Mad in America

That’s exactly what people’s emotions are. A dysregulated nervous system that’s begging for help (either due to an acute trigger or trauma in the past).

The social model looks at how society is structured and how it disables people. It is not a society led medical model response to a person’s impairment or perceived impairment labels. It is about what barriers exist.

And again: what do we believe in or what did we believe before the crisis? What are our beliefs that limit us? What are our strengths? What are our values?

I feel that in the end, my crisis was a very meaningful, even wholesome and healing experience for me. I had to face myself, process my emotions and also the pains and fears related to my early experiences on a very deep level.

Every year, several children receive psychiatric drugs incorrectly in child and youth psychiatry.

Currently, one of the biggest challenges that mental health must face in the Spanish territory is the increase in chronically ill professionals. This text aims to give visibility to this problem, clarify some concepts and provide possible solutions.

In a breakdown of meaning, the existential pain can be felt so real that the thought of escape becomes intrusive. If we dare to face other people's pain through care and empathetic presence, the suicidal can feel that they are not alone.

An article recently published in the Journal of Affective Disorders finds that mounting research evidence demonstrates the effectiveness of Short-Term Psychodynamic Psychotherapy (STPP) in the treatment of depression.

The findings of this study, to me indicate a need for more robust studies that develop and test interventions to support people who wish to discontinue psychotropic medication. Why are mental health professionals so reluctant to collaborate with courageous, highly motivated people who are willing to explore non-medical routes to recovery?

The author, Chiara Cattaneo, emphasizes an irrefutable reality: from emotional distress you can heal. But his story goes beyond healing understood as mere reduction or absence of symptoms.

Stories are us. Finding ourselves in history, we figure out who we are and where we belong and how what we do fits with the actions of others. Within great diversity there is common ground. Mental health activists across the world can connect across time, place, and person through collecting, saving, and sharing stories.

The autonomic nervous system forms, among other things, the connection between your emotional system and your stress system. The polyvagal theory describes how the autonomic nervous system responds to the experience of safety and insecurity.

It’s a persistent belief that depression is caused by low serotonin levels. But it's not true, according to a major British study. Psychologist Markus Dencker and social worker Lasse Mattila wonder why it is so quiet about the study in the Swedish media.

We are the invisible people, the special ones that require individual attention and mutual aid groups. We live a reality few people see. Not even the public administration, which should respond to the interests of all citizens, sees us; investment in us has been decreasing in the area that concerns us (and worries us). We invisible people are silenced by our mental health diagnosis.

The annual Mad in Norway seminar was held on 2 December 2022 with over a hundred participants in attendance. This was the second year in a row that the seminar took place at Litteraturhuset in Oslo, and it has become a tradition. Following is a summary of the talks and events that took place.

The audiovisual work of Mario Norberto Fernández Damas critiques psychiatric power while recovering the voices of those who have been oppressed by placing the user in the role of protagonists of their own stories. During the following weeks, Mad in Mexico will be sharing correspondences with Mario and others who have been involved in building Mad in Mexico. Through these correspondences they will continue discussing, questioning and developing the conversation around Mario's work and the various ideas that encompass it.

A psychiatrist ushers a 22-year-old out-patient into a room for an assessment. According to his medical notes, the young man has been stabilised on the ‘antipsychotic’ olanzapine several weeks after a first episode of ‘psychosis’. After asking the patient some provocative questions, the doctor tells him that his face is like a mask and he seems unresponsive and flat. The psychiatrist goes on to confirm a prior provisional diagnosis of ‘schizophrenia’, and relates this to the young man. The doctor also decides that prescribing an ‘antidepressant’ on top of the olanzapine might help address his observed flatness.

"I think psychologists want to believe that we are a science, we can control outcomes, and if people would just listen to our recommendations that they’d feel happier and feel better. I’ve at times seen a total disregard for systemic influences and things way beyond our control and the human experience itself."

The majority of clinical trials to evaluate the efficacy of antipsychotics, but also of antidepressants, are not reliable as the trial design is flawed and exposes some individuals to reactions of akathisia, a very disabling condition.

Whose voices are heard on platforms that communicate mental health experiences? How do people who have access to privilege and resources, shape what the public consciousness and understanding of psychiatric distress looks like?