MIA Reports

To strip psychedelic use down to its chemicals is to de-radicalize its communal and anti-authoritarian roots. Given psychiatry’s history of treatment outcome failure and its ethically compromising financial relationships with Big Pharma, is it really a good idea to make psychiatry the societal authority in charge of psychedelic use?

MIA's Micah Ingle interviews historian Camile Robcis about radical and liberatory forms of psychiatry and psychotherapy in postwar France.

Respondents described the grief and rage associated with being socially isolated while healing from childbirth and caring for a newborn, in some cases, entirely on their own.

Harrow's research over the years told of how long-term antipsychotic use is associated with worse outcomes, even after controlling for psychosis severity.

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?

Ayurdhi Dhar interviews Erick Turner about publication bias in antidepressant trials, compromised psychotherapeutic research, and a culture of journal worship.

At times I tend to feel invisible. Sometimes I don’t feel like I fit in with everyone else; I feel like an outsider.

Meet another talented teen behind the pieces in MIA's art exhibition. She writes: "This poem was written in my first year at a queer-positive school and is processing the new forms of guilt and shame I experienced and was exposed to."

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.

Adam joins us to discuss what we do and don’t know about the effects of antidepressants on babies and mothers and the importance of counselling in order to aid families in making important decisions about pharmaceutical drug use.

Meet another talented teen behind the pieces in MIA's art exhibition, who says: "I think art is underrated sometimes because of its seemingly uselessness, but I highly believe it can cure many minds."

This is the first of 4 spotlight interviews with some of the talented youth behind the pieces in MIA's art exhibition. HoJin states: "The original idea for my drawing started with the brain. The complexity of its sudden twists and curves fascinates me."

28 teen artists share the power of their creativity in this collection of profoundly moving, courageous, and beautiful artwork.

Ayurdhi Dhar interviews sociologist Owen Whooley about psychiatry's stubborn perseverance in the face of recent DSM embarrassments and the failures of the biomedical model.

How did that young Puerto Rican girl who very much disliked seeing a therapist when locked up in the juvenile system end up working in the mental health field as an adult?

Now I’m under attack, with threats of violence flung at me alongside threats of lawsuits. And all because I shared the large body of peer-reviewed research that contradicts the mainstream assumptions of psychiatry.

"Psychiatric practice is too often violating human rights, too often incapable of understanding the suffering of people, too often unable to provide help to people who need housing, work, money, respect, inclusion and instead are receiving psychotropic drugs, electroshock, physical restraint, isolation."

Founder and Executive Director Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu talks about the organization's work to support struggling students and end discrimination against them.

“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.”

Leading figures in psychiatry acknowledge that DSM psychiatric diagnoses and the chemical imbalance theory of mental illness are not scientifically valid, but are useful fictions that help people manage their emotions and comply with their medication treatments.

We interview Ole Andreas Underland, Director of the Hurdalsjøen Recovery Center in Norway which provides “medication-free” care for those who want such treatment or who want to taper from their psychiatric drugs. Ole Andreas explains why the success of this pioneering approach might threaten its future.

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

Continuing our 200th podcast, staff members join us to discuss reinvigorating MIA continuing education, science writing and blogs, personal stories, community commenting and family resources.

For our 200th podcast interview, we are joined by members of MIA staff to reflect on Mad in America's mission and work over the last decade.

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.