A Troubled Teen With a Pocket Full of Lithium and Nowhere to Go

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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.
scientism of childhood depression

The Scientism of Childhood and Adolescent Depression

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When I was training to be a child psychiatrist in the mid-1990s, childhood depression was considered to be rare, related to adversity, and generally unresponsive to pharmaceutical treatment. Since then much has changed. The psychiatrization of the pain and struggles involved in growing up has caused considerably more harm to young people than good. I believe the science is on my side in this conclusion.

William James’s Letter to His Depressed Daughter

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If you discover that your child has been experiencing a bout with depression, what wise words might you share? Brilliant psychologist William James was forced to address this issue himself when his 13-year-old daughter, Peg, began to struggle with melancholy. I present his long, thoughtful reply for your consideration.
Artwork magazine collage picture of shocked guy running away eyes control isolated drawing background.

Students Don’t Need Spying, They Need Trust

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Surveillance exacerbates anxiety, destroys trust in relationships, and diverts money away from effective treatment.
lithium salts

Lithium: A Survivor’s Guide for Parents

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When I was a young adult, I was misdiagnosed with bipolar disorder and placed on lithium. I am 61 years old now, living on the edge of end-stage kidney disease. If I could undo everything, by all means, I would not have taken this drug. It is not safe for anyone at any age.
Monarch eTNS device

FDA Approves Using Electricity All Night Long on Children’s Brains

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The FDA just approved sales of an electrical device called the Monarch eTNS to be used on the brains of children diagnosed with so-called ADHD. The device “sends therapeutic signals to the parts of the brain thought to be involved in ADHD,” according to the FDA press release. “Therapeutic signals”? Really?
geriatric depression

The Year I Lost Everything, Psychiatry Offered Nothing

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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.

Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 9: ADHD (Part Three)

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ADHD is a disaster area, in terms of the diagnosis, clinical research, and the harms inflicted on hundreds of millions of healthy people.
dissident psychiatrist going against doctrine

Memoirs of a Dissident Psychiatrist

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For years I had hoped that psychiatry would free itself from the psychoanalytic doctrine, and when my wish finally came true, my profession went from the frying pan to the fire. My main goal, currently, is to convince professionals as well as the public that most child psychiatric problems can be handled effectively without medication.

Committed at 16: Memories of a State Hospital

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While most of the sting is gone, even now — almost sixty years on — I can’t get through a single day without thinking about shock treatment and the state hospital. I regularly have dreams or nightmares about being lost in a strange place and someone making me feel like dirt.

Garbage in, Garbage out: The Newest Cochrane Meta-Analysis of Depression Pills in Children

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In May 2021, Cochrane published a network meta-analysis of depression pills for children. The abstract is misleading and reads like drug company marketing.
Woman trapped in a glass

The Sins of Conservatorship: Why Britney Spears Compared It to Slavery

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For the last three years of my mother’s life, she was under absolute control of her conservator. If we dared to object to the neglect or abuse, retaliation was certain.

One Pill To Disrupt: Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal and the Marital Relationship

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The suicidality that accompanies akathisia is the natural human impulse to escape being tortured. To save my wife, the woman I love, I was forced to argue for her continued torture.

The Bipolar Rollercoaster: Looking Beyond the Labels

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Removing assumptions evoked by my family member’s diagnoses has transformed my understanding of their experience and increased my ability to arrive at solutions applicable to their expressed needs.
teen boy playing video game intensely

What Video Games Can Teach Us About Effective Parenting

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There is a secret to the programming of these games that seems to stir children to a level of greatness. Fortunately, that magic is completely transposable to our interactions with them.
Pills against a brown background. The word "ADHD" is beneath.

Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 9: ADHD (Part One)

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Peter Gøtzsche discusses the broadening of ADHD diagnostic criteria and the misleading and biased stimulant drug trials.
student counseling

Student Counseling Services: Do They Really Help the ‘Mentally Ill’?

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I used to think that the counseling center would help me to resolve my inner conflicts. That visiting the center would do some good for me. I have since realized that most mainstream “mental health” is more damaging than helpful. These days if student counselors see any problem with a student visiting the center, they send him or her to see a psychiatrist.

Child Abuse and Psychosis: My Healing Journey

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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?
abused child

The Abused Children to Bipolar Pipeline

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The mental health system traumatized me further. They were allies with my abusers to cover up and continue my abuse.
A photo of a teddy bear being stepped on by a work boot

Getting A Diagnosis Meant That My Sister Never Had the Chance to Resolve Her...

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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.

Listen to the Victims: Senate Holds Hearing on Guardianship

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I have seen the exploitation wreaked by court-appointed guardians. It is up to us to use our voices for those who cannot speak out.

The Role of Love in Mental Health

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The one core ingredient on which any recovery from emotional distress depends is the one that never makes an appearance in any medical handbook or psychiatric diagnostic manual—that is, love.
Close up of two hands circling a group of wooden figurines on a table

The Medicalization of the American Mind

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One cause of fragility? Pathologizing our children with psychiatric diagnoses and focusing on a medical solution to life's problems.

Adolescent Suicide and The Black Box Warning: STAT Gets It All Wrong

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STAT recently published an opinion piece arguing that the black box warning on antidepressants has led to an increase in adolescent suicide. It is easily debunked, and reveals once again how our society is regularly misled about research findings related to psychiatric drugs. STAT has lent its good name to a false story that, unfortunately, will resonate loudly with the public.
Photo of a flower

Suicidal Thoughts, Psychiatric Diagnosis, and What Really Helps: Part One

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This piece is the first of a two-part essay about suicide, diagnosis, what doesn't help, and what does help. This part is about suicide, diagnosis, and some of what fails to help.