Robert Whitaker interviewed by Teralyn Sell and Jenn Schmitz for the Gaslit Truth podcast.

MIA Today

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Family Traditions and the Inheritance of “Madness”

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Families are not merely a source of comfort and support but also a breeding ground for dysfunction, unhealed trauma, and emotional neglect.
Medical informed consent paper document with signature. Agreement with doctor and patient in clinic. Information and purposes of medical scientific research. Treatment in hospital vector illustration.

What Does Consent Mean in Practice? A Lived Experience Perspective

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Every time I agreed to 'treatment’, I was told that it was necessary to save my life. I was sold a bunch of lies.

Mad in Portugal

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Mad in Portugal's readers can find blogs, book reviews, and first-person testimonials from voices less present in mainstream narratives.

The Betrayal of Professionals with Lived Experience

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I know that being “out” at work could help challenge stereotypes and reduce stigma but I hide. I have that luxury.
Upset Black boy holding pills

Usage of Depression Pills in Children and Young People Must Stop

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Our citizens would be far better off if we removed all the psychotropic drugs from the market, as doctors are unable to handle them.
Sad lonely man in depression. Vector illustration. Flat.

We Can’t Help People With Trauma If We Can’t Say Trauma

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Although the medical care Cary received was excellent, no one mentioned “trauma” or counseled us on how it might manifest emotionally.

Art, Poetry, and Humor Galleries

View the artwork, poetry, and humor galleries and submit your work. Or visit the Arts Corner.A colorful painting of two women, one wearing a hooded jacket and seated on a stool, picking at the hair of one sitting on the floor.Split by Ashley Nightingale

Rebecca Williams from University of Manchester is seeking participants for research on what potential participants want to know about psychedelic-assisted therapies. If you are interested in taking part, please contact  [email protected].
Dr. Morgan Shields of Washington University in St. Louis is conducting research on the experience of people utilizing behavioral health crisis services. They are recruiting people who have direct lived experience as patients/recipients or providers/clinicians and those with indirect experience as loved ones. If interested, take the 5-minute screening survey here.

Please join us on Thursday, June 26, at 9am PDT, 12pm EDT, 5pm BST, 7pm CEST for a special webinar on Recovery Oriented Cognitive Therapy for Psychosis: Living Well w/ Psychosis with Dr. Aaron P. Brinen, hosted by Ron Unger.

Wheat field

Heritability Explains Less About Mental Disorders Than You Think

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The focus on diseased brains and genes obscures the significance of social and environmental influences.

Two Decades of PSSD: A Life Stolen by Antidepressants

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Our two-year-long collaborative research project suggests that neuroimmune processes and related downstream mechanisms may play a role in PSSD.

Kermit Cole: Dialogical Therapy and Quantum Theory Walk Into a Bar…

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On the podcast this week we are joined by Kermit Cole who shares his thoughts on how humor can help in creating a shared experience that is helpful to the healing process. Kermit, in his experiences of being with people in psychotic states, has seen humor as a moment when a connection can be made. In many ways, this project is bringing Kermit back full circle to his work as a film director, early in his professional career.
Stock photo. Man in lab coat appears to scream in anger.

Criticisms That Establishment Psychiatry Can and Cannot Tolerate

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Criticism that uniquely applies to establishment psychiatry but not to medicine in general threatens its existential legitimacy, and is not tolerated.

Chemically Imbalanced: Joanna Moncrieff on the Making and Unmaking of the Serotonin Myth

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Joanna Moncrieff joins Robert Whitaker to talk about her latest book, titled Chemically Imbalanced: The Making and Unmaking of the Serotonin Myth. They discuss the serotonin story and the fact that there is no good evidence that a serotonergic deficiency is a primary cause of depression.

The Fight Against Involuntary Commitment: Are Protection & Advocacy Organizations Fulfilling Their Mission?

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Protection and Advocacy organizations were designed as ground-breaking tools for fighting involuntary commitment and protecting patients’ rights. Are they fulfilling their promise? And will they survive Trump?

EDITOR'S PICK

Psychological care without coercion – how care was provided at Nacka...

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The motto "no matter how confused someone is, they haven't lost their whole self" was a guiding principle at Sweden's first and so far only Soteria house, which operated during the 1990s. Here, psychiatric care was provided without coercion - a whole decade without either suicide or coercive measures. Majka Stenberg and Petra Horn explain how care worked at Nacka Soteria.

Another perspective on the Randers case: psychiatry is in deep crisis

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In 2006, the Danish Health Authority warned against combining antipsychotics with benzodiazepines because it increases mortality by 50-65% . But what do we see in the medical records? Virtually all patients with psychosis receive one or more antipsychotics and also benzodiazepines.

Beyond 180…some reflection

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If it is true that mental health is not psychiatry and that mental disorder is part of a distress that has its origin in a complex of factors, which in a somewhat too simplistic way are defined as bio-psycho-social, then I believe that psychiatry cannot omnipotently take charge of it but that it must find a less reductive interpretation than the currently dominant one.

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