MIA Today

As a psychiatric survivor, I was stunned to see a medical professional describe a dystopian nightmare as a vision of progress for psychiatric medicine.

From The New York Times: Experts say some facilities are using a schizophrenia loophole to continue sedating dementia patients, and the impact has been more severe for Black residents.

My intent with this blog is to compare some lessons learned from my recent medical crisis response to a similar peer-run respite response.

From The New Yorker: The Christian organization Teen Challenge, made up of more than a thousand centers, claims to reform troubled teens. But is its discipline more like abuse?

From The Detroit News: This is ground made hallow by the tremendous torment that was endured there. To have the suffering and misery mocked up for the amusement of Halloween thrill-seekers is disrespectful.

“Eating disorder recovery is about rejecting oppressive values.” Therapist Shira Collings discusses person-centered approaches to dealing with food-related challenges in youth.

From The Daily Mail: "Our research shows that there is no effective monitoring or regulation of ECT in England," said Professor John Read, who led the study.

A rapid withdrawal can be very dangerous and even deadly. You do not solve the problem by firing those who point this out, but that happened to me.

From The Atlantic: "I became an advocate not because I wanted to but because I had to, to survive," said Angel Love Miles. "I was not very outspoken at all. But if you’re trying to get home and the bus keeps passing you up because you’re in a wheelchair, you have to scream out."

MIA interviews psychiatrist and anthropologist Helena Hansen about bringing structural competency to psychiatry while rebuilding communities.

The harm that medical-model practitioners inflicted on me had to be managed and overcome. This delayed my progress resolving my childhood traumas.

From Susan Rosenthal, MD: It’s a huge challenge to trap a highly social species in such a dehumanizing social arrangement.

From MindSite News: The appointment of Pierfranco Trincas as director of the Barcola mental health center in Trieste, Italy, has set alarm bells ringing among supporters of this unique system of community mental health.

Reviews of four recent books reflecting various perspectives on the mental health system, including explorations of the DSM and Open Dialogue.

From France 24: "Human beings are born with a search for meaning that can’t be suppressed by an injection of antipsychotic drugs or a few anti-depressants," said one Parisian child psychiatrist.

From NSUN: Are there still some people who are not 'aware' of 'mental health'? Yes, of course. Maybe World Mental Health Day is for them, but somehow, I’m not so sure.

Our approach is to openly care about our clients and empower them as much as possible. It's vital that clients know we care about their survival.

Psychiatric epidemiologist Jennifer Barkin talks about her research on the traumatizing effects of extreme weather events on youth and how caregivers can help them build resilience.

From WBUR: "There is no formal statement of what the state schools and...hospitals were or why they came to be, what they were, how they closed," said Alex Green, who is seeking to establish a commission to reckon with the way patients were treated and the abuses they endured.

From Queensland Law Society: The Australian man is seeking damages for personal injury caused by the clinician’s "alleged negligence, breach of contract, battery and misleading or deceptive conduct" over the course of his treatment.

From WHYY: "When you see it for the first time, it stuns you, but that’s the way these people were regarded...There’s no names there. Just these little blocks with numbers," said Dennis O'Connell, whose grandmother is buried there.

“Patients expressed feeling unaccepted by society or uncomfortable in their own skin… A few indicated that they would rather be dead than have tardive dyskinesia.”

From MindKind Mom: We have to undo the encoding of abusive or poor-quality relationships we suffered as kids in order to heal our mental - and often physical - illnesses.

From Politico: "California’s conservatorship system is failing people from every walk of life...it’s painfully clear that we can and should do better," said the bill's sponsor, Assemblymember Evan Low.

A new documentary about gay activists' defeat of the APA ends with a disclaimer that ECT is "effective" for severe depression. Bruce Levine spoke with the filmmakers.