MIA Today

"Psychiatric practice is too often violating human rights, too often incapable of understanding the suffering of people, too often unable to provide help to people who need housing, work, money, respect, inclusion and instead are receiving psychotropic drugs, electroshock, physical restraint, isolation."

From The Pyschexperience: Dr. Nardi, creator of the New England Psychiatry Mentorship Institute (NEPMI), interviews Bob Whitaker about his 2010 book Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America.

Every day, people who have not broken any laws have their human rights suspended indefinitely, without a formal judicial hearing, all on unsworn hearsay evidence and with practically no right of appeal.

An interview with Hans Skott-Myhre on the seeds of post-capitalist subjectivity to be found in the writing of Franco Basaglia and R.D. Laing.

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.

Results from a national study show the transformational qualities of Hearing Voices groups, including their egalitarian structure and the genuine connection they foster.

Once you have managed to shift the relational dance for a while, you will start to get on with your new life; hopefully you have got far enough forward to establish a new “script”; a new family relational dance.

From The BPS: Our services, as they are currently configured, make the medicalisation of our suffering the core precondition for receiving any care or support at all. That is wrong and must change. Dr. James Davies

It’s time to change the conversation around guardianship. The question is not “When do we remove someone’s rights?” but “How can we best support them?”

A national study showed that ADHD drug abuse among U.S. high and middle school students has been rising for the past 20 years.

From Stuff: Officials are interpreting the growing number of pills dispensed over the past decade as a sign more people are getting "support."

From CNN: New research in JAMA Network Open found only a quarter of users said they'd be very likely turn to 988 in the future for themselves or a loved one.

Psychiatry exists in a perpetual state of distrust and disbelief of everything their patients say, including when patients report harmful effects of their drugs.

From PsychCentral: Often well-meaning family members are trying to 'help' by having their loved one force-treated, but they end up traumatizing and permanently damaging them instead.

From Radio Free Sunroot: Kollibri terre Sonnenblume and psychologist Bruce Levine discuss some of the myths surrounding the mental health industry.

From Truthout: There is a battle currently raging to convince the few states without involuntary outpatient commitment laws to give in.

We interview Ole Andreas Underland, Director of the Hurdalsjøen Recovery Center in Norway which provides “medication-free” care for those who want such treatment or who want to taper from their psychiatric drugs. Ole Andreas explains why the success of this pioneering approach might threaten its future.

From COE Commissioner for Human Rights: While the additional strain generated by the pandemic is new, the mental health situation and lack of services has been a neglected human rights crisis in Europe for a long time.

From Mental Hellth: When seemingly everyone has a DSM disorder, how do we find out what's actually going on?

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.

From SentinelSource.com: Looking for alternatives to arrest, police departments in Brattleboro and elsewhere are using their 24/7 presence and regular contact with drug users to refer them to treatment and other resources.

A new study finds that newborn babies experience antidepressant withdrawal after birth if their mothers take SSRIs when pregnant.

MIA’s Justin Karter interviews psychiatrist Awais Aftab about how “conceptual competence” uses philosophy to transform psychiatry.

We still try to shove every kind of emotion into a neatly organized box, give it a label, maybe even an accompanying medicine to make it neat and predictable.

Reviews of five recent books reflecting various perspectives on the mental health system.