Tag: Psychiatry
Failure to Follow New Research Guidelines Problem for Top Psychiatry Journals
Despite updated standards requiring preregistration of clinical trials aimed at improving transparency, most studies published in the top-5 psychiatry journals from 2009 to 2013 do not meet the new guidelines, according to an analysis published in PloS one.
âThe Problem With Psych Meds and LGBT Peopleâ
In an Op-Ed for The Advocate, activist Ally Nugent relates her experience of post-acute withdrawal syndrome and says that our mental health institutions disproportionately...
Protesting a Psychiatric Atrocity
On May 16, 2015, protests against electroconvulsive therapy or ECT will take place around the world. To support this educational campaign, I am releasing my newest Simple Truths about Psychiatry video which is titled âShock Treatment is Trauma.â Ted Chabasinski, an attorney, is an organizer of the protest. Ted recently talked about his personal experiences and the upcoming protests on my radio show, âThe Dr. Peter Breggin Hour.â We agreed that money and power is not the only motivation of shock doctors.  Many are taking out their violent impulses on their helpless victims.
âDoingâ Antipsychiatry on all Cylinders: Possibilities, Enigmas, Challenges
On several occasions I have written about the complexities of antipsychiatry politics, exploring more specifically, how to âdo our politicsâ in a way that moves society squarely in the direction of the abolitionist goal. In this article, I am once again theorizing the âhowâ of activismâfor understanding this territory is critical to maximizing effectiveness. However, this time round, I am approaching it from an angle at once more general and more practical. That is, I am investigating the tools or approaches at our disposal as activists.
Ode to Biological Psychiatry
Sometimes I get so sick of the lies of biological psychiatry that I must speak out. At these moments I find silence to be a kind of emotional death: a death of my spirit, a death of my critical faculties, a death of my courage. I speak out because I am alive and I wish to align with life.
Deconstructing Psychiatric Diagnoses: An Attempt At Humor
Based on my experience both as a therapist and client in the mental health field, I have learned that when therapists or psychiatrists give you the following diagnoses all too often here is what they really mean:
Psychiatry: We Need a Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Mental Health
My name is Leah Harris and I'm a survivor. I am a survivor of psychiatric abuse and trauma. My parents died largely as a result of terrible psychiatric practice. Psychiatric practice that took them when they were young adults and struggling with experiences they didnât understand. Experiences that were labeled as schizophrenia. Bipolar disorder. My parents were turned from people into permanent patients. They suffered the indignities of forced treatment. Seclusion and restraint. Forced electroshock. Involuntary outpatient commitment. And a shocking amount of disabling heavy-duty psychiatric drugs. And they died young, from a combination of the toxic effects of overmedication, and broken spirits.
Situational Schizophrenia
The label of schizophrenia has a chilling ring. It carries with it the suggestion of a wrecked and wretched life. It is also a diagnosis that is notoriously difficult to shed. For this reason, the diagnosis of schizophrenia should not be applied lightly and not without a thorough understanding of the patientâs family and wider circumstances.
A Challenge to “I Am Adam Lanza’s Mother”
As I write these words on a Monday evening, my spirit aches. It aches with grief for the lives lost in Connecticut last week; it aches with dread for our collective American future in Sandy Hookâs aftermath; and it aches with love and empathy for Michael, a thirteen-year old boy whose once private life has, for the last day and a half, been on display for millions to see, exploited by a mother whose opinions are representative of Americaâs most pervasive mass delusion: that âmental illnessâ is a biologically-based condition requiring psychopharmaceutical âtreatmentâ and âmental health careâ, and that âthe mentally illâ are a class of Other that threatens the safety, security, and health of America.
Launching the Beyond ‘Anatomy’ Forum
When I first read Anatomy of an Epidemic in 2010, something inside of me ignited. I had no idea that such a sensation was...
The Psychopathology of American Life
âIâm severely depressed.â
These were the words that Donesha*, a 35 year-old African American woman repeatedly uttered to me.
Is Psychiatry “Salvageable”?
A reader in the commentary here asked me if I think âpsychiatry is salvageable.â This is a timely question that requires careful consideration.
First, Iâll...
Pandora’s Box
This morning I remind myself to point my eyes forward. I tend to want to re-do the past and try to make bad things...
The Illegality of Forced Drugging and Electroshock
Court ordered psychiatric drugging and electroshock is illegal when measured against the constitutional requirements for forcing someone to ingest drugs, or be subjected to...
Bring in the Peer!
Around the country, consumers of the public mental health system speak of âempowermentâ, ârecoveryâ and âindependenceâ while being disempowered, and made reliant on a system that uses the word ârecoveryâ as only a buzzword. How can Peer provided services help?