We’ve Got the Mental Health Crisis All Wrong
From OK Doomer: Almost everything in our culture attempts to convince us that mental health is a personal responsibility, a performance we owe to society, not the result of a society where we take care of each other.
Much of U.S. Healthcare Is Broken: How to Fix It (Chapter 1, Part 2)
Les Ruthven addresses off-label prescribing as well as physicians’ anti-science pushback against the use of well-conducted clinical trials.
A School Promised Not to Send Kids to the ER for Misbehavior – But...
From AP News: Schools across the country are sending children to the ER for psych evaluations in response to behaviors prompted by bullying or frustration over assignments.
Stop Using Antidepressants Except for “the Most Severe Depression,” Experts Say
Experts advocate limiting antidepressant use to only the most severe cases of depression, emphasizing the need for social and psychological interventions.
Systemic Insanity
Is the answer to numb ourselves and learn to deal with lives that we don't feel good about? Shouldn't the solution be to heal and live lives that don't make us stressed, unhappy, and sick?
Beyond Pills: UK Parliament Must Support Social and Psychological Services Instead
Davies calls on the UK Parliament to support the Beyond Pills initiative, and follow the evidence to put social and psychological help first.
Antidepressants and the Tangle of Treatment-Related Suicidality
From Psychiatry at the Margins: What can be said with quite some certainty, says clinical psychologist Martin Plöderl, is that antidepressants overall do not decrease suicidal behavior.
Mental Disorder Has Roots in Trauma and Inequality, Not Biology
The scientific evidence is of social/psychological, not biological, causation: negative environmental conditions, not disease.
Experts Call for Reversing Rate of Antidepressant Prescribing in UK
From The Guardian: An open letter to the government from experts and politicians says rising antidepressant usage "is a clear example of over-medicalisation."
You Have the Legal Right to Informed Consent
My doctor didn’t tell me about any side effects, and I didn’t ask. I assumed that if there were any risks with taking Paxil, he would tell me.
Psych Patient Held Against Will Discharged After FOX31 News Inquiry
From FOX31 Denver KDVR: “I suspect they’re extending his stay here so they can keep on using his insurance until it expires at the end of the month,” said the man's cousin, who contacted Fox 31.
After MIA Calls for Retraction of STAR*D Article, Study Authors Double Down on the...
In their letter to the editor, Rush et al. have doubled-down on the fraud they committed in their 2006 summary report of STAR*D outcomes.
A Remarkable Feat: A Psychiatric Patient Changed the Law on Restraints
The case of Silas Dam obliged the Danish government to increase rights for psychiatric patients subjected to belt restraints.
ADHD Drugs Linked to Cardiovascular Disease
Service users taking drugs to treat ADHD may be at increased risk for hypertension and arterial disease
Much of U.S. Healthcare Is Broken: How to Fix It (Chapter 1, Part 1)
On the difference between basing a medical system on clinical belief versus one based on scientific evidence.
It’s OK to Never ‘Get Over’ Your Grief
From The New York Times: Traditional mourning practices were designed to preserve a place for the dead among the living, to help mourners carry the weight of their grief not by getting over it but by maintaining their relationship with the deceased.
A Mindbody Approach to Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal
From gustav f./unlearnwithdrawal.substack.com: What we call ‘protracted withdrawal’ is not technically withdrawal; it’s more like withdrawal memories that the brain has learned to play back over and over again.
Decolonizing Psychiatry in Pakistan: A Reckoning with our Colonial Past and a Call for...
Psychiatrist Yousaf Raza details the problems with psychiatric health care in Pakistan and shows how to find a way forward.
Why a Sufi Approach to Healing ‘Mental Illness’ Is So Powerful
From Psyche: In Sufi shrines, rituals of attunement offer sufferers a path beyond the fear and isolation of their mental distress.
The Lie That Antidepressants Protect Against Suicide Is Deadly
Antidepressants do not protect against suicide. According to placebo-controlled trials, they double the risk of suicide.
Why the DSM Is Mostly False | Nassir Ghaemi, MD
From Psychiatry Letter: The DSM is a social construction, based on “pragmatism” much more so than science, and as such should only be used administratively at present.
Much of U.S. Healthcare Is Broken: How to Fix It (Preface)
Medical practitioners base their practice on clinical experience, rather than the sound published health research, which they distrust.
Understanding the Medical Industry to Protect Yourself
From The Real Truth About Health: Mary J. Ruwart, PhD, Robert Whitaker, and John Abramson, MD delve into institutional corruption, misinformation, the shift from prevention to treatment, and the urgent need for healthcare reform.
On Systemic Personal Boundary Violations, Low Self-Esteem, and Superiority Complex
From Gary Sharpe, PhD: Just like at the individual level, where folks with low self-esteem and superiority complex tend to seek each other out in toxic relationships, so too do the down-trodden people and the "elites" negatively feed off of each other at the group level.
Our Millions Year-Old Embodied Wisdom: Kinship and the Indigenous Worldview
From Kindred Media: The dominant worldview considers the cosmos fragmented, amoral and disenchanted and has led to the disruption of ecological systems, including child development, worldwide.
