Is Psychiatry Working? | BBC Sounds
From BBC Sounds: Some people in difficulty, their families, clinicians, psychologists and psychiatrists themselves will tell you there are serious questions about the ways psychiatry understands and treats people in trouble.
Fernando de Freitas: A “Dear Friend” Who Was a Warrior for Radical Change
Fernando de Freitas, co-founder of Mad in Brasil, passed away January 30. He had devoted his professional life to seeking to transform psychiatric care in Brazil and beyond.
Informed Consent for Antidepressants
From The Guardian Letters: Dr. John Read argues people must be told of the high likelihood of emotional blunting and withdrawal effects when they are first offered antidepressants.
We Must Not Remove Legal Protections for People at Risk of Forced ECT
Written testimony submitted to the Connecticut State Legislature in opposition to a bill removing legal protections for those at risk of receiving ECT against their will.
When I Was 15, a Psychiatric Hospital Nearly Ruined My Life. This Advice Saved...
From The Washington Post: By the time I left the hospital, I was the scattered wreckage of a teenager, and would spend much of my subsequent adult life avoiding people.
How to Fix the Mental Health Workforce? Peer Counselors Are an Underutilized Resource
From The Seattle Times: Peers build close connections by relating to people in a way clinicians don’t, and they can get trained faster and start working, helping close the gaps in a mental health landscape desperate for more staff.
Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 2: Are Psychiatric Disorders Mainly Genetic or Environmental? (Part One)
Textbooks portray ADHD and schizophrenia as genetic disorders, despite the much stronger evidence for environmental factors.
Poisonous Pedagogy and Our Culture of Violence
From Shadowproof: Most psychiatric models fail mightily in that they reject childhood treatment as the key to later mental health status and interpersonal relationships, which has allowed parental and institutional cruelty to flourish for far too long.
MindFreedom Issues Shield Alert for Comedian Jim Flannery
https://mindfreedom.org/front-page/shield-alert-for-mfi-member-jim-flannery-being-held-involuntarily-in-middlesex-hospital-and-forcibly-drugged/
The Collective Denial of Evil and Its Impact on Psychiatric Treatment
From Narcissist Abuse Support/Sheri Heller, LCSW: Why aren’t victims more often believed, and why are facilitators of an empirical science denying the psychological reality of evil?
Threatened for Telling the Truth: Polish Journalist Speaks Out
Now I’m under attack, with threats of violence flung at me alongside threats of lawsuits. And all because I shared the large body of peer-reviewed research that contradicts the mainstream assumptions of psychiatry.
Feds to Investigate Nursing Home Abuse of ‘Antipsychotic’ Drugs
From AP: Evidence has mounted over decades that some facilities wrongly 'diagnose' residents with 'schizophrenia' or administer 'antipsychotic' drugs to sedate them, despite dangerous side effects that could include death.
Researchers Seek Standardized and Safe Antidepressant Tapering Protocol
A new study promotes the use of a standardized approach to antidepressant tapering.
“Hidden Valley Road” and Schizophrenia: Do Genes Tell the Story?
The “genetics of mental disorders” story told in Kolker's "Hidden Valley Road" involves omission and misrepresentation of genetic research.
Antidepressants ‘Should Be Reduced in Stages’ to Avoid Withdrawal Symptoms
From The Guardian: A new draft quality standard from the UK's medical watchdog NICE includes specific guidance for GPs to help adults come off antidepressant medication permanently.
Yale Changes Mental Health Policies for Students in Crisis
From The Washington Post: The changes, which come after former and current students sued the university, will allow students to keep their health insurance and take leaves of absence instead of being pushed to withdraw.
Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 1: Why a Critical Textbook of Psychiatry?
The discrepancy between opinion and science is prevalent in psychiatric textbooks. The coming generations of healthcare professionals will learn a lot during their studies that is incorrect.
Therapy Beats Drugs for Depression for Long-Term Outcomes
Combining drugs and therapy also did not lead to better depression outcomes than therapy alone.
Broken Kids, Not Guns | Michael Mendizza
From Touch the Future: To blame guns, TV, video games, Twinkies, the bully next door, bad genes, and all the rest for the pervasive violence, self-mutilation, self-medication, and suicide is a misguided defense.
Allies for Human Rights in Mental Health: Psychiatric Survivor David W. Oaks Interviews WHO...
"Psychiatric practice is too often violating human rights, too often incapable of understanding the suffering of people, too often unable to provide help to people who need housing, work, money, respect, inclusion and instead are receiving psychotropic drugs, electroshock, physical restraint, isolation."
A Conversation With Ann Bracken, Author of ‘Crash: A Memoir of Overmedication and Recovery’
From Medicating Normal: Poet-activist Ann Bracken's new book explores mother-daughter depression, chronic pain experiences, and struggling in a mechanistic and reductionist health-care system.
The Dividing Line Between Crazy and Not Crazy | Daniel Mackler
From Wild Truth: Being in touch with reality means seeing things clearly, without the veils or filters known as defenses. Thus, we’re all crazy to some degree, to the degree that we have defenses.
Project LETS: Building Peer-Led Mental Health Alternatives on Campus
Founder and Executive Director Stefanie Lyn Kaufman-Mthimkhulu talks about the organization's work to support struggling students and end discrimination against them.
Why Breakdowns Are Sometimes Necessary
From Sustainable Human: Everyone thinks that the way to get to love, happiness and joy is by avoiding the forest of dark emotions inside us. But we actually need to go through it in order to get to the Garden of Eden.
New York’s Mayor: We’re out of Ideas, so It’s “Back to the Cuckoo’s Nest”...
A psychiatrist obsessed with violence among the mentally ill, Torrey is dedicated to promoting involuntary hospitalization.
