MIA Today

From National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery: NCMHR calls for using the increased mental health funding to expand voluntary, trauma-informed, community-based care.

After a failed suicide attempt following my son's death, New York State incarcerated me in a mental institution for 21 days. The environment was degrading, stultifying, and downright depressing.

From Medium: Rather than immediately endorsing President Trump’s executive order, we need to examine our existing relationships with law enforcement

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

From Aeon: Until the 20th century, little was known about mental illness. Judging whether a person was deranged – seriously mentally ill and irrational – was seen as a matter for common knowledge.

From Truthout Holding people in congregate environments dramatically increases risk of coronavirus-related illness up to and including death.

Researchers admit their suicide risk assessments work only about as well as random guessing, and they can lead to harm. We can instead focus on finding new ways to form connections that might help tether someone to this world.

From Psyche: Often overlooked are the ways in which social norms, cultural beliefs and communal attitudes contribute to mental illness.

Neglect for personal autonomy is a pervasive attitude in the mental health system. No human being should be stripped of their dignity and autonomy, much less a vulnerable 74-year-old woman.

Early in my social work career, I truly believed that medication and forced confinement helped heal “mental illness.” Then an abrupt awakening completely altered my worldview.

From The BBC: The study's joint author, Prof Irving Kirsch, said "The failure to find any meaningful benefits in long-term benefits compared to placebo groups are particularly distressing."

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?

From Daniel Kriegman: Releasees who had been identified as having a mental illness but lacked a history of substance abuse had the lowest rate of recidivism.

Mental health workers responding to emergency calls and crises results in coercion, labelling and othering, paternalism, force, and, yes, even violence, all under the guise of “for your own good.”

From Israel Hayom: Just as they do not know how the treatment mechanism works, they also do not know how to predict damages or prevent them.

Study finds an apparent connection between SSRIs, the most commonly prescribed type of antidepressant, and increased risk of violent crime.

From The New York Times: Kenneth T. Kucinelli of the Department of Homeland Security compared Mayor Bowser's requests with the mentally ill wanting less medication.

Once an appropriate statistical method was used, the study findings were “no longer valid,” according to the editors of JAMA and JAMA Psychiatry.

Are those diagnosed with “mental illness” more dangerous than other people? Or have we evolved to sense danger from anything that we believe to be different or "strange"?

Therapists seem to have a reference book where they go to find phrases that sound really helpful but are actually gaslighting and self-serving.

From CNN: Chris Cillizza explains how Trump has a pattern of using mental health and mental illness to mock and denigrate his enemies

Suicides in Black communities can be understood to be caused by an institutionalized inequality that requires Black folks to negotiate their quality of life with life itself.

From Scientific American: As physicians, we will not be complicit in the ongoing manipulation of medical expertise to erase government-sanctioned violence.

If you are a mental health worker or advocate, there's a way to help dismantle police brutality and systemic racism in the U.S.

From Vogue: For us to be able to do this work constantly, we have to take care of ourselves, and that is so hinged on us having access and tools