New UN Report: Steps Forward, But No End to Impunity
Dainius Pūras, UN Special Rapporteur on Health, has issued a groundbreaking new report critiquing biopsychiatry and its reliance on coercion, yet he pulls his punches, most unforgivably by treating the obligation to end coercive practices as a matter for gradual rather than immediate implementation.
Psychological Interventions Can Help When Tapering Off Antidepressants
Meta-analysis of antidepressant tapering finds CBT and MBCT can aid in tapering, but limited studies met inclusion criteria.
Study Finds Increasing Minimum Wage can Decrease Child Maltreatment
Increasing the minimum wage - even modestly - can lead to less cases of child abuse in the home.
Kenneth Kendler: “Implausible” That Psychiatric Diagnoses Even “Approximately True”
In JAMA Psychiatry, prominent psychiatrist Kenneth Kendler writes that psychiatric diagnoses are “working hypotheses, subject to change.”
Green Space in Childhood May Protect Against Adult Mental Health Issues
A new study suggests proximity to green space as a child is linked to lower rates of mental health issues in adulthood.
There Is No Such Thing as a Side Effect
There is no such thing as a side effect. There are only the real effects — plain and simple. If you’ve been through what I’ve been through, shuffling through life in a drug-induced haze for eight years — well, you don’t want to hear about “side effects” anymore, or anything about how they’re “secondary.”
Mainstream Mental Health Is Hazardous for Your Mental Health
"Mental health" going mainstream has not actually translated into more connection and healing. Instead, what is mainstream is an individual, isolating notion of "disease."
Study Finds Phone Apps Effective for Reducing Mental Health Symptoms
Researchers found that participants using coach-assisted apps designed for depression and anxiety experienced symptom reductions in both conditions
Between Diagnoses and Dialogue: The Silent Conflict Between Psychiatry and Psychology
In contrast to psychiatry's biomedical model, for many psychologists, care begins with listening rather than labelling.
MIA in the Year 2017
We have always conceived of Mad in America as a forum for a community to come together and “rethink” psychiatry and its current paradigm of care. This past year was our first operating as a 501c3, and the support we received from our readers and from charitable foundations has reinforced and strengthened this sense of our mission. As such, we thought it would be useful to briefly review how we expanded our operations in the past year, and detail our ambitions for 2017.
From Labeled to Healer: A Road Less Traveled
We have let down our children (and ourselves) by losing touch with parental intuition and handing their care over to professionals at the first sign of a problem.
Social Prescribing May Improve Self-Esteem and Mental Well-Being
Systematic review suggests social prescribing benefits individuals with mental and physical health issues, but more program evaluations are needed.
Why I’m Glad I Did Not Complete the Mental Health Counselor Education Program
One needs no psychiatric or counseling degree to have the common sense of displaying some good manners in a profession that claims to be all about helping people. I’m glad I did not get further involved within a field that seems to be so hypocritical and moody.
Why the ‘Psychological Injury Model’ Will Ultimately Triumph
The Psychological Injury model will triumph, not just because literally thousands of studies show how trauma and stressful life events result in mental health problems, but because at our core, we know it is true. People hurt people, and people heal people. This cracks the intellectual foundation of psychopharmacology.
Why Isn’t There a Popular Hashtag for Involuntary Commitment?
As uses of psychiatric force expand, can social media be better used to focus critical attention?
The Looting of “Outsider Art” by Psychiatry Continues Today
The German museum of the Prinzhorn Collection, which opened in 2001, exhibits the stolen art of those considered by the Nazis to be "degenerates."
Dear Psychiatrist – I Survived
It took me over 20 years to believe in myself enough to walk away from psychiatry and psych drugs and regain my life. I not only survived, but I am also thriving.
Reflections on 25,000 Hours of Being With People in Extreme States
Being with someone in an extreme state or other emotional pain, it feels like we’re two young friends who have ridden our bikes to a quiet place by the river and my friend turns to tell me about awful things happening at home — and they cry or yell in anger while I sit there and wonder what to say or do, and realize that just being quiet is okay.
A Relationship Imbalance, Not A Chemical Imbalance
With DSM-III, everything we knew about relationship dynamics was buried under the tidal wave of the pharmaceutical industrial complex.
Patients Express Anger at Doctors’ Ignorance About Antidepressant Withdrawal Effects
Antidepressant users share their frustrations towards a healthcare system that overprescribes but is ill-equipped to support with discontinuation and withdrawal symptoms.
ADHD Drugs Linked to Cardiovascular Disease
Service users taking drugs to treat ADHD may be at increased risk for hypertension and arterial disease
More to Happiness Than Feeling Good, Study Finds
Cross-cultural data suggest that happiness involves feeling the emotions one deems as right, in accordance with personal and cultural values.
When It Comes to Post-Surgical Opioid Tapering, You’re on Your Own!
I firmly believe that the people who give patients drugs have a responsibility to help people get off the drugs.
What Are We Overlooking? Reviewing Current and Alternative Treatments for Psychosis
We should explore a raft of interventions, as susceptibility to psychosis isn’t separable from a person’s general well-being.
CDC Reports Increased Psychostimulant Prescriptions in Women of Reproductive Age
Psychostimulant prescriptions have increased by 344% (from 2003 to 2015) for women of reproductive age (15-44 years old).
