Stopping Antidepressants: Exploring the Patient’s Experience
From the Royal College of Psychiatrists: Professor Wendy Burn of the Royal College of Psychiatrists and expert-by-experience James Moore discuss the challenges of stopping antidepressants and what more is needed to better support patients.
For George Floyd and Black Men in Recovery, ‘Everything Piles Up’
From The Washington Post: Finding a way to live has never been a sure thing for Black men in America, who are taught from an early age that any misstep could lead to a prison cell or a coffin.
Podcast of the Ottawa Institute of CBT Interviews Robert Whitaker
From the Ottawa Insitute of CBT: The Thoughts on Record podcast speaks with Whitaker about the core themes of his book Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America.
Charity: Hundreds of Thousands With Mental Health Conditions Being Chained
From The Guardian: “Shackling people with mental health conditions is a widespread, brutal practice that is an open secret in many communities,” said Kriti Sharma of Human Rights Watch.
Teenage Hockey Player Working to Destigmatize ‘Mental Health Issues’
From ESPN: "No one with mental health issues should be called a burden," said Morgan Urso. "And that is the stigma I am trying to end."
‘Mental Health’, Extreme States and Shamans
From holisticelephants: The extreme ‘symptoms’ in our modern age are trying to tell us about problems we need to solve as a community before society blows up like a volcano.
Would More Social Justice Make You Happier?
From Greater Good Magazine: A new study finds that, after social capital, a country’s level of social justice is the second strongest predictor of people's life satisfaction.
‘Where Is Rudy?’: Giuliani’s Checkered Track Record as a Pharma Consultant
From STAT News: As a consultant, he has the dubious distinction of having advised two of the most notorious prescription drug makers, whose business practices jeopardized the health of countless Americans.
The Psychologist Who Sparked the Gay Rights Movement
From Aeon: “What is called this year ‘evil’ and whatever, next year may constitute the blessing of the human race.” ~ U.S. psychologist Evelyn Hooker
Are Critics of Psychiatry Stranded in a ‘Jurassic World?’
From Mad in the UK: It is increasingly common for psychiatry’s critics to be dismissed for allegedly being ‘out of touch’ with the theory and practice of modern psychiatry. Are they?
‘We Need Prison Time’: Purdue’s Belated Guilty Plea Gets Skeptical Reaction
From The Guardian: "Purdue Pharma and the Sackler family were directly responsible for inflicting immeasurable harm on communities around this country," said the lawyers for plaintiffs in the National Prescription Opiate Litigation case.
Abuse Survivors Fight for Justice After Police Drop Investigation at Child Mental Health Unit
From The Independent: Survivors of the Hill End Hospital Adolescent Unit in St Albans, UK, said they were sexually abused, filmed during strip searches, beaten, punched and sedated as a punishment.
UK ‘Sleepwalking’ to Mental Health Crisis as Pandemic Takes Its Toll
From The Guardian: Health experts and charities have said that lockdown uncertainty, fear, isolation and loneliness will be exacerbated by the colder and darker months ahead.
OxyContin Maker to Plead Guilty to Federal Criminal Charges, Pay $8 Billion, Close Company
From CNN Business: "Purdue Pharma actively thwarted the United States' efforts to ensure compliance and prevent diversion . . . [leaving] lives lost and others addicted."
Texas Social Workers Can Now Turn Away LGBTQ, Disabled Clients
From NBC News: The state Board of Social Work Examiners voted to change a section of its code of conduct last week following a recommendation from Gov. Greg Abbott.
Teenager’s Death After Being Given Antipsychotic Was ‘Potentially Avoidable’
From The Guardian: An inquest in 2018 ruled that the use of olanzapine was appropriate but the McGowans have now called for a fresh inquest, saying the first was “deeply flawed.”
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.
Belief in Neuroscience
From The Montréal Review: Today there is an almost religious fervor that neuroscience is capable of explaining all human behavior. That is to say, the worldview provided by neuroscience is accepted on faith.
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.
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.
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."
The Medicalization Movement: How Emotions Are Being Turned Into Diseases
From Medium: We being told that having human negative feelings is so wrong that it warrants us going down the rabbit hole to a world of medication, social discrimination, and possible isolation from our community.
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.
‘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."
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.
