MIA Today

MIA interviews the anthropologist Ursula Read about her research on mental illness, human rights, and social exclusion in Ghana.

A new article in Lancet Psychiatry debunks past studies claiming that those on low doses of antipsychotics are more likely to relapse.

Spriestersbach was imprisoned in a psychiatric hospital for almost three years. The more he told the doctors that he was not Thomas Castleberry, the more they believed that he was psychotic.

Every day, psychiatrists in Australia’s mental health system write reports denying the sanity of women who are victims of sexual assault, rape, or domestic violence. I know: I was one of them.

A study of over 1.5 million people in Europe and the US links the development of less adaptive personalities with childhood lead exposure.

In May 2021, Cochrane published a network meta-analysis of depression pills for children. The abstract is misleading and reads like drug company marketing.

When a person is in hell, surrounded by enemies, without a protector or strong force on their side of any kind, that person needs to become their own powerful spokesperson.

Before my nightmare with psychiatric medication began, my life was full and happy. But since being prescribed 12 different psychiatric drugs in one year, I have become bedridden, ill and jobless.

I am not sure what was worse: being abused growing up while my community documented—then ignored—my torment, or being attacked for going public with my story.

The International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry petitions the American Psychological Association to condemn forced treatment as a human rights violation

Eight years after beginning ‘treatment’ for an ‘eating disorder’, I was eating worse than ever. Yet three years after quitting that ‘treatment’, food is a pleasure, not a problem.

I have found that trauma is frequently at the root of many eventual psychological and medical issues. Medications often only worsen the disconnection caused by trauma.

In an evidence-based healthcare system, we should not use interventions that do more harm than good, but that's just what psychiatry does.

Practitioners and researchers have increasingly started to feel that the maintenance of the status quo has left the addiction field in a state of conflict and fluctuation.

My first encounter with mental illness was when I was 17. My friend was hospitalised in the psychiatric unit of the local general hospital and diagnosed with hypomania.

I love being a psych nurse practitioner, and I never want to feel that my only role is pushing pills. The private practice I started is my effort to move away from this dysfunctional system.

With all eyes on Britney, we must unmask the role of psychiatrists in court hearings like hers, where basically what the shrink says, goes— and the person’s freedom and human rights are stripped away.

Ayurdhi Dhar interviews Michael Ungar about how complex systems make us vulnerable and how resilience emerges in context-specific ways.

Peter Gøtzsche describes trying to join the psychiatric establishment to bring attention to critical issues from the inside.

There are currently ten classes of prescription medications that impair brain function, including both psychiatric and non-psychiatric drugs. A number of non-drug “treatments” do the same.

After finding a cop at my door, I learned it wasn’t safe to talk about my feelings of wanting to die. As a result, I spent the better part of the next decade not telling anyone when I was suicidal.

Paula Caplan, known for her fierce criticism of psychiatry and its diagnostic manual, died Wednesday at age 74.

Researchers argue for a shift away from a focus on antipsychotic adherence toward understanding service users’ diverse patterns of use.

Peter Gøtzsche explains how psychiatry has reacted when confronted with evidence and stories of lived experience, and how this has corrupted journalism.

The CHR-P model focuses on “attenuated psychosis” to predict “transition” to schizophrenia and ignores other factors. But new research shows that the model is a poor predictor.