The Mental Health Crisis We’re Not Naming
Despite the profoundly social and political nature of distress, the dominant response continues to individualize the problem.
Economists Conclude Reimbursing Tapering Strips Could Save Billions
Economists conclude Dutch government could save billions by reimbursing tapering strips to help patients safely discontinue psychiatric drugs.
Surviving Psychiatry’s ‘Help’
I can never visit a zoo again after my experience in the acute ward. I could never watch an animal pace back and forth.
Mercy, Magic, and the Medical Humanities: An Interview with Jussi Valtonen
Novelist and neuropsychologist Jussi Valtonen explains how close reading and creative writing can sharpen clinical attention, deepen perspective-taking, and help clinicians notice the language they use to describe patients.
Beyond Medication: What England’s Experience Can Teach Us About Psychosis Care
For over twenty years, NICE in England has recommended that people experiencing psychosis should be offered psychological therapy.
Approving a Drug for Children and Adolescents That Is More Likely to Induce Suicidality...
The approval is an example of what can go wrong in "evidence-based" psychiatry due to conflicts of interest and placing guild interests before patient safety.
Reconstructing 20+ Years of Psychiatric Treatment Through Medical Records
Seeing it laid out on paper felt like discovering an inventory of damage. It was an astonishing amount of intervention for someone who kept getting worse.
Anthropology, Arctic Iceland and Antidepressant Withdrawal: A Conversation With Fiona Frenzen
Fiona Frenzen joins us to talk of her experiences of healing from antidepressant withdrawal and how moving to Iceland had a powerful effect on her health and wellbeing.
Despite What You’ve Heard, “Schizophrenia” Is Not “80% Heritable”
Schizophrenia genetics researchers begin with false assumptions and then present and interpret data in ways that confirm these strong beliefs.
Study Finds the Majority of Increases in Symptoms During Antidepressant Tapering are Related to...
Past research has framed symptom increases during tapering and discontinuation of psychotropic drugs as a relapse of an underlying “illness.” A new preprint article...
On My Way to Norway with Julia Greenberg and Dory Previn
Dory’s eloquent reflections on her relationship with the voices she heard anticipated the burgeoning Hearing Voices and Mad Pride movements.
Open Dialogue Studies Highlight Collaboration, Clinician Support, and Stable Costs
This week Mad in America examines three studies related to the Open Dialogue approach in mental healthcare. Open Dialogue is a mental health approach...
When I Lost the Plot: A PTSD Implosion
I might have been in the grips of insanity, but I wasn’t unaware that something wasn’t right.
Meeting Life Unmedicated: Aging, Protracted Withdrawal and Healing—A Conversation With Marsha Zaritsky
Marsha Zaritsky is a licensed mental health therapist certified in Internal Family Systems. She joins us to explain how her experience with polypharmacy and psychiatric drug withdrawal has changed and informed how she practices.
Your Vagus Nerve Is Not in Control: The Problem with Polyvagal Theory
In addition to being scientifically incorrect, there’s no reliable evidence that PVT works to relieve people of their symptoms or distress.
Psychiatry’s Attack Dog Is at It Again
Robert Whitaker responds to Awais Aftab's inaccurate smear campaign toward Mad in America and other critics.
Autism and Psychiatry: A Dangerous Mix
I am still trying to recover from all the damage psychiatry did to me and I am seeking therapies that work, with mixed results.
Faith, Culture, and Coercion: An Interview with Cultural Psychiatrist G. Eric Jarvis
Cultural psychiatrist G. Eric Jarvis discusses religion and mental health, the social determinants of psychosis, and how coercive treatment can deepen mistrust in psychiatric care.
Rearranging Deck Chairs While the Titanic Goes Down—The American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology Issues...
Clinicians seeking practical guidance about how to deprescribe in a safe, pharmacologically rational manner will find little here to assist them.
On the Autistic Spectrum or a Camus Anti-Hero? Rebellion Obtuseness in Psychiatry
There is much that human beings rebel against, and there are various forms of rebellion, many of which psychiatry pathologizes.
The Bargain
On my chest, I have a tattoo. It's the pagan symbol of Mephistopheles — the mark Faust signed with when he made his deal.
The Keto Diet + Drug Tapering: What Are the Possibilities?
The Accord program in Arlington Massachusetts will provide a test of whether an intensive ketogenic program, when combined with drug-tapering support, can lead to robust recovery over the long term, with diminished use--or no ongoing use--of psychiatric medications.
Forty-two Days on a Finnish Psychiatric Ward
I can not say for sure at what point I finally realised that I was a patient in a mental hospital.
Kindling Our Inner Fire: A Residential Program Where Drug Tapering is the Norm
Robert Whitaker interviews Beatrice Birch, Founder and Director of Inner Fire, a residential program in rural Vermont.
With Veterans Demanding Action, Bipartisan Support Emerges for Written Informed Consent Bill
On the morning of April 29, representatives of 35 veterans’ service organizations (VSOs) gathered under cloudy skies on Capitol Hill for a press conference...
