When a Radical Feminist from South Korea Became a Psychiatrist in the US
The Western mind fights for justice, while the Eastern soul accepts imperfection. Perhaps when we can hold both, we can flourish.
How Our Blindness to Context Harms Patients and Breaks Practitioners: A Conversation With Kamaldeep...
Kamaldeep Bhui joins us to challenge the myth of clinical neutrality, arguing that culture informs not only patients’ experiences of distress but also clinicians’ judgments about what counts as pathology. From voice-hearing to addiction, meaning depends on context, class, belief systems, and power relations.
As a Doctor, I Felt Compelled to Agree to ECT—It Nearly Ruined My Life
Apparently, I signed consent forms, but what was I consenting to? I certainly cannot remember being told about the adverse effects.
Is Focusing on Screen Time Diverting Us From the Real Drivers of Youth Distress?
Instead of focusing on screen time, we must consider the root causes: the concentration of wealth in the tech sector.
Psychobabble of the Month: Think of Jealousy as a Mental Disorder
Convincing a jealous partner that they have a mental illness sounds like gaslighting, but to JAMA Psychiatry, it's science.
What Isn’t Broken, Part 3: Spiritual Rebirth
My suicidality was right about one thing: Something had to die. It just didn’t have to be me.
What Isn’t Broken, Part 2: The Descent
My method had to involve some kind of loophole so that my death wasn’t technically by my own hand. Then it came to me: my eating disorder.
Service Users Face Abuse From Mental Health Professionals
People with mental health diagnoses are often the victims of violence and abuse, both within and beyond mental healthcare systems. Media reports of sexual...
Is Psychiatry’s Myth of Mental Health as Damaging as Its Myth of Mental Illness?
Does "mental health" mean more than to be well-adjusted to a dehumanizing, irrational, and homicidal world?
What Isn’t Broken, Part 1: A Temporary Fix
I didn't want a diagnosis to be put on meds, I wanted a diagnosis in order to validate the pain I was in and to be taken seriously by the adults around me.
Facing Existential Challenges, WHO Shuts Down its Policy, Law, and Human Rights Unit
Global activists react to the news and vow to keep up the fight for human rights in mental health.
UberTherapy and the Enshittification of our Relational Lives: Part 2 of our Interview with...
Elizabeth Cotton traces how digital therapy can block the very thing people come for: a stable, human relationship that can hold fear, dependency, and ambivalence.
The FDA Allows Ineffective Devices to Come to Market
“The main take-home message is that regulatory approval doesn't mean a device works. It means it's safe,” according to Katya Rubia, PhD.
When the Government Becomes the Source of Trauma for Children
Decades of research on attachment and developmental trauma tells us what happens when we separate children from their caregivers under terrifying and uncertain conditions.
Patriarchy Leads To Insanity
I am hopeful that for me and others, DSM-driven diagnoses like “bipolar” can be seen as more transient states, as part of a greater journey of the soul.
UberTherapy and the Enshittification of our Relational Lives: Part 1 of our Interview with...
With UberTherapy, Elizabeth Cotton follows the gig-economy playbook into psychotherapy, where platforms lower costs by depressing wages and standardizing treatment.
What 776 ECT Recipients Want You to Know
What stands out is the consistency between individuals’ experiences. Most of the costs were lasting, life-altering consequences.
Visual Snow Syndrome: Can SSRIs Literally Change How You See the World?
SSRI antidepressants have been linked to a number of adverse effects. A recent study presents evidence that a new condition may need to be...
What Do Psych Survivors Want Instead of Psychiatric Coercion?
One does not simply forget the dehumanization of coercion in psychiatric practices. It is traumatic. How is adding another distressing experience to an individual’s life therapeutic?
Weekly Research Digest: Psych Drugs Linked to Poor Heart Health and Gastrointestinal Bleeding
This week Mad in America examines studies related to adverse events associated with antipsychotics and antidepressants, including two studies that found increased risk of...
Winning Mad Liberation with a New Strategy: Solidarity
The mad movement must build connections with everyone challenging the roots of our cruel gangster capitalism imperialist system.
None of the 22 FDA Approvals for Psychiatric Drugs in the Last Decade Were...
Established drugs were repurposed, “me-too” drugs were approved, and even the few new biological approaches lacked clinical utility.
Psychobabble of the Month: ECT Hailed as Method to Gain Consent for Forced Drug...
Refusal to take clozapine was considered evidence of mental illness, and forced ECT changed her mind; the researchers call this "consent."
A Mother’s Story of Love, Loss, and a Fight Born from Tragedy
My daughter, London, was only 12 years old when she tragically died from an overdose of pills, shortly after being prescribed an SSRI.
Food First, Pharma Last: Part Two of our Interview with Chris Masterjohn
Chris Masterjohn joins us to discuss the biochemistry of our stress response and the potential benefits of balanced nutrition for those in psychiatric drug withdrawal.
