An “Even-Handed” History of Psychiatry as Damning as the “Polemics”?
Where Professor Harrington's book seems to differ from books that others might call polemics is that she does not attribute nefarious motives to the psychiatric establishment. I worry that she underplays the ways in which the current model causes harm, but I support her suggestion for a retraction of psychiatry's scope.
Andrew Rich: “I Didn’t Know Stuff Like This Existed”
In this second part of MIA’s report on compulsory outpatient treatment orders, Michael Simonson tells of how he came to report on this topic, the results from MIA’s survey of people who have experienced such forced treatment, his interviews with several of the survey respondents, and more on Andrew Rich’s life.
Twenty Years After Kendra’s Law: The Case Against AOT
The proponents of compulsory outpatient treatment claim that it leads to better outcomes for the recipients, and protects society from violent acts by the "seriously mentally ill." Those claims are belied by history, science, and a critical review of the relevant research.
Talking About Psych Diagnoses and Drugs: A Primer for Parents & Professionals
It is important to tell parents the truth about what can and cannot be known about their child. In this way, people come to appreciate that labels and treatments offered by psychiatric professionals are far from being grounded in hard science.
Benzodiazepine Awareness 2019
A special set of interviews for W-BAD 2019. We speak with Project Manager for W-BAD Rocks of Kindness, Janelle. We also chat with physician and Director of the Benzodiazepine Information Coalition Christy Huff MD and we hear from Stephen Wright MD, addiction specialist and medical consultant to the Alliance for Benzodiazepine Best Practices.
Being-Towards-Suicide
Is it not the very capacity for suicide that makes us human? This capacity, this freedom, of autonomy’s jurisdiction to extend to the outermost seconds of life, namely death, is an innate part of humanity and thus consciousness. Accepting death as a possibility embraces the finitude of our existence.
Inside an Online Charter School: Labeling Kids “Disabled” for Profit
I’d thought this teaching job would be my chance to make positive changes in children’s lives. But most of the recommendations in students' IEPs were related not to reading, writing, and ’rithmetic but to behavior control and obedience to adults. And the school seemed to be working very hard to prove that the kids were disabled and to get them certified as such.
A Guide to Long-Acting Neuroleptics: Education or Promotion?
The National Council for Behavioral Health has released a new pamphlet titled “Guide to Long-Acting Medications for Providers and Organizations.” By downplaying some aspects of the available science, the pamphlet implicitly acts as a promotional tool for the pharmaceutical industry.
The Pill Shaming Phenomenon: What’s It Really About?
At best, the underpinnings of the ‘pill shaming’ accusation are misguided. At worst, they represent a concerted effort on the part of the current power structure to use us against ourselves (and they don’t need any more help). It’s the same old story packaged up as if it were something new and ultra woke.
Madness, Sexuality and Legacies of Strategic Sanism
There has been little engagement between the survivor and LGBT movements despite a shared interest in critiquing and resisting the normalization project of the psy disciplines — that is, psychiatry and psychology’s clinical categorization of what is ‘normal’ and ‘abnormal’ or ‘healthy’ and ‘sick’. Why might this be?
“Three Identical Strangers” and the Nature-Nurture Debate
Three Identical Strangers is a riveting film describing the story of identical triplets separated at six months of age and reunited in early adulthood. Their story provides no evidence in support of the genetic side of the nature-nurture debate, but it does supply some evidence in favor of the environment.
Tom Paine, Christianity, and Modern Psychiatry
Early in The Age of Reason, Thomas Paine attacks the hypocrisy of religious professionals. If alive today, Paine may well have been even rougher on psychiatrists. He revered science, and he would have been enraged by professionals who make pseudoscientific proclamations.
Getting Pharma Out of Medical Education: An Interview with Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman
MIA's Gavin Crowell-Williamson interviews PharmedOut founder Dr. Adriane Fugh-Berman about Big Pharma's influence on medical education.
When ‘For Your Own Good’ Actually Means ‘For My Own Good’
“For your own good” is oppressive. Embedded in that four-word phrase is the idea that each of us doesn’t understand who we are or what we need. Someone else is the expert. Someone else has the privilege to hold all the answers, and if those answers don't work for us then somehow it's our fault.
Tough Love for Thomas Szasz: A Book Review
Dr. Thomas Szasz (1920-2012) was one of the greatest thinkers and prose stylists of the last 100 years. Enough time has passed since he died that we can start to take stock of his legacy. This important new collection of essays by former colleagues, psychiatrists, philosophers, and legal experts does just that.
Marginalized Youth Feel Unheard and Unhelped By Mental Health Professionals
A new study suggests the way that marginalized youth view the mental health treatment they have received plays a role in the continuation of their care once they reach adulthood.
Are Antidepressants Enabling the Population to Tolerate the Intolerable?
Just how sad is our current state of affairs that it causes so much of the population to feel depressed and/or anxious? Just how much are these drugs changing the state of our society as a whole? Are the drugs desensitizing the population to the point that it will tolerate social conditions it would otherwise find intolerable?
Mad Science, Psychiatric Coercion and the Therapeutic State: An Interview with Dr. David Cohen
MIA's Peter Simons interviews David Cohen, PhD, on his path to researching mental health, coercive practices, and discontinuation from psychiatric drugs.
FDA Signs Off on First Medical Device for Treating ADHD in Children
From USA TODAY: The Monarch eTNS connects via wire to a small patch placed on the forehead of the patient, generating a low-level electrical pulse to the brain.
Increase in Suicide Attempts by Self-Poisoning in Youth
Researchers shed light on hike in attempted suicide by self-poisoning in young adults between 2011 and 2018.
Fighting for the Meaning of Madness: An Interview with Dr. John Read
Akansha Vaswani interviews Dr. John Read about the influences on his work and his research on madness, psychosis, and the mental health industry.
The Power Threat Meaning Framework One Year On
The team that developed the Power Threat Meaning framework as a diagnostic alternative reflects on the response to the framework after one year.
Activists, Suicide Prevention Groups Seek Bans on Conversion Therapy for Minors
From NPR: "Conversion therapy...is telling somebody that there's something fundamentally broken with them and...it needs to be fixed. That's a lot of trauma."
“Dad, You Were Right”: I Got Better When I Stopped Treatment
Through all the years that I was a mental patient, my parents were excellent advocates who constantly questioned what the docs were doing, even though my own faith in psychiatry was unwavering.... Amazingly, what cured me was not some type of “treatment,” but getting away from drugs and therapy.
Lee Coleman – The Insanity Defence, Storytelling on the Witness Stand
An interview with Doctor Lee Coleman, in which we focus on psychiatry in the courtroom and why the psychiatric expert witness role may be failing both the individual on trial and society at large.
