Blogs

Essays by a diverse group of writers, in the United States and abroad, engaged in rethinking psychiatry. (The directory of personal stories can be found here, and initiatives here).

The Importance of Grief—in the Psychological Process and in Our Lives

3
In order to mature and to process our pain—things that are unavoidable in our lives—it is necessary to confront this grief.

Individualized Understandings of Mental Health Mislead Us

4
Diagnosis separates the person from their world and detaches their pain from their circumstances.
Child with head down on table with books and school supplies, bright colors

How Not to Diagnose Your Child

4
The reflections of a mental health professional on saving her own son from invalid and harmful labels.

Like a Refuge and Like a Prison

5
From Mad in Puerto Rico: Laura LĂłpez-Aybar interviews Francisco about psychiatric hospitalization.
Female therapist hand on female client's hand

When Validation Becomes Avoidance: The Hidden Costs of Comfort in Modern Therapy

38
Each week, her therapist offered affirmations and reassurance. Her eating disorder remained comfortable and unchallenged.

Locura en Argentina

4
Editor Alan Robinson aims to provide readers with a magazine that represents them and the “mad cultures” found in Argentina.

Welcome to the Psychiatry Casino

45
Modern psychiatry is still, in many ways, closer to educated gambling than science. And patients deserve to know that.
Double exposure; sad woman with forest in background

A Place in the Forest: Mental Well-Being from a Wider Perspective

12
The whole social system as it is now is not designed with the purpose of well-being. Where has this gotten us?
Selective focus on blue-white capsule pills in blister pack

Public Citizen, the FDA, and SSRI Safety

14
The safe and effective treatment for depression is psychotherapy and social support, not prescription drugs.
VIENNA, AUSTRIA - Feb 09: Vienna Opera Ball is an annual Austrian society event which takes place in the building of the Vienna State Opera in Vienna

Beliefs that Create Madness

44
We know that it is not simply a chemical imbalance or a broken brain. We know how the context plays a large role.
Pregnant person consulting a doctor

Antidepressants in Pregnancy—Turning a Blind Eye, Again

6
You might think that telling women about the potential risks of taking antidepressants during pregnancy would be uncontroversial.
Shot of a young man comforting his peer on the steps

Sober Living: Why Less Clinical Sometimes Means More Recovery

9
Real independence is where most people stumble. Treatment can’t replicate what it’s like to live sober in the chaos of everyday life.
Collage of a complex person reduced to wooden blocks and post it notes of happy and sad faces

The Psychological Totalization of Experience: Objectification and Subjectivity

8
I must be a mechanistic, predictable unit, in order for a psychiatric label or a psychological variable to be implemented on me smoothly.
An elderly woman in a wheelchair tells a doctor (out of focus) about her symptoms

ECT: New Studies Detail Harms, Lack of Efficacy, Lack of Informed Consent

21
What people who have received ECT really think about what they were told, and about how ECT affected them.
BW photo. Man in a suit telling children

Narrative Reclamation: Who’s Allowed to Tell Their Story?

19
Narratives have the power to lock us up—sometimes literally. But they also have the power to set us free.
Soldier and politician shaking hands against flag of USA, closeup

Veteran Suicide Prevention Legislation Introduced That Will Save Lives

3
The bill will require prescribers to obtain written informed consent including the risks of psychiatric drugs.
Close-up of a person covered in white paint with gold cracks, kintsugi style

It’s the Cracked Ones Who Let the Light in

4
The identified patient is often the healthiest: a lighthouse desperately pointing the way to the wounds and power imbalances in the family.
A person is in the spotlight. A wooden figure of a man. People lie around.

Treat Systems, Not Symptoms: Defending the Sanity of the Oppressed

13
Pathologizing distress benefits psychiatry, hospitals, and pharmaceutical companies, but dampens responses that could dismantle oppression.
Crumpled papers in a trashcan

Cochrane Recommends Antidepressants for Anxiety in a Garbage In, Garbage Out Review

14
Cochrane's review of antidepressants for anxiety is misleading and harmful.
Enraged crowd of people are behind bars. Fence wire mesh barbed wire, vector silhouette. Street camera on the pillar. Sunset background.

Out of Sight, Out of Mind

43
Society’s practice of physically segregating privileged people from those they deem to be “less than” has deep roots beginning with the treatment of madness.
Miniature shot. People crowded in the lower right corner, walking

Where Did All the People Go?

4
The question that this history will try to answer is how Oregonian lives were affected by deinstitutionalization, in three phases.
A magnifying glass and pen on charts and data

An Approach to Making Sense of Psychiatric Research

157
I don’t consider myself a scientist in the usual sense, but I know a lot about what makes scientific findings more valid and useful.

Subpatterns: A Deeper Dive into Attachment Theory

4
Psychological issues have their roots in childhood and are linked to the attachment patterns we develop early in life.

Grossly Flawed Paper Denies that Antidepressant Withdrawal Effects are “Clinically Meaningful”

19
Pharma-funded researchers are endangering patient safety by minimising the incidence and severity of withdrawal.
Doctor explaining something to patient

Brain Disorders or Problems with Living? How Research on “Mental Illness” Went Awry

25
Is it time to consider the possibility that the entire field is a failed enterprise, a wrong turn in human history?