MIA Today

Headlines of Today's Posts

The “Mentally Ill” Are LESS Dangerous

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From Daniel Kriegman: Releasees who had been identified as having a mental illness but lacked a history of substance abuse had the lowest rate of recidivism.
close-up of a police badge

Defunding the Police: Replacing Guns With Prescription Pads Is Not the Answer

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Mental health workers responding to emergency calls and crises results in coercion, labelling and othering, paternalism, force, and, yes, even violence, all under the guise of “for your own good.”

I Lost Direction, Forgot the Way Home – Fighting ECT

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From Israel Hayom: Just as they do not know how the treatment mechanism works, they also do not know how to predict damages or prevent them.

Study Finds SSRIs Associated with Increased Risk for Violent Crime

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Study finds an apparent connection between SSRIs, the most commonly prescribed type of antidepressant, and increased risk of violent crime.

D.C.’s Mayor Fights for Control of Her City at Trump’s Front Door

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From The New York Times: Kenneth T. Kucinelli of the Department of Homeland Security compared Mayor Bowser's requests with the mentally ill wanting less medication.

JAMA Psychiatry Retracts Antidepressant Study

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Once an appropriate statistical method was used, the study findings were “no longer valid,” according to the editors of JAMA and JAMA Psychiatry.
silhouettes of legs

Does Stranger Mean Danger?

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Are those diagnosed with “mental illness” more dangerous than other people? Or have we evolved to sense danger from anything that we believe to be different or "strange"?

Stop Saying This: Phrases That Sound Helpful, But Are Actually Gaslighting, Part 1

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Therapists seem to have a reference book where they go to find phrases that sound really helpful but are actually gaslighting and self-serving.

Donald Trump’s Assault on Mental Health

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From CNN: Chris Cillizza explains how Trump has a pattern of using mental health and mental illness to mock and denigrate his enemies
protesters with a sign reading "silence is suicide"

Black Suicidality and Mental Health #BlackLivesMatter

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Suicides in Black communities can be understood to be caused by an institutionalized inequality that requires Black folks to negotiate their quality of life with life itself.

George Floyd’s Autopsy and the Structural Gaslighting of America

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From Scientific American: As physicians, we will not be complicit in the ongoing manipulation of medical expertise to erase government-sanctioned violence.
police killings

End Police “Wellness Checks.” Now.

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If you are a mental health worker or advocate, there's a way to help dismantle police brutality and systemic racism in the U.S.

12 Black Mental Health and Wellness Resources to Follow on Instagram

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From Vogue: For us to be able to do this work constantly, we have to take care of ourselves, and that is so hinged on us having access and tools

14 Organizations and People Working to Support BIPOC Mental Health During the Coronavirus Crisis

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From SELF: We have compiled a list of organizations and people working to support BIPOC’s mental health during the new coronavirus crisis

Exercise for Youth Mental Health in the Lockdown: Interview with Psychologist Scott Greenspan

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School Psychologist Scott Greenspan discusses how to promote exercise and mental wellbeing for adolescents stuck indoors during the pandemic.
#blacklivesmatter

We Must Not Be Silent On George Floyd & Systemic Racism.

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Dear Mad in America community: How much have we grown? Can we join together in working toward our liberation, bound together as activists?

We Don’t Need Cops to Become Social Workers: We Need Peer Support

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From Medium: Can social workers do good work? Sure. But this is not about bad apples. This is about unrelenting systemic racism, ableism, and classism

Withdrawing Kids from Psych Drugs: Why, How, and When

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Here are methods for reducing or eliminating a child's psychiatric medications that I have seen work well over years of supporting families through this process.

Against Psychiatry

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From IAI TV: Psychiatry has spent the last 100 years asking what's wrong with people, but might it be more informative to ask what's happened to them?

Weaving Conceptual and Empirical Work in Psychiatry

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From Psychiatric Times: Having a crisp set of criteria for what constitutes a psychiatric dysfunction is impossible. There are too many social and conceptual nuances
social connection graphic

Recovery: Stressing the Social Basis of the Process

Recovery involves engaging in new material and social contexts and in open dialogues where new ways of understanding and handling the situation are created.
canadian flag symbol pointing toward the word "justice"

Canadian Mental Health Legislation and the CRPD

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Psychiatric survivors in Canada tell the UN that Canada is not complying with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD).

How Antidepressants Destroyed My Life

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From Marc Reinsdorffer: How I went from working as a frontend software developer in a exciting city to living in my parents basement for the last 1.5 years.

Weaving Beauty Into the Tapestry of the Pandemic

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From Psychiatry Today: We want to be sure that just as when we treat psychiatric illness with medications or psychotherapy, there are no unintended consequences

Coronavirus Has Worsened the Mental Health Crisis. Medicare for All Can Help

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From Jacobin: Even before the pandemic, our expensive, byzantine insurance system was failing to heal the emotional wounds of living in a capitalist society.