational, Anti-Psychiatric Theory of Madness
Contrary to the traditional view, Psycho-Bizarreness Theory sees madness as a rational coping mechanism which individuals adopt out of expediency.
Someone I Used to Know
When I sit in Billieās office, I am still 13 years old, bitter anger saturating my body. I am 23, sobbing that I cannot do this anymore. I am 24, celebrating my first year of college. I am all of these people and none of these people.
What Does Our Species Require for a Healthy Life? An Interview with Peter Sterling
In his book "What is Health," Peter Sterling asks this provocative question: What does our species require for a healthy life? And can we achieve this with drugs?
Mental Health Survival Kit, Chapter 2: Is Psychiatry Evidence Based? (Part 4)
It requires extraordinary mental gymnastics by psychiatrists to conclude that neuroleptics, which cause obesity, metabolic dysfunction, diabetes, tardive dyskinesia, lethal cardiac arrhythmias, and so on, protect against death.
An American History of Addiction, Part 6: The Reagan Reaction
Kevin Gallagher addresses the Reagan era and the "crack" epidemic of the 1980s in this continuing series about the USA and addiction.
Assault and Exploitation: My Peer Worker Experience
The intensity of demand faced in the acute ward is exhausting. No one has a clue what Iām supposed to be doing, least of all me.
Beyond Benzos: Jordan B. Petersonās Trip to Hell and Back
I am thankful "Beyond Order" exists; if only because it serves as a cautionary tale for anyone looking to modify their mood using psychiatryās plethora of pills.
A Difference That Can Make a Difference: Mental Distress as a Call of Being
Could it be helpful to view mental distress by exploring Rollo May's concept of "being" rather than reducing humans to mere dysfunctional cogs in the machine of productivity?
Internet Forum for Tapering Psychiatric Drugs Provides Novel Insights
After 15 years, the founder of SurvivingAntidepressants.org, Adele Framer, shares what she has learned about the science of withdrawing from psychiatric drugs.
Mental Health Survival Kit, Chapter 2: Is Psychiatry Evidence Based? (Part 3)
Virtually every single placebo-controlled drug trial in psychiatry is flawed, systematic reviews of trials are also flawed, and guidelines are flawed. Even the drug approval process is flawed.
Antidepressant Withdrawal Misdiagnosed as Functional Disorder
Adverse physiological symptoms of antidepressant withdrawal are regularly mistaken to be other problems to the detriment of the patient.
Online Exhibition: Art-Making During the Pandemic
The online exhibition "Creativity and COVID: Art-Making During the Pandemic" features nearly 100 artists with lived experience with mental distress who shared with us their art-making process and how it helped them survive the global pandemic.
A Thief in the Hospital
I knew by then that there was a thief, but I tried not to rush to conclusions. I couldnāt even think of the possibility that it could be one of the staff. They go into the field in order to help people.
Childhood Trauma Is Not a Mental Illness
My childhood was stolen by systems focused on labeling and medicating me instead of healing the effects of abuse and neglect.
Federal Mental Health Agencies: Remember Ivory!
Ivory McCuen needed warmth and a home the night she died. Court-ordered psychiatric drugs deliver neither warmth nor a home. Federal agencies need to consider people with lived experience.
Feminism, Psychoanalysis and Critical Psychology: An Interview with Bethany Morris
MIA's Micah Ingle interviews Bethany Morris about the psychoanalytic study of film and the history of the "monstrous feminine" in psychiatry.
How Psychiatry Turned General Difficulties in Adaptation into “Real Illnesses Just Like Diabetes”
Though many psychiatrists have abandoned the "chemical imbalance" concept, they now promote the use of a pre-scientific notion that the only criteria for defining disease is the presence of distress or impairment.
Mental Health Survival Kit, Chapter 2: Is Psychiatry Evidence Based? (Part 2)
āPsychiatryās Starter Kitā: Many people start their psychiatric "careers" by consulting their family doctor with some problem many of us have from time to time and leave with a prescription for a depression pill.
Antidepressants Still Linked to Increased Suicide Risk
Bias and financial conflicts in antidepressant trials ācontribute to systematic underestimation of risk in the published literature.ā
Sherry Julo, Ed White and John Read ā Online Support Groups for Psychiatric Drug...
This week on the MIA podcast, we discuss a recent paper that considers the support provided by online support groups when people seek help for psychiatric drug withdrawal. It was published in the journal Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology in January 2021 and the authors are Sherry Julo, Ed White and John Read.
How to Support Healing from Psychosis Versus Imposing Social Control
This article is written for the loving supporter or social worker. My hope is that it will help you gain strategies for how to handle the relationship with someone experiencing psychosis.
Confused, Accused, and Retraumatized
At the hospital, what traumatized me the most was that my freedom was in the hands of a professional who was steadfast in his conviction that I was feeling things I was not.
Informed Consent Must Reflect Information from Online Withdrawal Forums
Online withdrawal forums document an assortment of risks associated with discontinuation of psychiatric drugs. Such information is readily available and must be disclosed during informed consent.
