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Post by Admin on Jan 12, 2023 18:48:42 GMT
From ‘Madness’ to Self-Mastery: Overcoming a Life of Disconnection By Eugenia Trujillo -December 30, 20224 6922 As a kid I had a vivid imagination and a sensitivity toward energies, people and surroundings. I was born in Manizales, Colombia, in the mountainous region of my country. Loving family, privileged childhood. But then I was terrified of the dark. I couldn’t sleep and had some cute awkwardness interacting with people. I was afraid of ghosts and afraid of ETs landing in my terrace or spirits pulling my feet while I was sleeping. Basically terrified of the unknown. I had no disorder, just a vivid imagination, an energetic sensibility and a high IQ (which I now call a fast, ‘thick’ and labyrinthine mind). I didn’t fit in in school or social circles and was extremely creative and dreamy, like most kids. www.madinamerica.com/2022/12/madness-self-mastery/Ghosts Popping out Everywhere: The Shifting Times We Live in and the Process of Psychological Growth By Iva Paska, PhD -December 29, 20222 1404 We are living in challenging times. Every day we hear or read or hear stories of racism, sexism, inequalities, oppression. Emerging, there are experiences of people who experienced mental distress, economic oppression, violence because they were different from the rest of the society. There are currently social uproars in different parts of the world, where people are rising up against authoritarianism and oppression. Compared to the situation twenty or thirty years ago, life in today’s society is an entirely different phenomenological experience—it is different lived experience in the sense that it currently seems that exposure of oppressive structures and fights against them are popping out on what sometimes seems as a daily basis. Many marginalized experiences that have been buried for a long time are now coming to light. It seems as if we’re in some kind of global shift. www.madinamerica.com/2022/12/ghosts-popping-everywhere-shifting-times-live-process-psychological-growth/
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Post by Admin on Jan 12, 2023 19:00:45 GMT
Changing Narratives: Reflecting on Mad in America’s Mission and Work For our 200th podcast interview, we are joined by members of MIA staff to reflect on Mad in America's mission and work over the last decade. By James Moore -December 14, 2022 www.madinamerica.com/2022/12/changing-narratives-mad-in-america-mission/This week is a special one for us at Mad in America, as it’s the 200th episode of our podcast. Our first interview was with attorney and author of Zyprexa Papers, Jim Gottstein, back in July 2017. For this and the next podcast, we’ll be talking to the people that make Mad in America what it is, the people behind the scenes, who keep it running day-to-day. Later in this podcast, we will hear from staff reporter Amy Biancolli, science news editor Justin Karter and arts editor Karin Jervert, but to kick us off today, we hear from Mad in America founder, Robert Whitaker. Bob worked as a newspaper reporter for a number of years, covering medicine and science. He is the author of five books, three of which investigate the history of psychiatry and the merits of its treatments. Those books are Mad in America, published in 2002; Anatomy of an Epidemic, from 2010, and he was co-author along with Lisa Cosgrove of Psychiatry Under the Influence, published in 2015. He was also a director of publications at Harvard Medical School for a time during the 1990s. Bob joined me to talk about how Mad in America got started and how it strives to achieve its aim of rethinking psychiatry. The transcript below has been edited for length and clarity. Listen to the audio of the interview here. James Moore: Bob, welcome. Thank you so much for joining me for the Mad in America podcast. You and I spoke some time ago, actually just before the podcast got up and running. So, it’s interesting to reflect on that time. To get us started, obviously, most people listening will know that you are the publisher of Mad in America and the driving force behind it. Mad in America got started in January 2012 and it looked quite different back then. I wondered what was your aim or objective when you first got the site underway. Robert Whitaker: What’s interesting is that there was no grand plan or grand vision for what it might become. The initial plan was very simple. I published Anatomy of an Epidemic and that led people to say, this is a scientific story that needs further exploration and we also need to hear from patients, people with lived experiences, what their experiences are. I heard this from psychiatrists, and I heard it from many people, that we as a society needed to rethink this whole story of psychiatric care. But, really, our initial vision was let’s report on science, and then let’s build a forum for people to write blogs and personal stories, and let’s put up some resources related to the research literature. That was it. There was no larger vision other than to start to set up a channel for a) knowing the science, b) hearing from people with lived experience and c) hearing from people thinking about what might be different, how to change things, how to build a new system of care. We started initially with a very small number of bloggers.
