A series showing a woman's face as she transforms

Antidepressants Can Change Peaceful Citizens into Killers

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We must warn about the harms of antidepressants and bring people to justice who contribute to the suicides and homicides by lies and medical malpractice.

How I Fell Into the Vultures’ Clutches

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They said all my suffering was in my imagination. They couldn’t have cared less about my agony—they laughed at me as I begged for mercy.

The West Doesn’t Have All the Answers: An Interview with Dinesh Bhugra

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In this wide-ranging conversation on public mental health, psychiatrization, and community care, Dinesh Bhugra explains why meaningful lives, not symptom reduction alone, should guide mental healthcare today.
Studio shot of a woman posing against a dark background with a distorted face.

When Treatment Fails: Why I Relate to Lindsay Clancy

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Despite her monstrous act, I can’t shake the feeling that Lindsay may have also suffered at the hands of a broken psychiatric system.

Benzodiazepine Use Tied to Increased Risk of Death, Especially at Higher Doses

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Benzodiazepine use is common, with research estimating as many as 12.6% of US adults report past-year use. A 2019 study found significant increases in...

Unlearning Restraints: A Psychiatrist’s Journey from Patient to Practitioner

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I had been the one whose fear was called dangerous, distorted into a label. Now I was on the other side, being asked to do it to someone else.

What Happened at the Guidance Center in Flagstaff, AZ

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It is my assertion that the Guidance Center acts with impunity in Flagstaff, AZ, and that someone needs to step up and hold them accountable.

Absorbing Dark Emotions: Emotional Contagion

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Are psychiatrists aware that susceptible people can absorb dark emotions from others when times are tough?

OCD and the Anxiety/Gut Connection

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I never made the direct connection between my gut and how anxiety created physical problems! Why did not one single medical professional tell me this information?

Go/No-Go—How Mental Health Research Took a Wrong Turn: An Interview with Author Marianne Apostolides

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Marianne Apostolides discusses how Go/No-Go grew from her search for new eating-disorder treatments into a critique of the metaphors, experiments, and technologies shaping contemporary neuroscience and psychiatry. She argues that efforts to reduce distress to circuits, algorithms, and biomarkers often overlook subjectivity, agency, and the human relationships that meaningful care requires.
Woman out of focus holding pill toward camera

A Story of Bad Science: How Defenders of Antidepressant Efficacy Make Their Case

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Psychiatric leaders should be in jail because they knowingly spread falsehoods about psychiatric drugs that kill.

How the Moral Panic on Psychiatric Bed Shortages is Fueling a ‘Competency Crisis’ in...

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The number of people referred to state hospitals as ‘Incompetent to stand trial’ (IST) has surged over the last decade. In response, states are refurbishing or rebuilding their state hospitals— even as their own experts say this will only make the crisis worse. Why?

From Church to Clinic: The Cult of Compliance

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It was jarring to realize that the rigid protocols in the church were mirrored in the clinical settings where I began my career.

Yet Another Claim About the Benefits of Antidepressants Bites The Dust

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Former FDA officials write that claims that the black warning led to an increase in youth are "factually inaccurate in ways that are directly verifiable."

“Assault” and “Torture”: Patients Recall the Institutional Violence of Forced Drugging

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A new article published in the Journal of Humanistic Psychology finds that patients often experience forced drugging in psychiatric contexts as dehumanizing and violent....

In the Lindsay Clancy Case, Polypharmacy Will Be on Trial

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Lindsay Clancy worsened while under the influence of psychiatric drugs, and at each step she desperately sought medical help.

When Therapy Makes Things Worse

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This week, Mad in America examines three articles related to negative effects of psychotherapy. The first reviews the literature around negative effects in therapy,...

Unlearn Your Pain: Harnessing the Power of Neuroplasticity – A Conversation With Howard Schubiner

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Dr. Howard Schubiner joins us on the MIA podcast to discuss his work and the power of neuroplasticity to address psychological or physiological pain.

What Medicine Does Not Yet Recognize in Psychiatric Tapering

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Together, we can create a new way to support patients tapering psychiatric medications and the medically orphaned will finally feel welcomed.

“Every Time I Took a Pill, I Felt I Was No Longer Myself”: Young...

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A new study published online by the Journal of Humanistic Psychology examines young adults’ experience of taking and discontinuing antipsychotic drugs after completing a...

Inside the Hot Flush Gold Rush: The Medicalization of Menopause Spreads to Perimenopause

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Many brands promising to help women actually make their suffering worse by reinforcing the belief that menopause is a time of deterioration.
A blonde white woman reads the product label for drugs in blister pack in her hand

Depression Drug Approved by FDA Had 11 Failed Trials and an Advisory Committee Vote...

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Rejected by the FDA four times; an advisory committee vote against approval. Yet in 2023, gepirone (Exxua) was approved for depression.

How Psychiatry Launders Our Debts: An Interview with Khameer Kidia

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Physician-anthropologist Khameer Kidia examines how violence and inequality shape mental distress, arguing for patient autonomy, community care, and structural change beyond diagnosis, medication, and individualized psychiatric treatment.

Shifting Acute Mental Health Care to the Home Limits the Cycle of Rehospitalization, Study...

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Intensive home treatment (IHT) is an approach to acute psychiatric care that avoids the stressful psychiatric ward admission procedures and allows the patient or...
Two doctors pull away the leaves from a ruined wall that shows a heart shaped cavity

What’s Been Lost in Medicine Is Shameful in Psychiatry: Reflections on Bernard Lown

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Mental health professionals are trained to be technicians rather than provided with the opportunity to discover the craft of healing.