Questioning the Prescription: Antidepressants and the Medicalization of Childhood

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This week Mad in America explores four recently published articles related to antidepressant use in children and adolescents. The first reports that although clinical...

Finding Support Outside ‘The System’

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How a friend who wasn’t a mental health professional saved me from suicide by supporting me in a way my parents and the professionals hadn’t.

The Fight for the Soul of Psychotherapy: An Interview with Linda Michaels

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Linda Michaels is a psychologist in private practice in Chicago and a co-founder of the Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN). She trained at the Illinois...
An individual therapeutic session between a psychologist and a withdrawn troubled teenage boy sitting in a closed position with his arms crossed across his chest.

Are We Overlooking Homicidal Ideation in Psychiatry?

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If patients are willing to bring these thoughts into treatment, psychiatry should be better prepared to receive them.

All Major Pharma Companies Implicated in Bribery Schemes, New Report Says

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Pfizer, J&J, Eli Lilly, BMS, AstraZeneca, GSK, and more all engaged in systematic bribery schemes, according to decades of OECD reports. That's the finding...

Alfred Adler: Psychoanalysis for the People

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Adler provides a starting point to end the apartheid within psychoanalysis that means psychology for the rich and psychics for the poor.
Blurry photo of a crowd of people

Therapy Treats the Individual, but the Problem Is the Self We Were Taught to...

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If human regulation is fundamentally relational, then well-being cannot be reduced to insight, learning, growth, or individual coping strategies alone.

Coercive Measures in Psychiatry are Increasing, Traumatic, and Linked to Systemic Failings

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This week, Mad in America explores three studies related to the use of coercive psychiatric measures. The first finds that rates of coercive measures...

Undoing Thirteen Years of Iatrogenic Illness

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No one was ever going to tell me that I was never mentally ill. It would mean that everything The System did to me was a lie.

Examining Psychiatric Medication Tapering and Withdrawal: The Evolving Role of Pharmacists — A Conversation...

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Agnes Higgins and Cathal Cadogan join us to discuss their work on understanding the experiences of people tapering from psychiatric medication and the role that pharmacists could potentially play when people are considering stopping their psychiatric drugs.
mind spiritual human head abstract art watercolor painting illustration design hand drawing

Wouter Kusters and God

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God may not exist, but man’s relationship with God certainly does exist, and that is what mysticism is all about.

Psychobabble of the Month: Depressed? Try Exercise-in-a-Pill!

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Exercise consistently shows positive results for depression... so how about a prescription for "exercise mimetic" pills instead?

From Silence to Accountability: How Massachusetts’ Special Commission on State Institutions Changed the Law

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This is the beginning of an effort to restore dignity to those whose lives were forgotten for far too long.

I Can Barely Breathe: The Journey Continues

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I want more for myself than just being a sweet, docile, compliant mental patient. I want a voice and a seat at the table.

Spiritual Emergency and the Collective Work of Staying Alive: An Interview with Nisha Gupta

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Nisha Gupta reflects on spiritual emergency, wounded healing, and why staying alive in times of profound pain is not only an individual task but a collective one.
young caucasian man tired of drinking alcohol or drugs, members of anonymous alcoholics club gathered to share experience of getting rid of problem. guy close face with hands. help, support concept

What Frontline Addiction Nurses See That Policy Debates About Medication Miss

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Medication stabilizes the body and reduces risk, but the deeper work of recovery unfolds gradually through therapy, support, and daily effort.

TikTok Videos Portray ADHD Stimulants in Overwhelmingly Positive Light, Study Finds

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Direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising of pharmaceuticals is a controversial topic within healthcare and psychiatry, with only two countries (US and New Zealand) allowing this practice....

Doomed: A Psychiatry Comic

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The prescription still lives in my chart, even though I only took it for one month, 15 years ago. As I navigate health care as an adult, I still have to answer for it.
Los Angeles, CA USA - Julyl 3, 2021: Homeless tents outside the Veterans Administration in a stretch called Veterans Row

Mental Health and the Assault on Autonomy in the New America

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These myths lead to seeing the homeless as mentally ill and the mentally ill as irredeemable and “other,” impeding effective care.

The Political Systems Driving Abuse in Psychiatry: An Interview with Human Rights Lawyer Alicia...

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Alicia Ely Yamin is the Director of the Global Health and Rights Project and a lecturer on Law at Harvard Law School. She's also...

Undisclosed Industry Payments Found in Top Psychiatry Journals

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Research has shown that financial conflicts of interest (COIs) are a common issue in medicine and psychiatry, with a 2020 paper finding that 55.7%...

Belief in a Fair Economy Linked to Greater Mental Health Stigma, Study Finds

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Recent research from across the world has found that stigma towards people with mental health diagnoses is either increasing or stagnant. While studies from...

Mourning on Schedule: How Grieving Became a ‘Mental Illness’

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My wife died ten months ago. In another two months, I will have a new mental disorder: “Prolonged Grief Disorder.”

History, Eugenics, and an Inquiry into Mad Consciousness: A Conversation With Susanne Paola Antonetta

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Suzanne Paola Antonetta is an accomplished writer and poet, She joins us to discuss her latest book: The Devil's Castle, Nazi Eugenics, Euthanasia, and How Psychiatry's Troubled History Reverberates Today.

With AI Chatbots As Therapists, We Can All Be Patients

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Chatbots, with constant availability and user-centric conversation style, are widening the reach of “therapeutic culture.”