“Free Our People!” Ex-Psychiatric Patients Demand COVID-19 Accountability in State-Run Facilities
Residents and workers are dying from COVID-19 exposure in Massachusetts state hospitals. One group of ex-psychiatric patients and allies has had enough.
New Algorithms Fail to Predict Antidepressant Treatment Outcomes
Researchers suggest that because most antidepressant “success” is due to the placebo effect, they may never find a way to predict outcomes.
It Is Becoming Much Harder to Access Mental Health Support Anonymously
From Slate: Now is the ideal time to ensure platforms are designed with the highest ethical standards, and in ways that respect users’ digital rights.
Electric Shock Update: Allegations of Regulatory Misconduct Filed with the FDA
The New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH) is publishing false and misleading advertisements about electric shock services under the guise of educational materials without even acknowledging the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) December, 2018 Rule.
For Winnicott, the Psyche Is Not Inside Us But Between Us
From Psyche: Far from being separate entities that figure out each other externally, we are radically open beings in immediate contact with each other.
Should We Diagnose Donald Trump?
I have been involved in hundreds of commitment hearings in which psychiatric diagnoses were crucial. In that context, I have never witnessed the presence of all three factors: (1) the transparent (honest) use of diagnostic labels (which includes the acknowledgment of the inherent biases built into the labels as well as their limited validity), (2) allowing full voice to and full acknowledgment of the labeled person’s view of reality, and (3) using the labels in a manner that produced a useful understanding, which in standard mental health practice would require that the understanding be significantly more beneficial to the labeled person rather than the labeler.
Meditation Triggered My Psychosis; Reiki Healed It
James and I started talking about how we each fell on the path as seekers. He told me that he was a reiki master. A seed was planted within me. Even though my previous meditation practice did not work out, I still had spiritual longings and wanted to try again.
COVID-19: What’s Equity Got to Do With It?
From GW Milken Institute School of Public Health: The virus has exposed long-standing inequities, driven by social policies that created disparities in resource access to resources.
Does Pharma Need the Entrepreneur?
Capitalists don’t discover new medicine; they invest in it. The incentive to do so, as everyone will admit, is to return a profit. Most would also agree that this profit shouldn’t be "too large," but enough to encourage adequate investment into new treatments. However, the idea that this is a well-functioning system, and indeed the best way of producing medicine, is a myth.
