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?

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.

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.
A monolithic building rises above a New York City street in the daytime

A New York City Psychiatric Hospital Patient Said Staffers Illegally Restrained and Drugged Her;...

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“No one is watching these hospitals,” Miranda warned. “No one is listening. Our rights are being violated left and right. They can do whatever they want.”
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.

“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.
Illustration depicting prescription bottles on a grass background. One is tipped over and a magnifying glass examines the spilled pills

A New Paradigm for Testing Psychiatric Drugs Is Needed

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This paper reviews the problems with the usual double-blind, placebo-controlled trials on which drug approvals are based, and advocates for a stricter form of testing psychiatric drugs with patient-relevant outcomes, real comparators, long-term outcomes, and assessment of harms.

Screening for Bipolar: Have You Ever Been “Unusually Happy” for More than a Week?

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A new questionnaire funded by AbbVie conflates antidepressant side effects with bipolar disorder and doesn’t actually meet the criteria for being considered “screening.”
Photograph of East Wing and a field of buckwheat

Inner Fire: Where Seekers Have a Choice

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A Vermont residential community program helps people taper or stay off medications with holistic care embedded in a pastoral setting.

Mutual Support in an Age of Social Distancing

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Connection, whether one-on-one or in groups, is at the heart of peer support. In a time when social distancing and stay-at-home orders proliferate, the Western Massachusetts Recovery Learning Community/Wildflower Alliance (WMRLC) is finding creative ways to adapt to rapidly changing circumstances dictated by the novel coronavirus.
illustration of a voter box in a stormy ocean with a ladder

Voting While “Mentally Ill”: A Legacy of Discrimination

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Legal and practical barriers to voting disenfranchise people judged "mentally incompetent." The centuries-old, unclear laws and regulations also disproportionately affect people of color.
VA Secretary Robert Wilkie

An Open Letter to VA Secretary Robert Wilkie: A Plan for Deprescribing Veteran Suicides

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Through my research and experiences, I've found that what the Veterans Administration has been doing to fight the veteran suicide epidemic isn't working and appears to be unintentionally exacerbating it. These problems are fixable. But I need your help.

The Lessons of Music: Nurturing Mental Health in Cultures Around the Globe

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Music is an ancient and omnipresent tool for wellness, a carrier of peace for individuals, and a bonding agent for communities throughout history and the world.
A black and white photo of Andrew Rich

In Andrew’s Honor: Attorney Elizabeth Rich’s Fight Against Unjust Commitments

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Anyone detained and then formally committed under Wisconsin’s civil mental health laws can initially be held and forcibly drugged for six long months. Yet, for years, not a single person has been able to appeal the six-month commitments in court.

From Compliance to Activism: A Mother’s Journey

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Through years of turmoil and confusion, Cindi Fisher’s enduring love for her involuntarily committed son gradually changed her from compliant mom to mental health civil rights activist. That’s when authorities banned her from even contacting her son. But could she be a bellwether of a coming nation-wide wave of protestors?
Illustration of the Queer Eye cast

Diving into Your Soul: Lessons from “Queer Eye”

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"Queer Eye" has a fresh, therapeutic twist: Installment after installment, it sends the repeated messages: Take care of yourself. Be kind to yourself. You’re beautiful. You’re good. We love you. Love yourself. Or, in the words of Van Ness: Yass, queen!

The Surprising Mental Health Benefits of Volunteering

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A program offers psychotherapy in exchange for voluntary service in the community. But the act of volunteering itself can have mental health benefits of its own.

Giving Caregivers a Platform: Meagan, Mother of Matt

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A mom describes her son's descent into the harms of psychiatry—and his way out. "It was really difficult to watch Matt decline. He had given up hope that he could get well."

Teen Arts Exhibition: Beyond Labels And Meds: What It Feels Like To Be Me

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28 teen artists share the power of their creativity in this collection of profoundly moving, courageous, and beautiful artwork.
Photo depicting a gavel, scales, and a human skull all on a wooden table against a red background

In the Courts, a Partial Win for Informed Consent and ECT Justice

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Price Hancock views the Thelen verdict as a partial win. "The jury agreed that the manufacturer 'failed to warn.’ That's huge. It's a step in the right direction."

Mad Pride Rises in Mexico

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The Mad Pride movement continues to spread around the world, with a first-ever march in Mexico City.
Members of Rethinking Psychiatry at the 2014 symposium with James Gordon, M.D., who delivered a keynote talk on journeying out of depression.

Grassroots Activism: Rethinking Psychiatry Builds A Community

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In the United States and abroad, a growing number of groups have devoted their mission and mindset to rethinking psychiatry, doing their best to...

Love is Dialogical: The Open Dialogue UK International Conference and Training

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In the past five years, there has been a dramatic explosion of interest in the Open Dialogue Therapy practiced in Tornio, Finland. It is a humanistic “treatment” that has produced five-year outcomes for psychotic patients that are, by far, the best in the developed world, and there are now groups in the United States, Europe and beyond that are seeking to “import” this care. However, the challenges for doing so are many and, last month, Open Dialogue UK - on the occasion of the first-ever fully recognized Open Dialogue training outside of Tornio - organized a conference in London to hold an open dialogue about Open Dialogue.

Screening for Perinatal Depression: An Effective Intervention, or One That Does More Harm Than Good?

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Why does the U.S. describe perinatal screening as providing a proven benefit, while the task forces in the U.K. and Canada see no evidence of such benefit?