The Process: Helen Wesnes Fights for Her Rights
The health care system cost her 15 years, followed by a 12-year legal process. She has already won in court and is ready for the next round.
From Eradicating Psychosis to Being With Voices: A Psychiatrist’s Journey from Biomedical Nihilism to...
I had compassion for the people on the other side of the fishbowl; I could see myself in them. My colleagues thought this was a problem.
The Psychotherapist as a Paid “Fantasy-Friend”: The Taboo of Money and Payment in Therapy
Money is positioned as both a cancer and a treasure, and the act of payment as a gesture of both immorality and necessity.
I’m Done With Mental Health Providers
When people ask me why I didn’t kick or punch the nurse administering the shots, I don’t have a good answer. I’m just not good at violence. The psychiatrists are, though.
Overcoming Schizophrenia and Transforming Psychiatry: An Interview with Dr. Daniel Fisher
Editor's Note: This Mad in the World report features an interview with eCPR founder Dr. Daniel Fisher, interviewed by Locura en Argentina founder Alan...
The Fonagy Report: A Missed Opportunity to Challenge the Neurodevelopmental Narrative
The review is riddled with contradictions and confusion and nothing it suggests is likely to make any difference to the current situation.
ADHD, a Unicorn in the Psychiatric (Be)wilderness
I do not dispute that some people suffer from their symptoms, but if you examine ADHD scientifically, the diagnosis falls apart.
A Biological Psychiatrist Wins the Nobel
Optogenetics won the Nobel Prize. How excited—or worried—should we be? The experts’ own words tell the story.
The Illusion of Patient Rights in Psychiatric Units
Reviewing the rights board in the hallway, I vocally indicated to the staff where their policy deviated from state law, and I was met with disregard that devolved to disdain.
Being Mindful of Agony: How to Incorporate the Sublime in Our Daily Life—An Interview...
MIA’s Ayurdhi Dhar talks to Will Adams about trauma and contemplative practice, the delusion of separation that plagues humanity, the punitive infantilization of psychiatric patients, and how mindfulness must not be restricted to a meditation cushion.
I Refuse to Die; I Am Not Leaving
Few experiences carry as much stigma as experiencing psychosis, and the shame doesn't fade when the psychosis does.
The Person They Never Asked About
The modern mental health system has constructed an elaborate apparatus for observing, classifying, medicating, documenting, and containing people while steadily losing the institutional capacity to know them.
The Hidden Psychotherapy Drop-Out Crisis
There is a discrepancy between what most people embarking on psychotherapy seek and what practitioners are trained to provide.
Four New Studies Raise Concerns About Benzodiazepine-Related Harms
This week, Mad in America examines four new studies around harms linked to benzodiazepine use. The first finds that benzodiazepines are linked to increased...
What Psychiatry Missed: My Ferritin Level Was 6
No one told me that anemia could be contributing to the mental health issues that would not resolve. The providers put me on antipsychotics; meanwhile, my underlying iron stores remained depleted.
What We Seek in Therapy May be Lost to Time
Progress removes the conditions that made skills, relationships, meaning, and purpose necessary. A part of life ceases to be required.
Let There Be Light: Before Psychiatry Writes Its Next DSM
Very high prevalence raises a more fundamental question: Where exactly does the medical disorder end and ordinary human variation begin?
Marketing GLP-1 Drugs for Addiction: Why Critics Are Skeptical
The question surrounding GLP-1RAs is not simply whether they can change the brain, but whether that is enough to change the life around it.
Mad in the World at the Mad in Norway International Film Festival
Mad in the World Liaison Karin Jervert reflects on the powerful experiences of helping to organize and attending the Mad in Norway International Film Festival in Lillehammer, Norway.
Don’t Let Barbie Out of the Glovebox – An OCD Account
It’s easy to cling to my diagnosis for comfort. In fact, externalizing obsessions the way you would an alien invasion or a metastasized tumor is a foundational part of OCD’s gold standard of treatment.
Psychiatric Drugs and Violence: What Can Genetics Tell Us? A Conversation With Selma Eikelenboom
Brooke Siem speaks with Selma Eikelenboom, together they explore what questions her research raises about the relationship between psychoactive drugs, genetic variation, and violence.
Lillehammer’s “Other” Olympics: The Mad in Norway International Film Festival
This was a weekend of movies, art, conversation, and camaraderie. But more than that, it was an infusion of strength.
Didn’t Anyone Tell You It Is Okay to Be Different?
At the Mad in Norway film festival, it struck me that people agreed that mental health needs to be systematically reformed, with more emphasis on psychosocial interventions.
The New York Times Fails Our Veterans
Yet another New York Times article on psychiatry misses the mark
Getting Rid of the Pain Before Answering Its Questions: Psychiatry’s Damage to Self and...
By answering questions that pain asks, one can rediscover one’s true self. If you get rid of pain before you have answered its questions, you get rid of the self along with it.
