David Guttman — Short Bio
David Guttman is a father, an entrepreneur and a crossfitter. He is also a voracious reader, a world traveler and president of First Stop...
Ronda Richardson — Short Bio
Ronda Richardson is an artist and peer support worker from Canada. She wants to see reforms within smaller communities and rural areas, including more...
Sarah Carr, PhD — Short bio
Dr Sarah Carr is Associate Professor of Mental Health Research at Middlesex University London, and Vice-Chair of the National Survivor User Network (NSUN), England.
Jen Constantine – Op-Ed Bio
Jen Constantine is a psychiatric system survivor, mental health advocate, wife, and mom. Jen grew up in the Black Hills of rural South Dakota....
Nesrin Shaheen – Short Bio
Nesrin Shaheen is a director and founding president of the Anti-NMDA Receptor Encephalitis Foundation in Canada. Her daughter was the first positively identified case...
Op-Ed Bio
Catherine Clarke is a former nurse (SRN), midwife (SCM) and chiropodist (MSSCH MBChA.) Following her son’s violent propulsion into the mental health system, she...
Beatrice Birch — OP-ED Bio
Beatrice Birch began her career as a teacher in an inner-city Waldorf/Rudolf Steiner School in Bristol, England in 1975. Deeply inspired by the healing...
Aimee Inomata – Op-Ed Bio
Aimee Inomata, PhD, is a writer, researcher and reformed academic who uses her training in philosophy and literature to critically analyze the underlying rhetoric...
Reid Bertino — Short Bio
Reid Bertino is a 30 year old man with a long history with the mental health system. From start to finish, the mental health...
Stephen LaCorte – Op-Ed Bio
Stephen LaCorte is an attorney in Texas who has worked in the oil and gas industry. He was harmed by benzodiazepines after being negligently...
Ken Blatt, MD – Short Bio
Dr. Ken Blatt trained when psychiatry was steeped in a humanistic, philosophic and social/relational tradition. He believes that in the last decades psychiatry has shifted to a...
Amy Beausang — Short Bio
The Wrong Profession? After nearly 15 years of working in the pharmaceutical industry, Amy's mission is to help women avoid, reduce, and eliminate their need...
Chris Gordon, MD – Short Bio
Dr. Christopher Gordon is Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, Assistant Psychiatrist at Massachusetts General Hospital, Adjunct Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at...
Clair Bien – Short Bio
Hearing Voices, Living Fully: Claire Bien, M.Ed., is a writer and grant writer at The Connection. She is also a voice hearer and formed the...
Otto Douglas — Short Bio
Otto Douglas is a York University graduate whose psychiatric incarceration opened his eyes to a previously unknown world — a world in which human...
Justin Karter – Short Bio
MIA-UMB News Editor: Justin Karter is a writer, researcher and community organizer with graduate degrees in both journalism and community psychology. He is a doctoral...
Marta E. Pagán-Ortiz – Short Bio
MIA-UMB News Team: Marta E. Pagán-Ortiz is a doctoral student and research assistant in the Counseling and School Psychology PhD program at UMass Boston. Marta...
Peter Simons – Short Bio
MIA-UMB News Team: Peter Simons comes from a background in the humanities where he studied English, philosophy, and art. Now working on his PhD in...
Akansha Vaswani – Short Bio
MIA-UMB News Team: Akansha Vaswani is a therapist and a researcher with a particular interest in the lived experiences of people’s lives. Her studies...
Shannon Peters – Short Bio
MIA-UMB News Team: Shannon Peters is a doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts Boston and has a master’s degree in mental health counseling....
Merry Citoli — Short Bio
Merry Citoli is an award-winning singer/songwriter and screenplay writer whose life went into a downward spiral after being put on lorazepam for insomnia and...
David Baksh — Op-Ed Bio
David Baksh, co-director and cinematographer for Yoghurt Utopia, has had a diverse directing career, which spans broadcast TV, commercials, event visuals and award-winning digital ad campaigns, making...
Anna Thomson — Op Ed Bio
Anna Thomson, co-director/producer of the Yoghurt Utopia documentary, is a director of documentaries and drama-docs who has worked for Discovery, Nat Geo, History Channel, BBC, Sky Arts and...
Val Marsh, MSW – Short Bio
Valerie L. Marsh, MSW, is Executive Director of the National Coalition for Mental Health Recovery (NCMHR). Marsh received both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in social...
Julie Greene – Short Bio
After three decades as a "patient," Julie Greene began to write about human rights abuses in the System, a battle that almost killed her....
