When ‘Not Guilty’ is a Life Sentence
From The New York Times: While the public perception of the insanity defense is that it is a "get out of jail free" card, the...
Can Therapists Really Share Their Power?
From Psychology Today: It has become increasingly trendy for therapists to talk about sharing their power or even giving away their power to clients. However,...
Institutional Psychotherapy in France: An Interview
In this interview for Hidden Persuaders, Camille Robcis discusses institutional psychotherapy, a French psychiatric reform movement that began during the Second World War. Robcis explains...
Representative Tim Murphy Resigns From Congress
From The Washington Post: Representative Tim Murphy, who has worked to decrease the civil rights of those labeled mentally ill, has announced that he will...
Implant ‘Restores Consciousness’ to Man in Vegetative State
From The Guardian: A 35-year-old man who had been in a persistent vegetative state (PVS) for 15 years has shown signs of consciousness after receiving...
3 Whiting Workers Investigated Over Patient Abuse Allegations
From the Hartford Courant: Over this past spring and summer, 31 employees of the Whiting Forensic Division of Connecticut Valley Hospital were suspended, and nine...
PA State Representatives Introduce Bill to Ban ECT on Children
From Fox43: Last week, two Pennsylvania state representatives, Tom Murt and Stephen Kinsey, introduced a bill to prohibit the use of electroconvulsive therapy on children...
72 Hour Hold for Inalienable Personhood
Poof! Medical science and brain specialists have just alienated your rights. Far be it from me to question expert judgment, but have any of these people ever considered how dangerous it is to abrogate someone's personhood? It's time to recognize inalienable personhood. Social 'othering' is deadly.
Challenges in Measuring Low-Value Healthcare
Differences in patient-centric versus service-centric measures make quantifying low-value care difficult.
We Should Not Forcibly Commit the Homeless During Hurricanes
From Pacific Standard: In an effort to protect homeless individuals from the effects of Hurricane Irma, officials from the Miami-Dade County Homeless Trust used the...
APA to Release Guidelines for Fat-Shaming Kids for Profit
From Ravishly: The American Psychological Association has released a draft of their "Clinical Practice Guideline for the Behavioral Treatment of Obesity and Overweight in Children...
US Congressman, 64, Admits to an Affair with ‘Close Friend’
From Daily Mail: U.S. Representative Tim Murphy, who proposed the Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act, which includes provisions to expand coercive treatment, has...
Kate Millet Obituary
From The Guardian: Kate Millet, the radical feminist who launched the second wave of the women's liberation movement, died on September 6th. Millet was also...
State Permanently Closes Psychiatric Hospital
From The Boston Globe: The state of Massachusetts has permanently closed the Westwood Lodge psychiatric hospital due to issues of patient safety, quality of care,...
The History of Brainwashing is a Red Flag for Technotherapy
From Aeon: In the 1950s, psychiatrist Donald Ewen Cameron developed a treatment called psychic driving, which involved removing distressing memories and pathological behaviors through an...
9 Arrested so far in Patient-Abuse Scandal at Whiting Forensic
From the Hartford Courant: Nine state mental health workers at Whiting Forensic have been arrested and charged with cruelty to persons in the largest patient-abuse...
Reporter was Locked in Mental Hospital for 10 Days
This piece from Newsner chronicles the life and work of Elizabeth Cochran Seaman, a journalist who went undercover to expose the conditions at an infamous mental...
A Feminist Neuroethics of Mental Health
From The Neuroethics Blog: When populations are divided into two genders, women show roughly double the incidence of depression, anxiety, and stress-related mental health concerns....
Forced Psychiatry – A Legal Perspective
In this two-part video series for AdvancingMentalHealth.org, attorney Gary Brown questions the constitutionality of psychiatric confinement and discusses forced treatment from a legal perspective.
Part I →Â
Part II →Â
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.
The ‘A’ Word
In this piece, Keris Myrick critiques the usage of the word "anosognosia" and reflects on its power to harm the people it is directed...
Differences Within Critical Psychiatry
In this blog post for Critical Psychiatry, Duncan Double highlights three main areas of disagreement among critical psychiatrists: whether psychiatry should be seen as a medical...
Ethical Failings in Experimental Drug Safety Trials
Leading human subjects ethics researcher questions exploitation of uninsured minorities in experimental drug trials.
State Sees Boom in Number of Psychiatric Beds
From The Boston Globe: Massachusetts has seen a significant increase in its number of psychiatric institutions since 2015. However, many psychiatric patients are still waiting for...
Chinese Psychiatric Patient Wins Long Battle for Freedom
From South China Morning Post: A middle-aged Chinese man diagnosed with mild schizophrenia has won a four-year, high-profile legal battle to be released from a...
