Coercion

From Aeon: While psychiatric drugs are often ineffective and can have serious side effects, there are many psychedelics and other illicit substances that have proven...

In the New York Times Sunday Review, Irene Hurford, a psychiatrist, reflects on the ethics of forced treatment for psychosis. “As doctors,” she writes,...

In this interview for ABC Australia, leading psychology professor Peter Kinderman discusses why we need alternative ways of understanding and supporting people in distress that take...

Recently, Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health, identified the “NIMH’s Top 10 Research Advances of 2011.” He wrote: “This has been a year of exciting discoveries and scientific progress . . . Here are 10 breakthroughs and events of 2011 that are changing the landscape of mental health research.”

From NewBostonPost: In light of the recent commemoration of International Holocaust Remembrance Day, it is important to acknowledge the role that eugenics, a field developed by psychiatrists...

Concerns have been raised about inconsistent and unreliable results, which may lead to injustices in sentencing or even wrongful convictions.

I am not comfortable with an all-or-nothing insanity defense that is both legally and socially stigmatizing because it sets the person apart as someone who is legally determined to be incapable of being treated as a moral agent. This stigma spills over onto all people who are psychiatrized, and it is part of the conception of madness that also ends up serving as a justification for civil commitment, since we are perceived (incorrectly) as outside the reach of ordinary law.

Justina Pelletier, who lived with her parents in Connecticut, had been diagnosed with mitochondrial disease, a rare and debilitating illness, and had been receiving treatment for this from Mark Korson, MD, Chief of Metabolism Services at Tufts Medical Center in Boston. In February of last year, Justina's parents took her to Boston Children's Hospital with flu-like symptoms. Dr. Korson had recommended an admission to Boston Children's so that Justina could be seen by Alex Flores, MD, a gastrointestinal specialist who had recently transferred from Tufts to BCH. But instead, Justina's care was taken over by the psychiatry department.

In this piece for Eidolon, Jessica Wright discusses the ways that labeling people as "crazy" and "mentally ill" has served to justify oppression throughout history....

A bottom-up approach to understanding the history of asylums allows us to learn from past successes and failures in the mental health system.

Again and again I am told the ‘severely mentally ill’ are impaired and incapable, not quite human. I am told the “high utilizers” and “frequent flyers” 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 – 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.

From The Guardian: At age 17, Nicole Kluemper came to be one of the most controversial cases in modern psychology when she recovered memories of...

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.

From The Atlantic: In the mid- to late 1800s, psychiatric institutions were used to oppress women and reinforce patriarchal norms. The new Netflix show Alias Grace, based...

From The Globe and Mail: A judge has recently ruled that patients at a mental health facility in Ontario were tortured by doctors over a...

The United States desperately needs good programs to help people withdraw from neuroleptic drugs. From all I have seen and heard, there aren’t any - none at least that can reputably claim to get good results on a fairly consistent basis. Again and again I find myself challenged to envision such a program, and in reply to the challenge I have broken down this hypothetical program into various components.

I thought I would begin my blogging career with a description of how I see three elements that reinforce each other in ways that...

A new study tracks the approval of the latest antidepressant, vortioxetine, by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA) and the European Medicines Agency (EMA). The...

Audit of ECT usage, demographics, and adherence to guidelines and legislation raises concern over its continued use.

In this three-part series for Psychology Today, Dr. Eric Maisel describes 30 personality traits that are common among authoritarians, and how these traits can lead to abuse...

From BuzzFeed News: America's largest chain of psychiatric hospitals, United Health Services, is currently under investigation by at least three federal agencies including the FBI...

A new anthology is seeking essays, short stories, poetry, and visual art on the topic of paternalism, i.e. abuses or human rights violations that are...

From Undark Magazine: A new app, Psych Ward Reviews, gathers anonymous reviews of patients' experiences with inpatient treatment at public and private psychiatric and general...

In this piece for BBC, Melissa Hogenboom reports on the way that people who have been convicted of crimes and diagnosed with mental illness are...

In this piece for rs21, Kate Bradley writes about the depression she has experienced as a result of capitalism and societal oppression, and the way...