United Nations Rep Brings Attention to Human Rights Violations in Psychiatry
Dr. Dainius PĆ«ras argues that the status quo in mental health treatment is no longer acceptable and demands political action to promote human rights.
UN Meeting on Human Rights in Mental Health: A Response
On May 14 and 15, the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights held a meeting on human rights in mental health. The event represented tensions in the United Nations between the promotion of mental health and the promotion of the human rights of people with psychosocial disabilities under the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities.
Refugees and Immigrants Experience Increased Medical Coercion
Refugees and first-generation immigrants of African descent are at greater risk of experiencing medical coercion when compared to immigrants of other visible minority communities in Canada.
The Mental Health Reform Act of 2016 (SB 2680) Would Be a Huge Step...
There is indeed a crisis in the mental health business. The crisis derives from psychiatry's spurious and self-serving premise that all significant problems of thinking, feeling, and/or behaving are brain illnesses that are correctable by psychiatric drugs.
To Live and (Almost) Die in L.A.: A Survivor’s Tale
After 25 years of chronic emergency, 22 mental hospitalizations, a stint at a âcommunity mental health center,â 13 years in a "board & care," repeated withdrawals from addictions to legal drugs, and a 12-year marriage, I plan to live every last breath out as a survivor, an advocate, and an artist.
Inappropriate Use of Antipsychotics on Adults with Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities
One-third of adults with an intellectual or developmental disability are dispensed antipsychotics, despite having no existing psychiatric diagnosis.
Coercion in Care
To this day I do not know how I found my way back. I think it mightâve had something to do with willpower, as I was NOT going to lose myself. I was NOT going to end up like those people who were living indefinitely in the hospitalâthose âchronic schizophrenicsâ, as they say. I was going to find my way back, back to myself.
Feral Psychiatry: More on the Garth Daniels Case
On Wednesday, May 18th, Daniels had what was probably his 102nd consecutive episode of ECT. As always, he told the staff that he did not want it and did not consent to it; as always, he got it. Later on the next afternoon, Garth left to join his family in Brisbane. None of us have a crystal ball but his position now seems much better than at any stage in the past. Let's look at some of the facts and opinions surrounding this case.
Defeating Goliath: Mental Health is a Social Justice Issue, and People with Lived Experience...
While I have lived just a few miles away from the Capitol for the last fifteen years, I have been unsure about getting involved in legislative advocacy. Iâve been intimidated by the complexity of the legislative process, and more inclined to leave it up to others who I perceive as having more experience than me. And honestly, I havenât felt very hopeful about effecting change. My cynicism had turned to âlearned helplessness.â And then along came a mental health bill so destructive, so regressive, that I had to step out of my uncomfortable comfort zone.
Criticism of Coercion and Forced Treatment in Psychiatry
A recent editorial, published in BMJ, argues there is an increase in coercive measures in psychiatry that are damaging to individuals diagnosed with mental illness.
Measuring How Mental Health Professionals See Service Usersâ Rights
A new scale has been developed and validated to examine beliefs held by mental health professionals towards service usersâ rights.
Madness in Civilisation: A Cultural History of Insanity
Until recently the history of psychiatry was a neglected backwater whose murky depths were explored largely by psychiatrist. The impression conveyed by books such as Tukeâs Chapters in the History of the Insane in the British Isles, Macalpine and Hunter's Three Hundred Years of Psychiatry: 1535 - 1860, Berrios and Freemen's 150 Years of British Psychiatry 1841 - 1991, or Fuller Torrey and Miller's The Invisible Plague, is one that sees psychiatry and modern systems of mental health care as the inevitable outcome of progress through scientific thought, a (white European male-led) narrative from darkness and ignorance to enlightenment and knowledge.
The Truth About Long-Term Antidepressant Use
From The Guardian: As antidepressant prescriptions rise and have doubled in the past decade, mental health experts are becoming increasingly concerned about adverse effects and...
De-escalating Folks When Psychotic and Potentially Violent
People, in general, are afraid when other people act with hostility. This is a natural human instinct, of course. However, meeting people in crisis by returning fear and violence will often backfire. Finding a way to connect can instead be healing for everyone involved.
Six Ways You Can Really Help Prevent Suicide
The first time I tried to kill myself, I was 14. I wonât go into the indignity of being involuntarily locked up, time after time, until I satisfactorily convinced the staff that I wouldnât harm myself or attempt suicide again. (I was lying.) The system taught me to lie, to hide my suicidal feelings in order to escape yet another round of dehumanizing lock-ups and âtreatments.â
Electroshocking Veterans and Their Fetuses
I have long been concerned with the way society responds to people who come back from war. Veterans are routinely funneled into psychiatryâs grasp. Over the decades, some people who fought in wars have shared with me their experiences of being psychiatrized upon return from war. Sometimes these experiences included veterans being stripped of their second amendment rights, and a host of other constitutional, civil, and human rights violations as they began to be forced into complying with psychiatric regimens, and on several occasions this included veterans being subjected to electroshock.
A Three Pronged Approach to Mental Health System Change
I thought I would begin my blogging career with a description of how I see three elements that reinforce each other in ways that...
The Misuse of Collaboration and Therapy to Deter People From Discontinuing Medication
Gabriel Ivbijaro and Lucja Kolkiewicz produce five pages dedicated to improving adherence with psychiatric medication through collaborative care and the implementation of modified CBT. The use of the word âcollaborativeâ in this context is misleading.
Experts Concerned That Depression Screening Will Lead to Overdiagnosis
Behind the U.S. task force recommendation to screen all children and adults for depression.
I’m Sorry I Was Being So Crazy While You Treated Me Like Shit
From Reductress: "Let me just start this by saying I am so sorry I have been acting so crazy lately; I donât know whatâs gotten...
Study Identifies Psychiatric Patients at Greatest Risk of Coercion
In an effort to reduce coercion, researchers isolate associated factors including age, relationship status, location, and diagnosis.
Letter to the Mother of a âSchizophrenicâ: We Must Do Better Than Forced Treatment...
Again and again I am told the âseverely mentally illâ are impaired and incapable, not quite human. I am told the âhigh utilizersâ and âfrequent flyersâ burden services because they are different than the rest of us. And when I finally do meet the people carrying that terrible, stigmatizing label of schizophrenia, what do I find? I find â a human being. A human who responds to the same listening and curiosity that I, or anyone, responds to. I find a human who is above all terrified, absolutely terrified, by some horrible trauma we may not see or understand.
Research Suggests that Forensic Psychological Examinations are Unreliable and Biased
Concerns have been raised about inconsistent and unreliable results, which may lead to injustices in sentencing or even wrongful convictions.
Regarding Representative Tim Murphyâs Helping Families In Mental Health Crisis Act
Representative Murphy has released the second version of the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act (H.R. 2646). Few can argue that the mental health system and the current approach towards helping individuals and families in crisis are abysmal. H.R. 2646 is an effort to create increased service provisions and to enhance interventions that many professionals, family members and service users alike believe to be effective. When people are desperate and suffering they do not wish to be told "Sorry, there's nothing we can do." And so, it is understandable and even laudable that so many support the proposals laid out in H.R. 2646. But the bill is based on distorted and faulty logic that misrepresents the research and evidence base. This is highly disconcerting. And so a collective of mental health professionals, mental health advocates, and persons with lived experience came together to produce the following documents in response to H.R. 2646.
Will the European Elections Be a Chance for Mental Health?
European citizens from 27 different countries will soon go to the polls to elect their representatives in the European Parliament for the next five years. As an advocacy organisation, we see those elections as an opportunity to call on current and future European leaders and policymakers to bring mental health to the heart of European policies.