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Post by Admin on Jan 23, 2023 21:52:22 GMT
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Post by Admin on Jan 23, 2023 21:53:11 GMT
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Post by Admin on Feb 13, 2023 11:15:19 GMT
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Post by Admin on Feb 20, 2023 12:33:39 GMT
Psychology’s Reckoning with Racism and Mass Incarceration The racist foundations of psychology and psychiatry contribute to the mass incarceration of Black people in the United States. By Samantha Lilly -February 17, 2023 www.madinamerica.com/2023/02/psychologys-reckoning-with-racism-and-mass-incarceration/Stigma and Expected Retaliation Drive Suicide Among Military Sexual Trauma Survivors A new study finds that for sexual trauma survivors in the military, self-stigma and anticipated enacted stigma for seeking help are associated with suicidal ideation. By Woanjun Lee -February 15, 2023 www.madinamerica.com/2023/02/stigma-and-expected-retaliation-drive-suicide-among-military-sexual-trauma-survivors/Most Psychopharmacology Textbooks Have Financial Conflicts of Interest Study finds that the pharmaceutical industry makes large payments to the authors of most psychopharmacology textbooks, raising concerns of bias. By Richard Sears -February 14, 2023 www.madinamerica.com/2023/02/most-psychopharmacology-textbooks-have-financial-conflicts-of-interest/Declining Youth Mental Health May Be Driven by Increased Abuse and Bullying New data from Sapian Labs finds that young people today report more abuse and bullying than past generations. By Amy Biancolli -February 13, 2023 www.madinamerica.com/2023/02/declining-youth-mental-health-may-be-driven-by-increased-abuse-and-bullying/We’re Obsessed with Labelling Suffering, But Our Power to Think about it Matters More By Charlotte Beale -February 16, 2023 www.madinamerica.com/2023/02/obsessed-labelling-suffering/ECT Does Not Seem to Prevent Suicide A new study finds that people who undergo electroconvulsive therapy or ECT still have a highly elevated suicide risk. By Peter Simons -February 16, 2023 www.madinamerica.com/2023/02/ect-does-not-seem-to-prevent-suicide/Black Movement Leaders: Lost & Found By Sera Davidow -February 18, 2023 www.madinamerica.com/2023/02/black-movement-leaders-lost-found/Beyond Labels and Meds—Closer Look: HoJin Kwak By MIA Editors -February 14, 2023 www.madinamerica.com/2023/02/beyond-labels-and-meds-closer-look-hojin-kwak/
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Post by Admin on May 2, 2023 16:40:41 GMT
Unpaid Labor Takes a Toll on Women’s Mental Health, Study Reveals Systematic review uncovers the detrimental effects of unpaid work on employed women's mental health. By Richard Sears -May 2, 2023 www.madinamerica.com/2023/05/unpaid-labor-takes-a-toll-on-womens-mental-health-study-reveals/Federal Judge Finds Texas Use of Psychotropic Drugs on Foster Children ‘Appalling’ www.madinamerica.com/2023/05/federal-judge-finds-texas-use-of-psychotropic-drugs-on-foster-children-appalling/Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 8: Depression and Mania (Affective Disorders) (Part One) www.madinamerica.com/2023/05/critical-psychiatry-textbook-chapter-8-part-one/Can Listening to Heavy Metal Be Therapeutic? www.madinamerica.com/2023/04/heavy-metal-therapy/White Paper Presents Case Against Forced Treatment www.madinamerica.com/2023/04/white-paper-against-forced-treatment/Breaking Blind: Antipsychotic Drug Efficacy May Be Overestimated Only 4 of 188 antipsychotic trials assessed blinding, and in all 4 cases, the blind was broken, potentially leading to an overestimation of the drug effect. www.madinamerica.com/2023/05/breaking-blind-antipsychotic-drug-efficacy-may-be-overestimated/Critical Psychiatry Textbook, Chapter 7: Psychosis (Part Six) www.madinamerica.com/2023/04/critical-psychiatry-textbook-chapter-7-psychosis-part-six/Prioritizing Psychiatrized Individuals’ Knowledge and Agency in Mental Health Discourse Scholar-activist Jasna Russo examines the consequences of psychiatrization on mental health discourse, individual agency, and epistemic injustice. www.madinamerica.com/2023/04/prioritizing-psychiatrized-individuals-knowledge-and-agency-in-mental-health-discourse/How Historical Trauma and Racism Impact Mental Healthcare for Native American Communities Deep-rooted distrust of healthcare systems linked to past injustices and ongoing discrimination for Native populations. www.madinamerica.com/2023/04/how-historical-trauma-and-racism-impact-mental-healthcare-for-native-american-communities/Questioning the Representativeness of Participants in Psychological Research People with symptoms of personality disorders, anxiety, and depression are more likely to volunteer for psychological research. www.madinamerica.com/2023/04/questioning-the-representativeness-of-participants-in-psychological-research/Self-test for Adult Symptom Deficiency Disorder (ASDD) www.madinamerica.com/2023/04/adult-symptom-deficiency-disorder/Unveiling Brazil’s Rich Tradition in Participatory Mental Health Research An international team of researchers highlights the transformative potential of locally-driven