When the Help Becomes Part of the Problem
The feeling of being institutionalized and medicated over minor ailments is difficult to shake. I have been to countless therapy sessions attempting to deconstruct the feelings of dehumanization into digestible morsels.
NIMH’s It-girls: The Genain Quadruplets and the Whiteness of Psychiatry
The poster-children of psychiatric genetics, who endured abuse throughout their lives, were also the product of a racist culture.
Johann Hari: Lost Connections
An interview with journalist and author Johann Hari about his latest book: Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real causes of Depression and the Unexpected Solutions, in which he learned that almost everything we have been told about depression and anxiety is wrong.
Mental Health Services Turned My Daughter’s Crisis into a Way of Life
My world turned upside down when my daughter nearly died from a serious suicide attempt. After several years as her caretaker I began to wonder: What can we do to change the way our mental health services are organized so they won't turn a crisis into a way of life for already distressed and vulnerable people?
SSRIs, Lindsay Clancy, and Me
Sharing the similarities between Lindsay Clancy's homicidal episode and my own will hopefully help prevent rare SSRI-induced suicides and homicides, including mass shootings.
Memories of a Childhood in a Mental Hospital
My stay at the hospital had no impact on the problem that led to my admission. But it did exacerbate other problems and change me in fundamental ways. I am a deformed product of that ‘cutting-edge facility’ and the ‘treatments’ I received there — social isolation, pills and shots, ice bath and ECT.
Dismissing the “Human Experience”: College Students Feel Unseen by the Medical Model of Mental...
In conversations with college students and recent graduates from across the country and around the world, they described feeling dismissed by views of mental health that narrow their experiences to individual medical problems.
A Troubled Teen With a Pocket Full of Lithium and Nowhere to Go
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.
Experiences of Depression Connected to Declining Sense of Purpose
In-depth interviews find that those who screened positive for depression did not explain their experience in terms of diagnostic symptoms.
3 Facts All Parents Should Know About ADHD Stimulant Drugs
Medicating children for a host of mental disorders has become very popular in some parts of the USA. More than 8 million kids from 6 months to 17 years of age are on pharmaceutical drugs in this wonderful country. We lead the world in drugging youth for behavioral, cognitive and attention issues. We are once again #1. But I would like to share with parents as well as adults working with children a few not so readily available facts related to medicating kids for behavior issues.
These Teens Got Therapy. Then They Got Worse.
From The Atlantic: It feels like we should be able to just sit teens down and tell them how to be happier. But that doesn’t seem to work, and sometimes it even backfires.
Risk of Depression Spikes When Kids Take Ritalin
Risk of depression increased when children were taking methylphenidate for ADHD, but once they stopped taking the drug, depression risk dropped to normal levels.
Antidepressant Use More Than Doubles Risk of Suicide Attempts
Throughout the past two decades, studies have warned of increased suicide rates in those taking antidepressants, especially in children and adolescents. Researchers also documented...
All the Lonely People: The Atomized Generation
From Erraticus: We must live each day in radical opposition to the world, keeping in mind that the economics of modern life are designed to atomize us.
What’s Missing from NAMI and Pro-Psychiatry: Lived Experience
Since many psych patients become forced consumers, their advocates have a duty to be educated and concerned with adverse reactions.
Nutrition and Mental Health: An Interview with Julia Rucklidge, Ph.D.
Dr. Rucklidge talks about the emerging field of Nutritional Psychiatry, which looks at the relationship between nutrition and brain health and how it may affect children’s moods and behavior.
Guardianship Destroyed My Family
People who can’t take care of themselves need support and protection, but guardianship provides neither. I know: I've lived it.
Child Abuse and Psychosis: My Healing Journey
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?
Remembering Jennifer Kinzie (1979-2021)
Jennifer Kinzie was a licensed mental health counselor who used her lived experience to guide her work—not only as a counselor and therapist, but also as a volunteer with psychiatric survivor groups.
State Hospital Memories: More of My Story
The Detroit Free Press did an excellent job in bringing to light the conditions at Pontiac, its loss of accreditation, and closing. Still, they didn't quite grasp the severity of violence there.
“A Dangerous Substance”: The Impact of Social Media on Youth Mental Health
This is what social media does, she says. It draws people in. It hurts people. In the worst cases, it kills people.
Rethinking Suicide Prevention: An Interview on Critical Suicide Studies with Jennifer White
MIA’s Samantha Lilly interviews critical youth suicidologist Jennifer White about what suicide prevention could look like outside of the medical model.
Newborn Babies Go Through Antidepressant Withdrawal
A new study finds that newborn babies experience antidepressant withdrawal after birth if their mothers take SSRIs when pregnant.
Helping Children With Angry Outbursts
Finnish psychiatrist Ben Furman reviews various non-drug therapies for children with aggressive outbursts of anger, including the Kids' Skills approach that he and social psychologist Tapani Ahola developed. These approaches focus on helping children come up with their own ideas for overcoming their problems with the help of family and friends.
“Please Be Normal!” My Experience Working for NAMI
At my job with a NAMI affiliate, I heard daily from people who looked at family members with “mental illness” as non-people, non-human, the “other.” In the office, it was no different. If NAMI had a tagline, it would be “Please be normal like us.”
