“Holy Shit!” Psychiatry’s Cognitive Dissonance on Display

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Even those who would seek to reform the profession of psychiatry cannot confront the reality that exists in the research literature
Human brain in glass jar isolated. Sticker, print or blackwork tattoo design hand drawn vector illustration.

Causality in Mental Disturbance: A Review of the Neuroscience

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Psychiatry's medicalization of social and psychological suffering is not justified by the currently known biology.
A collage depicting cut-up photographs of David Carmichael and his son Ian, Lindsay Clancy and her children, and a bottle of pills spilling out

SSRIs, Lindsay Clancy, and Me

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Sharing the similarities between Lindsay Clancy's homicidal episode and my own will hopefully help prevent rare SSRI-induced suicides and homicides, including mass shootings.
A pay phone keypad on the left, looking old and decayed, and blurry red and blue lights as if seen through a rain-slick windshield on the right.

“You Can’t Coerce Someone into Wanting to Be Alive”: The Carceral Heart of the...

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“You can’t coerce someone into wanting to be alive. Force just doesn’t work. People must be invited to live while supporters (healthcare professionals, social workers, loved ones) make their lives and world more habitable.”
deep brain stimulation

Brain Implants: Spinning the Trial Results to Protect the Product

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The published report of the Broaden Trial of Deep Brain Stimulation for Depression whitewashed the results: although the efficacy results were negative, the investigators concluded that the therapy still showed "promise", and adverse events suffered by the patients were downplayed or attributed to the disease, and not the treatment. An in-depth investigation of how the trial results were spun, and interviews with patients that tell of harm done.
A zombie hand bursts from a grave. On the headstone is written "Serotonin theory: Rest in peace?"

The Serotonin Zombie: Authors of New Study Try to Breathe New Life into the...

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Despite new claims that their study provides "clear evidence" linking serotonin and depression, their data actually supports the opposite conclusion: serotonin levels did not correlate with depression.
AOT

Andrew Rich: “I Didn’t Know Stuff Like This Existed”

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In this second part of MIA’s report on compulsory outpatient treatment orders, Michael Simonson tells of how he came to report on this topic, the results from MIA’s survey of people who have experienced such forced treatment, his interviews with several of the survey respondents, and more on Andrew Rich’s life.

Prescribing an Epidemic: A Veteran’s Story

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Had I known what I know now, I never would have taken any of these drugs, and I absolutely would not have taken a role in which my outreach efforts to get veterans into mental health treatment might place thousands of lives at risk.

The Latest “Breakthrough Therapy”: Expensive New Drugs for Tardive Dyskinesia

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The increased prescribing of antipsychotics, which frequently cause a brain injury that manifests as tardive dyskinesia, has provided pharmaceutical companies with a lucrative new market opportunity.
A prescription bottle. The label reads "Healthy diet" and "Exercise."

Art, Music, Exercise, and More: What Are the Recommended Doses for Improving Mental Health?

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Researchers have calculated the dose-response benefits of ordinary hobbies, habits, and lifestyle practices that are available without any trip to a doctor or a drug store.

Campaign Against ECT Gains Traction in UK

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"Across the pond," campaigners’ efforts against electroshock are gaining public notice. Can their approach work in the US?

World Benzodiazepine Awareness Day 2020

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This week on MIA Radio, we present the second part of our podcast to join in the events for World Benzodiazepine Awareness Day 2020...

America’s Psychiatric Facilities Are ‘Incubators’ for COVID-19

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As the novel coronavirus continues to wreak havoc around the globe, whistleblowers at American psychiatric facilities paint a picture of mismanaged COVID-19 responses and lax safety protocols, putting patients, workers, and the surrounding communities in harm’s way. Some even allege coverups of deaths.

The Nurtured Heart Approach Goes Mainstream: Research and Experience Support “Celebrating Greatness in Every...

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The Nurtured Heart Approach represents a massive shift in thinking—about schooling, about children and how to raise them, about how we regard those with intensity, and about the medical model pathologizing them.

And Now They Are Coming for the Unhoused: The Long Push to Expand Involuntary...

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Mayor Adams' plan to "involuntarily remove" unhoused people has met with backlash from activists and the unhoused, who say it violates their rights and further entrenches systemic racism.

The Proactive Search for Mental Illnesses in Children

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Part one of a two-part Mad In America investigation into the expansion of psychological screening and electronic surveillance of children and youth. A new government-funded mental health training program for British Columbia family physicians and school staff promotes screening for mental disorders in all children and youth. Critics say the program omits key scientific evidence, seems more like drug promotion than medical education, and downplays serious potential harms. Nevertheless, programs like it are rolling out across Canada and the US.
veterans do shakespeare

Veterans Find A Path to Healing Through Shakespeare

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Veterans struggling with a diagnosis of PTSD, or depression and other difficulties find that learning to perform Shakespearean monologues, and developing their own dramatic monologues, can help them "unwire" from the traumas of war.
A collage depicting women using cell phones and hallucinogenic mushrooms, against a psychedelic purple background

Fireside Project: Peer Support for Psychedelic Experiences

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A new nonprofit support line takes a harm-reduction approach and helps people process their psychedelic experiences.
cartoon drawing of many eyes on red background

Mental Health Apps: AI Surveillance Enters Our World

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While the developers are promoting the apps as a public health initiative, they are effectively an AI that would be snooping on you at all times—ostensibly coming to know you better than you know yourself. And ultimately doing so for commercial purposes that will expand the psychiatric enterprise.
Vector illustration depicting a hashtag symbol on the landscape, with people climbing upon it with cell phones out

Why Isn’t There a Popular Hashtag for Involuntary Commitment?

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As uses of psychiatric force expand, can social media be better used to focus critical attention?

Life Inside America’s Psychiatric Facilities During the Pandemic: Eyewitness Accounts

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Insiders paint a picture of chaos and fear in public and private psychiatric hospitals across the country. "Now that she has been discharged, Sevigny is getting the truth out, just as the nurse asked her to do. She also plans to continue to organizing in her state, with and on behalf of those who continue to be subjected to dangerous conditions in the name of care."

Making Music, Healing Souls

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The healing power of communal singing is at the heart of two organizations in England and Ireland: Sing Your Heart Out and 49 North Street.

Suicide Hotlines and the Impact of Non-Consensual Interventions

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Those struggling with suicidal thoughts may stay silent instead of reaching out to suicide hotlines because they fear non-consensual intervention and the harmful impact of police involvement.

“Not Fragile”: Survivor-Led Mutual Aid Projects Flourish in a Time of Crisis

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During the current pandemic, the practice of mutual aid—defined broadly as the ways that people join together to meet one another’s needs for survival and relationship—has become mainstream. Yet, often missing from major media coverage of mutual aid is any acknowledgment of its roots in movements led by marginalized people, including Black and Brown people, disabled people, mad people, and psychiatric survivors.
A woman holding a sign that says LA Jails are the Largest Mental Health Institution in the Country."

Bedlam: Public Media, Power, and the Fight for Narrative Justice

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A new mental health documentary awakens longstanding tensions around voice, representation, and the power to define problems and solutions.