participatory mental health research in the Global South. www.madinamerica.com/2023/04/unveiling-brazils-rich-tradition-in-participatory-mental-health-research/The State Power Triangle and My Spiritual Awakening www.madinamerica.com/2023/04/state-power-triangle-spiritual-awakening/“Making a Silk Purse Out of a Sow’s Ear”: Erick Turner on How Publication Bias Threatens Research Integrity and Public Health www.madinamerica.com/2023/03/making-a-silk-purse-out-of-a-sows-ear-erick-turner-on-how-bad-research-practices-are-undermining-our-health/Psychiatry’s Cycle of Ignorance and Reinvention: An Interview with Owen Whooley Ayurdhi Dhar interviews sociologist Owen Whooley about psychiatry's stubborn perseverance in the face of recent DSM embarrassments and the failures of the biomedical model. www.madinamerica.com/2023/02/psychiatrys-cycle-of-ignorance-and-reinvention-an-interview-with-owen-whooley/Chemicals Have Consequences—Antidepressants and Pregnancy: An Interview With Adam Urato, MD Adam Urato, MD, joins us to discuss what we do and don’t know about the effects of antidepressants on babies and mothers and the importance of counselling in order to aid families in making important decisions about pharmaceutical drug use. www.madinamerica.com/2023/02/chemicals-have-consequences-antidepressants-pregnancy-adam-urato/Racial Justice and Lived Experience in Mental Health Advocacy: An Interview with Pata Suyemoto www.madinamerica.com/2023/03/centering-racial-justice-and-community-in-mental-health-advocacy-and-suicide-prevention-an-interview-with-pata-suyemoto/Tanya Frank—Zig-Zag Boy: My Family’s Struggles With Broken Mental Healthcare "I think there is a little bit more attention on stories like ours, which I feel is hopeful, but I also think that it’s a hard battle because the pharmaceutical industry and the psychiatric model definitely have a lot of money and a lot of power." By James Moore -April 5, 2023 2210 9 www.madinamerica.com/2023/04/tanya-frank-zig-zag-boy-struggles-with-broken-mental-healthcare/Waking From the Nightmare: Is Recovery From Akathisia Possible? www.madinamerica.com/2023/04/waking-nightmare-recovery-akathisia/A Case Before the U.S. Supreme Court Could Surge the Psychiatric Labelling and Drugging of Native American Foster Youth www.madinamerica.com/2023/04/supreme-court-drugging-native-youth/Answering Awais Aftab: When it Comes to Misleading the Public, Who is the Culprit? www.madinamerica.com/2023/04/answering-awais-aftab/Pharmacology Gets More Cooperation Than Psychosocial Advice www.madinamerica.com/2012/05/11174/The Invisibles: Children in Foster Care www.madinamerica.com/2019/12/invisible-children-foster-care/We Don’t Have a Health Care System. We Have a Medical-Industrial Complex www.madinamerica.com/2023/04/americas-broken-health-care-diagnosis-and-prescription/
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Post by Admin on May 10, 2023 9:44:26 GMT
What Is the Risk of Permanent Sexual Dysfunction from Antidepressants? Males taking antidepressants were at 100 times the risk of erectile dysfunction compared with the healthy population and more than three times the risk even after controlling for other variables. By Peter Simons -May 8, 2023 www.madinamerica.com/2023/05/what-is-the-risk-of-permanent-sexual-dysfunction-from-antidepressants/Sexual dysfunction is a common and debilitating adverse effect of SSRI drugs, with up to 73% of antidepressant users experiencing it. Researchers have linked sexual dysfunction to the drugs’ numbing effect on emotions and proposed a biological pathway that may cause it. In many cases, this problem resolves once people stop taking antidepressants. However, in some cases, people are left with long-term sexual dysfunction even after stopping the drug. This has been termed “post-SSRI sexual dysfunction” (PSSD) and can be permanent. Because the risk of PSSD has only been recognized more recently, researchers are still attempting to discover how commonly this harmful effect of the drug appears. In a new study in the Annals of General Psychiatry, researchers attempted to quantify the risk. However, they were only able to estimate the risk for one very specific part of the PSSD community—males1 experiencing erectile dysfunction (ED). And they could only estimate this based on prescriptions for phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors. Thus, their study did not include PSSD occurring in women, erectile dysfunction for which men didn’t receive a prescription drug, and all other PSSD, including reduced libido, arousal, and lubrication; genital numbness; inability to orgasm; and more. The researchers found that 1 out of every 216 males prescribed an SSRI (from an extremely healthy subset, as described below) filled a prescription for phosphodiesterase-5 inhibitors within 12 months of stopping SSRI use (0.46%). The prevalence of ED in males in the general population was 0.0043%, so the males taking the drug were about 100 times more likely to have ED. After adjusting for age, socioeconomic status, BMI, depression, and anxiety, those who took an antidepressant were still more than three times as likely to develop ED than the general population (odds ratio 3.2).
