Stop Saying This, Part Five: Fake It Till You Make It
Megan Wildhood discusses the flaws in phrases like "fake it till you make it," "you can choose how you feel," and "no one is responsible for your life but you."
De-Weaponizing Empathy
I am not immune to what I call weaponized empathy, which I see as the pure intention of compassion for another tainted with aggression around eradicating pain, pain that could be a source of growth for the sufferer if allowed to arise and pass away without force.
Insane Medicine, Chapter One: The Medical Model of Mental Health Is Finished
The concepts we use have undermined our natural resilience, sensitised us to an idea of our vulnerability, and encouraged us to transfer our agency to practitioners who use a system as if it has scientific validity and is clinically useful.
Nov. 1 Zoom: Meet Voyce Hendrix, Former Executive Director of Soteria House
From Rethinking Psychiatry: Voyce will discuss his time at the original Soteria House in San Jose, CA, an alternative to the medical model for schizophrenia that ran from 1971 to 1983.
Psychiatric Oppression Under Victoria’s Mental Health Laws
Public mental health authorities continue to oppress persons with psychosocial conditions through a combination of punitive and discriminatory laws that are constructed with a "best interests" paradigm in mind and a medical model that pathologises difference and dissent.
Has the Drug-Based Approach to ‘Mental Illness’ Failed?
From Scientific American: John Horgan interviews Robert Whitaker about how his views have evolved since publishing Anatomy of an Epidemic in 2010.
What is Open Dialogue Today?
Please join us on Friday, October 23 for OpenExcellence, HOPENDialogue, and Mad in America’s ongoing Town Hall conversation about what Open Dialogue is — and is becoming.
Marketising the Mental Health Crisis: How the CBT Empire-Builders Colonised the NHS
From Novara Media: The government’s flagship talking therapy service, Improving Access to Psychological Therapies, has become an empire, offering assembly-line state therapy to a society suffering the mental ill-health of neoliberal capitalism.
Antipsychotic Augmentation Increases Risk of Death
A new study finds that adding an antipsychotic to existing antidepressant treatment is associated with a 45% increased risk of early death.
Hundreds of Children Stuck in IL Psych Hospitals Despite State’s Promises to Find Them...
From ProPublica Illinois: “There’s not a whole lot that tells a kid you don’t matter [more] than keeping them locked up in a psych ward for no reason other than there’s nowhere to place them for months on end."
Can We Move Toward Mindful Medicine? An Interview with Integrative Psychiatrist Natalie Campo
MIA's Madison Natarajan interviews Natalie Campo about integrative psychiatry and holistic approaches to drug tapering and withdrawal.
The Smoldering Wick: Suicide and Faith
Some suicidal people may only benefit from the extraordinary selflessness and profound empathy demonstrated by St. Paul to his jailer. Credentials don’t measure for that.
Greater Exposure to Antipsychotics Associated with Worse Long-Term Outcomes
A new study finds adverse long-term consequences associated with the increased use of antipsychotics in first-episode psychosis.
Launch of UK Petition Calling for Independent Review of ECT
From Professor John Read/University of East London: At 10,000 signatures, government will respond to the petition. At 100,000 signatures, it will be considered for debate in Parliament.
Insane Medicine: How the Mental Health Industry Creates Damaging Treatment Traps and How You...
Yes, we need to drastically reform the foundational assumptions that govern the ideologies that pervade our systems, but many now know the truth about what is happening, and transformational approaches have been sprouting up organically in the rich soils of human creativity.
‘Hijacked by Anxiety’: How Climate Dread Is Hindering Climate Action
From The Guardian: "A measure of mental health is having the capacity to accurately emotionally respond to the reality in our world. So it’s not delusional to feel anxious or depressed. It’s mentally healthy."
Four Children
I went to the children’s ward, to work with the kids. I remembered to tell all of them that I had been locked up my whole childhood on psych wards, and this always made them trust me.
My Beautiful Psychosis: A Soul Process
To say a person is out of touch with reality is to ignore the validity of the reality that they are in touch with. This is not only disempowering, but also fails to celebrate the journey that the person is on.
We Are the 100%: World Mad Pride, Disability, & Revolution
This year, I finally got that first major speaking invitation: One of the four keynoters in the largest gathering each year for mental health consumers and psychiatric survivors, Peerpocalypse.
How Many Times Must the “PTSD” Label’s Harm Be Exposed?
A recent Wall Street Journal (WSJ) article and a recent American Psychiatric Association (APA) press release reveal the power the APA has wielded through its various DSM editions in pathologizing the effects of trauma.
Psychiatry’s Top Experts Acknowledge Lasting Harms of Antidepressant Withdrawal
Royal College of Psychiatrists’ former president demands support for patients coming off antidepressants.
How Little We Really Know About Psychiatric Drugs
Joanna Moncrieff reflects on what has and has not changed in the field of psychiatric drug treatment in the years between the first and newly published second edition of the Straight Talking Introduction to Psychiatric Drugs.
Is ADHD Diagnosis Flawed? Younger Classmates More Likely to Be Diagnosed
From Sociology Lens: If ADHD is a genetically determined neurobiological disorder, a child’s birthdate, gender and other factors should have no bearing on their chances of ‘having’ it.
Further Results Confirm Antidepressants Increase Risk of Violent Crime By 26%
Taking an SSRI antidepressant was associated with a 26% increased risk of violent crime conviction.
New Official Guidance: People Should Come Off Antidepressants Slowly
From MetroUK: The guidance from RCPsych is catching up to what many patients have been saying for years: antidepressant tapering should take much longer than a few weeks.
