Antidepressants Still Linked to Increased Suicide Risk
Bias and financial conflicts in antidepressant trials “contribute to systematic underestimation of risk in the published literature.”
Sherry Julo, Ed White and John Read – Online Support Groups for Psychiatric Drug...
This week on the MIA podcast, we discuss a recent paper that considers the support provided by online support groups when people seek help for psychiatric drug withdrawal. It was published in the journal Therapeutic Advances in Psychopharmacology in January 2021 and the authors are Sherry Julo, Ed White and John Read.
How to Support Healing from Psychosis Versus Imposing Social Control
This article is written for the loving supporter or social worker. My hope is that it will help you gain strategies for how to handle the relationship with someone experiencing psychosis.
Confused, Accused, and Retraumatized
At the hospital, what traumatized me the most was that my freedom was in the hands of a professional who was steadfast in his conviction that I was feeling things I was not.
What Happens to Your Mental Health When You Can’t Pay Your Rent?
From The New York Times: There is no one cause for any suicide. But research shows that there is a connection between people’s ability to pay rent each month and their mental health.
Informed Consent Must Reflect Information from Online Withdrawal Forums
Online withdrawal forums document an assortment of risks associated with discontinuation of psychiatric drugs. Such information is readily available and must be disclosed during informed consent.
Why Mental Health Researchers Are Studying Psychedelics All Wrong
From Salon: The rigidity of reductive clinical research belies the organic and expansive nature of the psychedelic experience.
Mental Health Survival Kit, Chapter 2: Is Psychiatry Evidence Based? (Part 1)
Psychiatric diagnoses are not built on science but are consensus-type exercises where it is decided by a show of hands which symptoms should be included in a diagnostic test.
Massachusetts Residents Urged to Support Informed Consent Bill for Benzodiazepine Use
Ongoing until April 1st: The Benzodiazepine Information Coalition is asking ALL Massachusetts residents to write their legislators and ask them to co-sign The Benzo Bill, HD.285/ SD.1370.
Madness Network News – Call for Writing and Art! Submissions Due Mar. 30
Madness Network News is looking for writing and art submissions from psychiatric survivors, mad people, inmates and ex-inmates.
Our Culture Is Abusive
Emotions are viewed as dangerous liars in this culture, and those who express them in a way that makes people in power uncomfortable are diagnosed as "mentally ill."
Why Is Electroshock ‘Therapy’ Still a Mainstay of Psychiatry?
From Aeon: Even before knowing the research on ECT, I’d had a gut reaction, as a young psychiatric nursing aide, that something was dreadfully wrong.
Patients as Partners: A Social Empowerment Approach to Health and Mental Health
Hugh Polk and Ann Green discuss social medicine with Jessie Fields, a medical doctor working in Harlem, a community leader, and an advocate for transforming our health and mental health care system.
Brain Imaging Study Paused After LGBTQ+ Advocates Complain
From MedPage Today: Ezak Perez of Gender Justice LA said the "research design unapologetically aims to cause mental health distress to trigger 'dysphoria' to an already marginalized and vulnerable community."
College Tuition Sparked a Mental Health Crisis. Then the Hospital Bill Arrived.
From KHN: A student from Mumbai with an interest in comedy discovers that college tuition, hospital bills, and psychiatric treatment are all very bad jokes in America.
Torture at Lake Alice “Hospital”, New Zealand
Lake Alice was a psychiatric institution in New Zealand connected with hundreds of reported abuses, especially of children. A new Royal Commission evidence-gathering hearing is set for this year.
Mental Health Survival Kit, Chapter 1: This Book Might Save Your Life
The term “psychiatric survivor” says it all in just two words. In no other medical specialty do the patients call themselves survivors because they survived despite being exposed to that specialty.
Another Failed Study of “Personalized” Depression Treatment
Due to lackluster antidepressant study results, researchers test if subgroups of depressed patients show greater improvement.
Mental Health Is a Political Problem
From Tribune: Mental health is often framed in individual terms with individual solutions – but rising levels of depression, anxiety and stress across society make it clear that we need political answers.
Remembering Jennifer Kinzie (1979-2021)
Jennifer Kinzie was a licensed mental health counselor who used her lived experience to guide her work—not only as a counselor and therapist, but also as a volunteer with psychiatric survivor groups.
Human Rights Abused on Mental Health Wards
From the Morning Star: Ruth Hunt looks at how excessive medication and violence have become part and parcel of "mental health treatment."
Creative Maladjustment: An Interview with Donzaleigh Abernathy
Donzaleigh Abernathy—goddaughter of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.—shares her thoughts on the civil rights movement and the legacy of racism in the United States.
Keys to Successful Discontinuation of Antipsychotic Medication
Qualitative study finds that both internal resources and systemic factors play a role in antipsychotic discontinuation outcomes.
Antioch, CA, Police Murder Man in Mental Crisis by Kneeling on His Neck for...
From CNN: When Antioch police officers arrived, they made no attempt to understand the situation and immediately grabbed Quinto from his mother's arms, the family's lawyer said.
No Officers Indicted in Death of Daniel Prude, a Black Man Pinned and Hooded...
From The Washington Post: A medical examiner ruled Prude’s death a homicide, and experts say officers neglected to use known tactics for helping people in crisis while arresting the 41-year-old man.
