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ECT, or shock treatment as it's sometimes called, is a controversial topic. Adherents describe it as safe and effective; opponents condemn its use as damaging and ineffective. But it is still widely used in the US and in other countries. After shock treatment, some clients do appear to be less depressed, but this phenomenon has been interpreted differently by ECT's proponents and opponents. Proponents claim that the ECT treatments have clearly alleviated the depression. Opponents claim that the apparent improvement is an example of post-concussion euphoria, and that the effects are short-lived. My purpose in this article is to examine the evidence that ECT "is highly effective."

If the US wishes to maintain its reputation as a leader in the field of disability rights, it is not enough to assist other countries in building ramps and developing accessible technology. Those are laudable aims but are at best half of what the CRPD requires. There is a new world in disability rights, and the US risks being left behind unless there is a reversal of course that commits to full domestic implementation in compliance with standards that have been set by the international community with US participation.

A colleague and I have been tracking individuals who elect to reduce their dose of neuroleptic drug. The two year results are presented here.

At least 250 lawsuits involving Johnson & Johnson's improper marketing of Risperdal are pending in Pennsylvania's Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, according to information...

Kingsley Hall was the first of Laing’s household communities that served as a place where you could live through madness until you could get it together and live independently. It was conceived as an “asylum” from forms of treatment — psychiatric or otherwise — that many were convinced were not helpful, and even contributed to their difficulties. By the time I arrived in London in 1973 to study with Laing there were four or five such places. Getting in wasn’t easy.

The November 5 hearing on the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations reached new heights of absurdity and opens new ground for concern. It may be worse for us to ratify with the reservations, understandings and declarations (RUDs) being proposed, and with the legislative record that is being created for the specific purpose of rejecting any application of the treaty's standards to US law than not to ratify at all. All the proponents of CRPD ratification who are allowed a voice in these discussions are in agreement that the US ratification is aimed ONLY at giving the US greater influence over other countries and over the development of customary international law, and NOT at improving the enjoyment of human rights by persons with disabilities in the US itself.

Whenever I write or speak publicly, I feel compelled to frame cutting, burning and hitting myself as something I used to do. I don’t actually outright say I’ve stopped, but I use the past tense and thus I suspect most hear it as implied. Somehow, the pressure to appear outwardly ‘all better’ in that way still seems big. Self-injury (of that type) ranks pretty high up there on an awful lot of people’s scary meters. Just saying you are someone who has ever done that sort of thing seems disconcerting enough for most.

This blog was prompted by an invitation to do a guest post on the site of one of my favorite bloggers, 1 Boring Old Man. This is my response to the notion that there are certain conditions - Schizophrenia among them - that correspond more directly to biomedical conditions

Anoiksis (the Dutch association of and for people with a psychotic vulnerability) has introduced a new name for the disease schizophrenia: Psychosis Susceptibility Syndrome (PSS). Together with the old name, its attached prejudices, misleading significance and stigma can be thrown overboard.

The buzz in academic publishing right now is the story about how several hundred open access journals accepted a fake research paper. Of much more concern is that there are top-tier medical journals which have published clinical trials, that were read by thousands of people, that influenced clinical decisions, that we now know were bogus, but have never been retracted.

In 1994, my nineteen-year old daughter, Cristina, was diagnosed with chronic myelogenous leukemia (CML). It was a diagnosis that came totally out of the blue and as a complete shock. Soon after she was diagnosed, it became clear that I wasn’t going to be able to sleep because of the tremendous stress, so I asked the very kind doctor who diagnosed Cristina if he could give me a prescription for something that would help me sleep. He agreed, and so began my “relationship” with Xanax. I had never taken anything like that before and didn’t know anything about it. All I knew was that as my daughter’s primary caregiver, I needed sleep in order to fight to keep her alive.

