LGBTQIA+ Peer Respites: The Personal Is Political
Peer respites have great value. Affinity peer respites—such as an LGBTQIA+ peer respite—may have even more.
Services Needed for People Withdrawing From Antidepressants
From Psychology Today/John Read, PhD: A new study documents the dissatisfaction of 1,200 patients with their doctor's knowledge and expertise regarding antidepressant withdrawal.
The Delusions of Western Medicine
From Terry Baranski/Healing the Self: Western Medicine is firmly entrenched in three fundamental ideologies when it comes to chronic mental and physical pathology: A disease-based perspective, symptom-focused treatment, and mind/body separation.
Racial Justice and Lived Experience in Mental Health Advocacy: An Interview with Pata Suyemoto
MIA's Julia Lejeune interviews scholar, activist, and educator Pata Suyemoto about lived experience activism and racial justice in the mental health field.
Emotional Crisis Response: The Peer-Run Respite/Soteria House Approach Compared to the Conventional Approach
The peer respite/Soteria house model responds to emotional crisis with compassion and curiosity, rather than pathologizing.
Alarming Overprescription Patterns for Older Adults on Antidepressants
New study finds polypharmacy for 73% of older adults on antidepressants, with 56% at risk of harmful drug interactions.
Trauma Can Turn the World Into a Gathering of Aliens
From CPTSD Foundation: If I were to fit into one ‘label,’ then it would definitely be that of complex trauma, as ‘complex’ is my middle name, I have been told.
Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 7: Psychosis (Part Two)
Peter Gøtzsche reviews the evidence that psychosis pills substantially increase mortality.
Colonial Psychology: The Psychology We All Recognize
From Psychology Today: Psychology is dominated by a worldview most of the world does not have. Its premises are considered myths from the standpoint of Indigenous psychology.
From Peer Support to Psychedelics: Psychiatry’s Co-Optation & De-Radicalization
To strip psychedelic use down to its chemicals is to de-radicalize its communal and anti-authoritarian roots. Given psychiatry’s history of treatment outcome failure and its ethically compromising financial relationships with Big Pharma, is it really a good idea to make psychiatry the societal authority in charge of psychedelic use?
Elon Musk’s First Bid to Test Brain Chips in Humans Rejected by FDA, Citing...
From Reuters: Musk said his company Neuralink, which is one of over a dozen companies developing brain implants, will make the paralyzed walk, the blind see and eventually turn people into cyborgs.
Global Survey Leads to New Recommendations for Deprescribing Psychiatric Drugs
Growing rates of long-term psychiatric drug prescriptions and documented issues with withdrawal demonstrate a need for safe deprescribing practices.
Mad Poetry Slam!
Poets with lived experience with mental distress are invited to perform their poetry live at MIA's Mad Poetry Slam on Zoom on May 7th, 12PM EST.
Doctor, Do I Still Need This Medication? An Introduction to Deprescribing
Dr. Emily G. McDonald of the Canadian Deprescribing Network gives a grand rounds presentation on polypharmacy, medication overload and deprescribing.
In Florida, Showing Mental Health Struggles Could Get a Child Detained
From The Washington Post: Under the Baker Act, kindergarteners can be forcibly committed to psych centers for exams. Advocates say the process is traumatic without being helpful.
Acute Religious Experiences: Madness, Psychosis, and Religious Studies
It is the capacity of mad studies to advance the idea that mad is not necessarily bad. Acute Religious Experiences are always phenomenally mad, but not necessarily pathological.
Tolstoy’s Hermit: Jay Schulkin
Jay Schulkin, a neuroscientist and philosopher of prodigious curiosity and energy, has died at age 70 of hepatic cancer.
What We Know About Irvo Otieno and the 10 People Charged in His Death
From CNN: Civil rights attorney Ben Crump said the video is a "commentary on how inhumane law enforcement officials treat people who are having a mental health crisis as criminals rather than treating them as people who are in need of help."
Virginia Deputies Charged With Murder in Man’s Death at Mental Hospital
From AP: Family and attorneys say Irvo Otieno, 28, was subjected to brutal treatment at a local jail and then at the state hospital where he died during the admission process.
Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 7: Psychosis (Part One)
Psychosis pills were hailed as a great advance, but this was because they kept the patients docile and quiet, which was very popular with the staff in psychiatric wards.
Mad/Cripistemologies of Pandemic Parenting: Insights for Our “Post-COVID-19” Present
Respondents described the grief and rage associated with being socially isolated while healing from childbirth and caring for a newborn, in some cases, entirely on their own.
Compassion and Understanding Versus Drugs and Disease: Where Does Humanistic Psychology Stand Now?
Authors with lived experience of extreme states present a humanistic contrast to psychiatry.
Martin Harrow: The Galileo of Modern Psychiatry (1933 – 2023)
Harrow's research over the years told of how long-term antipsychotic use is associated with worse outcomes, even after controlling for psychosis severity.
Activist Judy Heumann Led a Reimagining of What It Means to be Disabled
From NPR: Heumann was a major American civil rights hero who was working to spread knowledge of disability civil rights to the moment she died earlier this month at age 75.
25 Years Later: Honoring a Stress Breakdown
This was no illness. And I knew my biochemistry was not the primary issue. I chose to call it a severe stress breakdown.
