We Have Overwhelmingly Lost Touch With the Human Aspect of Medicine
From KevinMD: We are nurturing an environment of emotional phobia, where people can no longer identify and frankly fear their own emotions and the emotions of others.
The Functions of the Mental Health System Under Capitalism
The mental health system is a system of care and control, legitimated by the concept of mental illness, and playing an important role in capitalist and Neoliberal societies.
Breaking Off My Chemical Romance: Reassessing Antidepressants
From The Nation: Some medical professionals are concluding what until recently felt too heretical to say out loud: Antidepressants may often cause more harm than good.
Pharma Payments to Psychiatrists: The Million Dollar Club
The Institute for Scientific Freedom has published an article by Whitaker and Gotzsche on industry payments to academic psychiatrists, a version of a 2021 MIA Report, Anatomy of an Industry.
Thomas Jobe: The Legacy of Research He Leaves Behind
Thomas Jobe was a collaborator in a longitudinal study that upended conventional thinking about antipsychotics. He died March 16.
The Power of Addiction and the Addiction to Power | Gabor Maté, MD
From TEDx Talks: Which addiction is greater—an individual drug addiction, or the addiction to oil, to consumerism, to acquisition and power over others? Which causes the greater harm?
Former NIMH Director’s New Book: Why, With More Treatment, Have Suicides and Mental Distress...
Psychiatry’s worsening outcomes despite increased treatment should provoke the consideration that a paradigm shift is necessary.
Antipsychotics Often Prescribed Without Informed Consent
New research reveals that patients are often not given fully informed consent before being prescribed antipsychotics.
Engaging “Madness”: A Guide for Significant Others and Families
Using personal stories from my own family, my new booklet Engaging 'Madness' paints a clear picture of what an alternative healing journey outside the biomedical paradigm can look like.
Rhythm Regulates the Brain: The Impact of Music (& More) on Mental Health
From Don't Try This Alone: "Patterned, repetitive, rhythmic somatosensory activity… elicits a sensation of safety" and is key in bringing down the high stress levels of traumatized people, says Dr. Bruce Perry.
Mad in Sweden
Lasse Mattila, founder of Mad in Sweden: "You only ask the question, ‘What’s wrong with you? What symptoms do you have?’ But you don’t ask: ‘What happened to you? What tragedies did you have?’”
Trans-Generational Dynamics and Mental Illness: A Family Constellation
Family constellations are a fascinating, cutting-edge tool for exploring issues within families, groups, and individuals and can lead to a high degree of healing in a short amount of time.
Why Do We Lock People Up?
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.
Parenting Changed My Perspective on “ADHD”
My experience of raising a son who was bright and creative but didn’t fit the mold helped me to approach my restless, impulsive students more compassionately and creatively.
Making Therapy Harder: When Corporate Forces Interfere with Therapy
From PsiAN (Psychotherapy Action Network): The psychotherapy profession must take a firm stand against interference with therapy wherever possible, whether from agency expectations, insurance companies, or certain legal & governmental policies.
Why Do People Self-Harm, and How Can We Stop It?
The psychiatric treatments I underwent did nothing to help me come to terms with my troubled past. Self-harm did not serve me well either. We must re-learn what to expect from ourselves.
The ENIGMA-MDD Project: Searching for the Neuropathology of “Major Depressive Disorder”
There's an old saying in research: "garbage in; garbage out". Research based on invalid concepts or false assumptions will produce invalid conclusions.
Traumatic Narcissism: Relational Systems of Subjugation
From NeuroAffective Relational Model (NARM) Training Institute: Therapist and author Daniel Shaw explores controlling relationships—from cults to couples to families, to other situations involving authority and power, like the therapy relationship.
Fifty-Eight Years Beyond the Community Mental Health Act, 1963
Do not focus on "getting more beds" or "providing better treatment." Focus on homes with windows and giant gardens where survivors can be coached to rebel and dance with wild abandon.
Mad in Canada
Mad in Canada aims to bridge the “knowledge gap” between practice and science, pushing patient care further up the list of priorities.
Antipsychotics Worsen Cognitive Functioning in First-Episode Psychosis
Withholding antipsychotics may be beneficial for memory, the researchers write.
Before the Fall: Evidence for a Golden Age, the ‘Ego Explosion’ & the Injured...
From Waking Times/Steve Taylor: Spirituality and Psychology: Rather than a progression, the last 6,000 years of war, oppression, misery and hardship are the result of a painful degeneration from an earlier, healthier state.
Bodily Autonomy: Busting 7 Myths That Undermine Individual Rights & Freedoms
From United Nations Population Fund: The 2021 State of World Population report, titled My Body is My Own, marks the first time a United Nations report focuses on the power and agency of individuals to make choices about their bodies without fear, violence or coercion.
Desperate Remedies
History shows us that the mentally ill are extraordinarily vulnerable to therapeutic experimentation, some particularly brutal and extreme, which continues to the present day.
ADHD Drugs Are Convenient to Get Online. Maybe Too Convenient
From Bloomberg Businessweek: Backed by SoftBank and promoted by Simone Biles, Cerebral has built the fastest-growing online mental health business. Former employees say the rapid expansion comes at the expense of patient care.
