MIA Today

Headlines of Today's Posts

Making Mental Health an Ongoing Priority:  A Patch Adams Approach

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My brother’s sudden death and Mental Health Awareness Month spurred me to spend May making small, very personal efforts to both honor his memory and move the mental health conversation forward.
Illustration of dna strand unraveling, glowing bright blue against dark blue background

Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 2: Are Psychiatric Disorders Mainly Genetic or Environmental? (Part One)

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Textbooks portray ADHD and schizophrenia as genetic disorders, despite the much stronger evidence for environmental factors.
Illustration depicting a doctor and nurse standing aloof or angrily pointing at an older female patient sitting down

About Not Listening to People

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Psychiatry exists in a perpetual state of distrust and disbelief of everything their patients say, including when patients report harmful effects of their drugs.
A collage depicting women using cell phones and hallucinogenic mushrooms, against a psychedelic purple background

Fireside Project: Peer Support for Psychedelic Experiences

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A new nonprofit support line takes a harm-reduction approach and helps people process their psychedelic experiences.
A syringe and a bottle labeled ketamine.

Much of U.S. Healthcare Is Broken: How to Fix It (Chapter 2, Part 7)

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On antidepressants versus CBT, the buzz around ketamine, and drugs for postpartum depression.

Experts Call for Reversing Rate of Antidepressant Prescribing in UK

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From The Guardian: An open letter to the government from experts and politicians says rising antidepressant usage "is a clear example of over-medicalisation."

Torture at Lake Alice “Hospital”, New Zealand

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Lake Alice was a psychiatric institution in New Zealand connected with hundreds of reported abuses, especially of children. A new Royal Commission evidence-gathering hearing is set for this year.
woman wearing surgical mask on train

Is It Time to Rethink Mental Illness in Light of the Pandemic?

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Now that so many are experiencing distress because of the coronavirus, can we not appreciate that many who have been labeled mentally ill have long experienced these kinds of hardships?
Woman cover face using paper with emotions sketch, like hiding mask. Private life identity concept. Split inner personalities. Multipolar mental health disorder. Mood change, expressions and reactions

Animal Theory of Emotion: Emotion Is Not a Disorder

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Too many people see themselves as having mental disorders when what they have is emotion, and in some cases, a great deal of it.
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.

Stop Using Antidepressants Except for “the Most Severe Depression,” Experts Say

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Experts advocate limiting antidepressant use to only the most severe cases of depression, emphasizing the need for social and psychological interventions.

An American History of Drugs and Addiction, Part Two: Immigrating to a Temperance Culture

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As Prohibition was taking hold on the East Coast in response to European immigrants, equal efforts for Prohibition were occurring on the West Coast, fueled by racist caricatures of Chinese immigrants.

The Invisible Memories That Shape Our Lives

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From PsychAlive/Lisa Firestone, PhD: Implicit memories are unconscious, bodily memories that, when triggered in the present, do not seem like they are coming from the past.

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.
A wooden mousetrap against a red background. Pills are the bait.

Ten Years Later: Still Shooting the Odds

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Unfortunately, the problems that sometimes occur when people try to stop an SSRI antidepressant are still severe and long-lasting.

CT Sen. Chris Murphy Calls for Restrictions of Restraint and Seclusion in U.S. Schools

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From CT Insider: "It's hard to believe, but there are thousands of kids who are being put in solitary confinement or having their hands bound as punishment for misbehavior at school," said Murphy.

How Doctors Buy Their Way Out of Trouble

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From Reuters: Medical practitioners paid $26.8 billion over the past decade to settle federal allegations including fraud, bribery and patient harm, then continued to practice medicine without restrictions.

Southcentral Wildfire Study: Wildfires Ignite Mental Health Concerns

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From The Revelator: The extended period of multiple stressors caused by wildfires show that we need to prepare more than just physically for the effects of climate change.
3D illustration of a skeletal robot hand emerging from a laptop computer screen, against a background of purple and blue 80s style lasers.

New App Aims to Predict Whether People with Psychosis Are Worth Hiring

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“Unfortunately, the ethical considerations of incorporating these tools are rarely acknowledged in published prediction articles,” the researchers write.

The Mirror Repeats: The Art of Phoebe Sparrow Wagner

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It is uncomfortably difficult to look at Phoebe Sparrow Wagner’s art. That much is intentional. She shakes up the viewer’s sense of wellbeing and security so that they can better identify with the plight of the mental patient.

Thomas Insel and the Future of the Mental Health System

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Insel says he has the answer—the same emphasis on neuroscience and genetics, which he admits led to no improvements under his leadership at NIMH.
community hearing voices

Hearing Voices: Let the Community Lead

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A collective knowledge of lived experience is a straightforward answer for improving millions of lives, but it has become clear that it will take an organized community of voice-hearers and their allies to take back credibility and authorship on the narrative of our own lives.
A woman's head is silhouetted with the sunset over the water

Beyond Psychiatry: A Trauma-Centric View of Mental Health

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Internal family systems therapy is a non-pathologizing method of working toward healing from trauma, a journey of returning to wholeness by reconnecting with ourselves.

Youth Antidepressant Use Associated With Increased Suicide and Self-Harm

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National data on rates of youth antidepressant prescription, suicide, and self-harm in Australia sparks public health debate about drug safety.

Your Brain Secretly Works With Other Brains

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From Mindful: Part of being a social species is that the people around us influence our body budgets and rewire our brain. Little by little, our brains tune themselves as we interact with others.