Blogs

Despite the full awareness of Congress and hundreds of deaths in these facilities, little has been done to enact standards in private pay facilities that house troubled teens.

Emotional trauma is the type of wound that, if not processed and integrated, can become a void that expands to swallow not just the traumatized person but also their children and grandchildren.

I learned at a young age that my suicidal thoughts and feelings would be met with panic and punishment from adults.

Schools are rolling out programs and services intended to safeguard students’ emotional well-being. They are full of potential—and pitfalls.

Homebirth was a reflection of how the mental health system should work: Informed person-centered care while respecting your agency.

It’s time to change the conversation around guardianship. The question is not “When do we remove someone’s rights?” but “How can we best support them?”

MIA's Family Resources and Arts sections are co-sponsoring an online teen multimedia art exhibition with the theme “Beyond Labels and Meds: What It Feels Like to Be Me.”

I’ve often been told I shouldn’t have kids because I’m “bipolar.” But since my twins’ birth, I’ve been way more stable than I thought I would be, and I’ve found what I’ve always been looking for.

I never questioned the adults around me or wondered if the medications were necessary. Of course they were necessary. A doctor said so.

I was hoping for more accurate representation of youth mental health challenges. What I saw instead was a glossy patchwork of mixed messages.

A year ago today, our youngest child died, thanks to the adversarial actions and toxic treatments foisted on her by medical-model psychiatry. By telling her story, we hope to promote systemic change.

Since COVID, NISAPI has transitioned our collaborative therapy setting from barns and fields to kitchens and living rooms. Our clients report similar positive outcomes with telehealth as in person.

Doctors, drug companies, and the news media have profited from skyrocketing rates of diagnosis and drugging for ADHD, and the law has created a perverse set of incentives for parents and children which favor the ADHD label.

The mental health system traumatized me further. They were allies with my abusers to cover up and continue my abuse.

We have let down our children (and ourselves) by losing touch with parental intuition and handing their care over to professionals at the first sign of a problem.

In my experience, episodes of anxiety and depression dwindle in the face of hope and empowerment, while broken-brain narratives lead to deeper despair.

In 1996, I suffered my first manic episode. My mother was convinced it had been caused by chemical exposure. But I wouldn’t hear it, and neither would my psychiatrists.

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.

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.

Health and wellbeing in young people are trending down in New Zealand. Are antidepressants to blame?

Where ableism and adultism allows disabled children to be seen as unreliable narrators of their own experience, sexual violence in institutions will continue to be pervasive.

This wave of emotional distress is a perfectly reasonable human response to living our lives in an increasingly isolated and uncertain world.

People who can’t take care of themselves need support and protection, but guardianship provides neither. I know: I've lived it.

I grew up in Rhodesia, a British colony in southern Africa. Until the age of 16, I lived on the grounds of Ingutsheni Mental Hospital where my father worked. As a psychiatrist, he had enormous power.

My sister was told if she took medications everything would be fine. But everything was not fine, and the medications sent her down a path of no return.