MIA Today

Researchers studied whether antipsychotics could prevent transition to full psychosis and found that the drugs worsened outcomes.

From Susan Rosenthal: It doesn’t help to replace one form of oppression with another. Like the police, the ‘mental health industry’ is built on discrimination.

In its coverage of the impact of COVID on psychiatric hospitals, the media missed opportunities to challenge stereotypes and interrogate problems with current carceral approaches to mental health treatment.

Myths around reframing, having to love yourself before someone else can love you, and being triggered are all addressed in this blog.

The response to the pandemic promises a vast expansion of the market for therapists, but such claims carry great potential for harm, adding to the burdens of people with upsetting but understandable, deeply human feelings.

From CBC: Wang says she was experiencing mental distress and her boyfriend called the RCMP. The officer did not provide assistance.

From The New York Times: Two major study retractions in one month have left researchers wondering if the peer review process is broken.

A radical caucus within the American Psychiatric Association tried to combat systemic racism in the 1960s. So why is the APA still behind the times?

From NPR: Dr Rhea Boyd says racism's toll threads through the psyche, manifesting in many ways, and shaping the youngest of brains.

Hospitalized for "grandiose delusions," I began to wonder: Was my dis-orientation really just a sickness? Or in "treating" it, was I missing a powerful re-orientation toward healing old wounds?

From The University of East London: They hope that by this time next year, the UK will be the first country to finally put an end to this well-intentioned but calamitous error.

A new study published in JAMA Psychiatry connects antipsychotics with damage to the brain in multiple areas.

An interview with Angela Peacock who talks of her experiences of being prescribed benzodiazepines, her journey off multiple medications, her continuing work in veterans advocacy and her thoughts about the film Medicating Normal which will be screened on World Benzodiazepine Awareness Day, July 11.

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

The psychiatric system takes away all choices and freedom and calls the resulting state "mental illness." Psychiatry justifies alienation rather than repairing it.

From The Lown Institute: Because of bias that exists in many clinical algorithms, doctors are unintentionally giving people of color worse treatment.

From Psychiatric Times: Dr. Aftab and Dr. Pies revisit various criticisms of psychiatry, and discuss the profession’s relationship with its critics.

From Psychiatric Times: In this interview, Dr. Aftab discusses how psychiatric disorders can be viewed as an "imperfect community."

From Undark: Some of the most commonly prescribed medications can have strong and sometimes dangerous interactions with some experimental COVID-19 therapies.

From Deinstitutionalisation: Public authorities struggle to protect the well-being of people in need of care and support those living in residential institutions.

The Writer has outlined a significant work through my hands, dictated by the voice of someone who lived at some point a long time ago, such as London in 1682 A.D.

From National Geographic: Time spent outdoors has been linked with improved attention spans, better memory, and enhanced executive function.

From The Telegraph: Classic signs of teen depression can be tricky to spot now that pyjamas are acceptable daywear and many of our routines have vanished.

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.