Editor’s Pick

Week in Review

Courtroom scene with protesters

To the Few Psychiatrists Who Still Believe in ECT: See You in Court

- 6
I hope that legal cases like these will encourage psychiatrists to think twice before administering such a potentially damaging treatment.

When the Treatment Becomes Part of the Illness

- 1
Trusting the psychiatrists, I boarded a ship that would carry me on a decades-long and treacherous journey with psychiatric drugs.

When Financial Stress Becomes a Mental Health Problem

- 9
This week, Mad in America explores four new studies around financial stress and mental health. The first links financial stress to poor mental health...

My Mother Had to Be Dying Before Anyone Would Take Her Off the Drugs

- 10
On hospice, a psychiatrist finally said yes to deprescribing. Once someone is on hospice, taking medications away becomes the normal thing to do rather than the dangerous thing.

Mad Studies Is More Than Lived Experience: An Interview with Merrick Daniel Pilling

- 3
Pilling explains how Mad Studies moves from first-person knowledge to questions of sanism, psychiatric authority, mutual aid, and collective resistance.

The Existential Was Never Meant to Be Solved Alone

- 6
The sessions had value, but the relief I sought—a true shift in how I relate to the world—felt impossible.

Personal Stories

Personal Stories

The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations: Psychiatry’s Suppression of the Highly...

Alexandra R. Martin - 1
How many highly capable people are lost to a system that champions mediocrity as a necessary implication of mental illness?
Editor's Pick

When the Treatment Becomes Part of the Illness

Frank V. Alejandro - 1
Trusting the psychiatrists, I boarded a ship that would carry me on a decades-long and treacherous journey with psychiatric drugs.
Editor's Pick

My Mother Had to Be Dying Before Anyone Would Take Her...

Kat Vu - 10
On hospice, a psychiatrist finally said yes to deprescribing. Once someone is on hospice, taking medications away becomes the normal thing to do rather than the dangerous thing.

Blogs

Research News

MIA Radio: Podcasts

MIA Reports

Mad Studies Is More Than Lived Experience: An Interview with Merrick Daniel Pilling

- 3
Pilling explains how Mad Studies moves from first-person knowledge to questions of sanism, psychiatric authority, mutual aid, and collective resistance.

The West Doesn’t Have All the Answers: An Interview with Dinesh Bhugra

- 12
In this wide-ranging conversation on public mental health, psychiatrization, and community care, Dinesh Bhugra explains why meaningful lives, not symptom reduction alone, should guide mental healthcare today.

Unlearning Restraints: A Psychiatrist’s Journey from Patient to Practitioner

- 16
I had been the one whose fear was called dangerous, distorted into a label. Now I was on the other side, being asked to do it to someone else.

Go/No-Go—How Mental Health Research Took a Wrong Turn: An Interview with Author Marianne Apostolides

- 2
Marianne Apostolides discusses how Go/No-Go grew from her search for new eating-disorder treatments into a critique of the metaphors, experiments, and technologies shaping contemporary neuroscience and psychiatry. She argues that efforts to reduce distress to circuits, algorithms, and biomarkers often overlook subjectivity, agency, and the human relationships that meaningful care requires.

How the Moral Panic on Psychiatric Bed Shortages is Fueling a ‘Competency Crisis’ in the U.S.

- 5
The number of people referred to state hospitals as ‘Incompetent to stand trial’ (IST) has surged over the last decade. In response, states are refurbishing or rebuilding their state hospitals— even as their own experts say this will only make the crisis worse. Why?

Mad in Norway International Film Festival

Film Festival 2026

Mad in Norway International Film Festival Film Review: Being in a...

MIA Editors - 0
Ingrid grew up in front of a camera. Her German grandfather, eager to stay connected to the family’s life across the Atlantic, gave her father a movie camera. Ingrid loved being filmed and photographed, and she also felt a responsibility to cheer up her depressed father.

Around the Web

Research Studies

CALLING ALL PEOPLE LIVING IN CANADA WHO HAVE BEEN PRESCRIBED AN ANTIDEPRESSANT! Mad in Canada has created a short survey aimed at shedding light on the informed consent process experienced by adults who are living in Canada, and who have been prescribed antidepressants at some point in their life. Our survey is not about whether people should or should not take antidepressants. It’s about what people are being told about the potential effects of antidepressants, when they are prescribed. Learn more and take the survey here.

Research Participants Needed: Are You Reducing or Stopping a Psychiatric Medication? We are a research team at the University of Washington studying how people taper or stop psychiatric medications such as antidepressants, anti-anxiety meds, mood stabilizers, antipsychotics, and stimulants. If you are over 18 years old and currently reducing or stopping (tapering) a psychiatric medication, we would love to hear about your experiences. Click here to take the eligibility survey.

CALENDAR

STOLEN LIVES PICNIC: July 29, 2026, Zeist, Netherlands

OPEN DIALOGUE MEETING 2026: August 26-30, 2026, Hveragerði, Iceland

MAD IN NORWAY FILM FESTIVAL: September 24-26, 2026, Lillehammer, Norway

Art, Poetry, and Humor Galleries

View the artwork, poetry, and humor galleries and submit your work. Or visit the Arts Corner.

A drawing of a person with a Your Label by Moyu Watari-Alvarez

Song of the Week


Gettin’ Out by Fabulous Downey Brothers

Mad in the World

Latest Podcast