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Podcast with Robert Whitaker on the Media

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From Mad in Norway podcast: Birgitte Valla from Mad in Norway interviews Robert Whitaker on the media in psychiatrist. English discussion begins at 4...
Photo of a pig

Pigs in the Hospital: The Collapse of Venezuela’s Mental Health System

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The directors of the hospital, considering the empty spaces provided by its lack of services, decided to allow “milicianos” to move in, along with their pigs.
Closeup on gloved hands held up as if asking for help

Psychiatry, Violence, and the State: California’s Systematic Failure of Its Unhoused Population

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California has decided to systematically restrain, incarcerate, forcibly strip, and drug its now sizable unhoused population.
Illustration: man trapped in a bottle of pills tries to scream for help

Withdrawing From Psychiatric Drugs: How to Produce Smaller Doses Than Those the Drug Companies...

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Peter Gøtzsche: To reduce the risk of withdrawal symptoms, it is necessary to respect the form of the binding curve.

Don’t Give Symptom-Free People Alzheimer’s Drugs

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From The Hastings Center: It’s not even clear that patients who actually have Alzheimer’s disease should take these drugs, because they don’t improve symptoms.
A hand erases a chalk drawing of the world surrounded by stick figures

Over-stressing Stress: American Psychological Association Report Omits Oppression

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Despite noting financial problems, global conflict, and climate crisis, the report was on how individuals could work on their own stress.

What Can Psychedelic Science Teach About Psychosis?

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From Aeon: In the 1960s, psychedelic research was driven underground. Now it’s re-emerging – with lessons for the study of psychosis.
Illustration of man sitting on a red and white pill. He holds his head with pain symbols in the air above him.

Adding Antipsychotics Worsens Outcomes in Psychotic Depression

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Outcomes were worse for all, with young people on combination therapy twice as likely to experience rehospitalization or death by suicide than those on antidepressants alone.
United Nations logo in UN headquarters in Manhattan New York City

The New WHO and UN Guidance: Psychiatry Must Entirely Change

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According to the preeminent health and rights bodies in the world, the WHO and the UN, psychiatry has to change entirely.
Macro photo of thumbtacks holding strings in a network on a blue background

How the Psychosocial Approach Provides an Alternative to the Biomedical Model

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The biomedical model ignores the social context in which mental distress exists, despite a large body of evidence of that link.

Beyond Police and Psychiatrists: Chicago’s Plan to Transform Community Mental Health

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From Jacobin: The Treatment Not Trauma approach seeks to build a bottom-up human infrastructure for community care that seeks “mental health for all by involving all.”

Why Emotional Neglect and Depression Are Often Experienced Together

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From Dr. Jonice Webb: Children who receive the message that their emotions are not important, not relevant, or not welcome in their childhood home learn to wall off their feelings — both positive and negative.

The Making of a ‘Madness’ That Hides Our Monsters: An Interview with Audrey Clare...

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In this interview, Audrey Clare Farley reveals how our understanding of schizophrenia was built to avoid acknowledging sexual trauma, religious abuse, and racism.
Blue background, transparent pill bottle spills blue and white pills toward camera

Why Do Only Some People Experience Severe Antidepressant Withdrawal?

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Much of the vulnerability to antidepressant withdrawal may be related not to bipolar disorder, but a trait called “bipolarity.”
A sign in the desert reads "ROAD CLOSED"

Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 16: Is There Any Future for Psychiatry? (Part Six)

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In the final blog in Peter Gøtzsche's series, he presents his concluding thoughts and suggestions for the future of psychiatry.

After Antidepressants, a Loss of Sexuality

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From The New York Times: Some patients are speaking out about severe sexual problems that have endured long after they stopped taking SSRIs, leaving them unable to enjoy sex or sustain romantic relationships.

Injured, Not Broken: Why It’s So Hard to Know You Have CPTSD

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From Brickel & Associates, LLC: Because living in a triggered state of alarm is so familiar, many don’t realize trauma is the source of their feeling “not okay.”

The WHO and the United Nations: Let Freedom Ring for the Mad

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This is a call that challenges how psychiatry is practiced today and ultimately challenges its power in society.

I Secret Shopped #988 and Three Cop Cars Showed Up Outside My House

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Although it professes to divert calls away from carceral responses, #988 may actually be increasing involuntary interventions.

‘A Playground for Predators’: Diane Dimond on The Abuses of Guardianship

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Our guest today is Diane Dimond, a longtime, award-winning investigative journalist specializing in crime and justice issues. As a freelance journalist, syndicated columnist, and...
Blue background, transparent pill bottle, blue and white pills out of the top

The Challenge of Presenting Antidepressant Risks and Benefits

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Two goals are in direct conflict for doctors when it comes to antidepressant prescriptions: fully informed consent versus maximizing placebo value.

These Teens Got Therapy. Then They Got Worse.

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From The Atlantic: It feels like we should be able to just sit teens down and tell them how to be happier. But that doesn’t seem to work, and sometimes it even backfires.
Illustration: Man trapped in a bottle of pills tries to scream for help

Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 16: Is There Any Future for Psychiatry? (Part Five)

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Discussing how psychiatric drugs lead to a more chronic course for depression and psychosis.

A Secret War, Strange New Wounds, and Silence From the Pentagon

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From The New York Times: Many U.S. troops who fired vast numbers of artillery rounds against the Islamic State developed mysterious, life-shattering mental and physical problems that have been all but ignored by the military.

Only One of Five Key Xanax Trials Deemed Positive by F.D.A.

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The published literature is misleading, as the negative Xanax trials either went unpublished or were spun to appear positive.