“You Are Completely Screwed” – A Firsthand Experience with Psychoeducation
Around me in the room I could see the different faces lit up by the big whiteboard raised above us. “There are these symptoms...” The psychiatrist would talk for long periods of time, while the nurses would sit quiet, nodding. I became skeptical and thought: “You are trying to talk me into something.”
Public Purse a Cash Cow for Pharma: Could Taxpayer Dollars Be Better Spent?
In Oregon, which has only about 1% of the national population, medical expenditures for psychiatric drugs in fiscal year 2017-2018 were $82.2 million for adults, and another $8.7 million for youth. Every advocate in the US should request these figures from their state Medicaid offices.
Tough Love for Thomas Szasz: A Book Review
Dr. Thomas Szasz (1920-2012) was one of the greatest thinkers and prose stylists of the last 100 years. Enough time has passed since he died that we can start to take stock of his legacy. This important new collection of essays by former colleagues, psychiatrists, philosophers, and legal experts does just that.
Psychiatrists Argue For More Attention to Iatrogenic Harms
Psychiatrists argue that current practice fails to account for the interaction of biological, psychosocial and iatrogenic factors.
Māori Approach to Mental Health Offers Empowering Alternative to Western Psychiatry
A new article explores Mahi a Atua, an affirming indigenous Māori healing practice which stands in contrast to the Western psychiatric methods typically promoted by the Movement for Global Mental Health.
I’m Introverted, Not Depressed!
Urging introverts to act more extroverted as a pathway to greater life satisfaction is wrongheaded. Elizabeth's case is one where the demoralization and despondency she experiences—forced to sacrifice her needs as an introvert to comply with the social scripts required to live in an extroverted world—masquerades as depression.
Open Dialogue Approach Reduces Future Need for Mental Health Services
The Open Dialogue psychiatric treatment approach is associated with reduced utilization of mental and general health services for Danish youth.
Neuroscientists Attempt to Diagnose Leonardo Da Vinci with ADHD
In a short editorial in the scientific journal Brain, neuroscientists Marco Catani and Paolo Mazzarello argued that Da Vinci had ADHD.
Blaming the System May Be the Best Therapy
If this were an old sci-fi movie, psychiatry would be the evil alien race on a collision course with earth that plans to completely take it over as soon as it can. That we are not treating psychiatry as the malevolent invader that it is shows only how deeply we’ve fallen for its facade of helping people.
The Connection Between Traumatic Brain Injury and Young Adult Suicide Risk
Researchers present evidence of a connection between the experience of traumatic brain injury in childhood and increased risk for suicide attempt in early adulthood.
Psychotropic Medications Serve as Powerful Tools for U.S. Military, Imperialism
Ethnographic research sheds light on extensive psychopharmaceutical use by soldiers in post 9/11 U.S. wars.
The Bipolar Artist: A Lifelong Sentence to Bear
I was told that I had only two choices: Do not have children, or take lithium while I was pregnant—the drug that posed the least amount of birth defects, and the very medication that had killed the painter in me years ago. I refused both options and set out on my own, and luckily found a willing psychiatrist to help me taper off the meds.
Helping Children to Overcome OCD: 6 Creative Strategies for Parents
Here, Dr. Ben Furman offers a creative approach to helping children who struggle with OCD. Explaining why behaviors like reasoning, reassuring, and superstitious rituals don’t work, he suggests engaging alternatives that teach kids how to manage their “worry monster” and make sense of their distressing experience.
FDA Approves Using Electricity All Night Long on Children’s Brains
The FDA just approved sales of an electrical device called the Monarch eTNS to be used on the brains of children diagnosed with so-called ADHD. The device “sends therapeutic signals to the parts of the brain thought to be involved in ADHD,” according to the FDA press release. “Therapeutic signals”? Really?
Yoga and Mindfulness Benefit Youth with Autism Spectrum Disorder
A new review finds preliminary evidence for yoga and mindfulness-based interventions for youth diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD).
Third Time Lucky: Open Dialogue and Finding Meaning in My Inherited Trauma
A year after my twin’s death, I stood in a supermarket and felt my body disintegrating into a thousand pieces. My soul knew it needed the right teacher and helper. Fortunately, I found Open Dialogue. It helped me expose the real childhood trauma, and gradually rebuild my shattered, grief-stricken psyche.
Are Antidepressants Enabling the Population to Tolerate the Intolerable?
Just how sad is our current state of affairs that it causes so much of the population to feel depressed and/or anxious? Just how much are these drugs changing the state of our society as a whole? Are the drugs desensitizing the population to the point that it will tolerate social conditions it would otherwise find intolerable?
My Son and the “Mental Health” System
As a father whose 27-year-old son is trapped in the mental health system, I am painfully aware that I have been unable to protect him. At age 19, my son naively told his mother and his doctor that he was hearing voices, marking the beginning of a hellish nightmare which he is still unavoidably immersed in. I would like to explain my perspective on why this is the case.
Children Taking ADHD Drugs More Likely to Take Antidepressants as Teens
Adhering to a commonly prescribed medication for ADHD in children is associated with higher chances of being prescribed antidepressants in adolescence.
Teacher Wellbeing Matters for Student Mental Health
Teacher’s personal wellbeing plays a role in students’ mental health outcomes, suggests a new study.
Mad Science, Psychiatric Coercion and the Therapeutic State: An Interview with Dr. David Cohen
MIA's Peter Simons interviews David Cohen, PhD, on his path to researching mental health, coercive practices, and discontinuation from psychiatric drugs.
Recovery Versus Mad Pride: Exploring the Contradictions
What would mental health treatment look like if it balanced an awareness of the need for “recovery” with an awareness that people also sometimes need to go “out of their minds” to resolve problems that they haven’t been able to solve otherwise, or maybe that their entire culture has not been able to face and resolve?
Exposure to Antidepressants in the Womb Linked to Autism
Researchers, publishing in Toxicology Research, review the evidence that antidepressant exposure in the womb is linked to autism spectrum disorders (ASD) in humans.
De-Othering “Schizophrenia” by Placing it in Socio-Historical Context
Understanding schizophrenia as a non-enigmatic, understandable human experience goes against a history of institutional “othering” that has sustained psychiatric legitimacy and further marginalized service-users.
Stop Shocking and Torturing Women – My Sisters
Think of all those women who have undergone or will undergo electroshock and suffer severe losses in memory, intelligence, special skills, creativity. Women too disabled by shock to pursue promising careers. Women who suddenly die after being shocked. Electroshock is torture, and informed consent in psychiatry is a myth and a lie.