At the end of an hour long discussion with Holyoke High School students in Holyoke, MA, I was grasping quarter page slips of folded paper as it they were sheets of gold. On these slips of paper were questions the students asked me, as well as their answers to my questions, “What can you do to make yourself feel happier as an alternative to psychiatric drugs?” and “How do you get through hard times?” They included love, eating, snuggling, my boyfriend, my girlfriend, green tea, good friends, drawing, playing guitar, a new book, flowers, fluffy things (pandas), writing, music, talking to friends, not isolating myself and sex novels.

As you may know, the annual Alternatives Conference is the largest peer-run conference in mental health in the country and will take place December 4-7 at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Austin, Texas. You may not know that this year Alternatives is truly a cannot-miss event, for several reasons, the top ten of which are outlined below. But first, perhaps a little background on the conference would be helpful.

On September 21, I posted here that the UN Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities took a definitive stand against psychiatric commitment in its Concluding Observations on El Salvador and Austria.  The Committee held that the "danger to self or others" standard cannot legitimize psychiatric detention, and that all legislation authorizing such detention must be repealed. This is of huge significance, which I did not expand on in my earlier post.  Another set of Concluding Observations has now been released, this time on Australia, which gives me another opportunity to discuss what has happened.  I hope that both lawyers and non-lawyers will follow the discussion, since it has both legal and political implications.

I’d like to share a bit about what happened to me after being placed on these medications, and how I successfully got off. Until recently, I was embarrassed to talk about my personal experiences publicly, as I’m a professional who specializes in anxiety and depression. Today, medication free, I feel better than ever before, and I am now on a mission to help my current clients get off medications, and to inform others through my writing about the dangers and pitfalls of starting antidepressants.

Subtitled "Pain is an emotion," Scientific American's portrait of Dennis Rogers, whose uncanny feats of strength seem predicated on his anomalous relationship to pain...

One of the amazing things about my new life and new career is the people I have met. I have become part of a movement that is filled with heretics. I am constantly inspired by the people that have the courage to write in this and other forums. I am inspired by the people that protest and refuse to accept a broken paradigm.

The Redhall Walled Garden provides a tiny glimpse into the future, as a potential alternative to psychiatric hospitals, halfway houses, and the other oppressive forms of treatment that comprises the current status quo in most countries around the world. We can all learn from this alternative approach, and we should popularize aspects of this program just as we do the Soteria House and the Open Dialogue model.

The Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, authoritative body that interprets this treaty, has now confirmed beyond a shadow of a doubt that all mental health incarceration violates Article 14 of the CRPD. All governments should take notice, and incarcerated people and human rights defenders should take heart from this welcome development.

In a recent interview, Nancy Andreasen, former editor-in-chief of the American Journal of Psychiatry, reaffirmed her earlier findings that antipsychotics shrink brain tissue. "We spent a couple...

In March, the United Nations Human Rights Committee asked the U.S. to explain how it sees nonconsensual medication in psychiatric institutions as being compliant with Article 7 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which prohibits torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment or punishment (including nonconsensual medical and scientific experimentation). A group of grass roots survivor activists have sent a report on forced drugging in the U.S (along with an executive summary) to the Committee.

Three-and-a-half years ago I quit my career as a psychotherapist. I’d done it for ten years in New York City and had given it my all. It was a career that chose me, loudly, when I was 27 years old. I learned a huge amount from it and I believe I was helpful to a lot of people. It also represented a vital stage in my life. But then the time came to leave. That also came as a sort of revelation.

Sociologist Harold Garfinkel, in his landmark article "Conditions For a Successful Degradation Ceremony" wrote that "Degradation ceremonies are those concerned with the alteration of total...

Psychiatric Times is offering an online continuing medical education (CME) course designed to "present information on why a patient might decide to discontinue psychotropics...

While increasing numbers of Americans are being prescribed antidepressants, the Centers for Disease Control reports that suicide rates increased 28% from 1999 to 2010. Trained professionals remain unable to predict who is at risk. Their guess is as good as chance.