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Post by Admin on May 10, 2023 10:00:33 GMT
The hidden risks of school mental health programmes www.madintheuk.com/2023/05/school-mental-health-programme/In a recent article published in the BJPsych Bulletin, researchers argue that school mental health interventions may inadvertently harm some adolescents. As the United Kingdom aims to implement mental health programmes more broadly in schools, the authors caution that a national rollout could exacerbate these adverse effects. They also provide possible explanations for why these programmes, intended to alleviate distress, might sometimes worsen it. The authors, Lucy Foulkes and Argyris Stringaris, from the University of Oxford, UK, write: “A growing body of quantitative research indicates that some aspects of school-based mental health interventions increase distress or clinical symptoms, relative to control activities, and qualitative work indicates that this may be partly due to the interventions themselves.”
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Post by Admin on May 15, 2023 20:58:35 GMT
DOOCE: A Case Study on the Failure of Psychiatry By J.A. Carter-Winward -May 11, 2023 www.madinamerica.com/2023/05/dooce-case-study-failure-psychiatry/Heather Armstrong died this week. If you’re not familiar with who she is, then you might not be a depressed single mother living in Utah. In the early ’00s, when writers were bloggers (not the other way around), Heather Armstrong rose to fame as a Utah-based “mommy” blogger who wrote about parenting, life, and depression. Back then, blogging had become a hopeful entry point for writers (including this one). All you had to do was write about relatable things, and… “they will come.” Armstrong’s blog, called “Dooce,” was a big deal in Utah because she was Utah-based and had been raised as a member of the LDS (aka “Mormon”) church. Based on the data, however, membership in the LDS Church is not a one-way ticket to paradise. In fact, Utah is one of the leaders in the country in antidepressant prescriptions, which is why Armstrong’s blog was so popular. Women were finally stepping out into the light, bringing with them the darkness they held inside.
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Post by Admin on May 24, 2023 21:53:53 GMT
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Post by Admin on Jun 4, 2023 23:56:21 GMT
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Post by Admin on Jun 14, 2023 15:27:49 GMT
Borderline Personality Disorder “No Longer Has a Place in Clinical Practice” Researchers from the UK and New Zealand argue that Borderline Personality Disorder should be abandoned as a diagnostic category. www.madinamerica.com/2023/06/borderline-personality-disorder-no-longer-has-a-place-in-clinical-practice/Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a diagnostic category in the DSM-V and ICD-10/11 that has faced constant criticism from various sectors. Critics argue that the term does more harm than good due to the stigma associated with the label and the way it pathologizes responses to trauma. Researchers have also questioned the scientific validity of BPD since it shares significant overlap with other diagnostic categories. Many suggest that it is time to retire this label. In a new article, psychiatrists Roger Mulder and Peter Tyrer present a well-informed case against the scientific validity of BPD and highlight the confusion it causes researchers and the clinical harm it causes service users. “Twenty years ago, George Vaillant, in a paper titled ‘The Beginning of Wisdom is Never Calling a Patient a Borderline,’ noted that the diagnosis of borderline often reflects the clinician’s emotional state rather than careful assessment,” the authors write. “This was not an isolated opinion, but we argue that little has changed, and borderline, in the context of personality, has now become a detrimental term hindering progress in research and treatment.”
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Post by Admin on Jul 28, 2023 23:05:27 GMT
Is Mental ‘Illness’ Actually the Brain Trying to Protect Itself? www.madinamerica.com/2023/07/is-mental-illness-actually-the-brain-trying-to-protect-itself/From Emergent Divergence: “People hold on tightly to the idea that they are mentally ‘ill,’ and understandably so. The deficit model of mental health has been pushed on us quite successfully, but what if it’s not the person who is ill? Consider depression. A person experiences a traumatic event . . . and starts to feel as though nothing goes well for them. They withdraw from their environment and isolate. Is this an illness, or is this the human brain doing its best to protect itself from trauma? Now consider that the cultures [we] live with, particular in Western society, actively punish people who have experienced trauma. There is a lack of welfare benefits, inadequate and under-resourced wellbeing services, and let’s not forget that humans are effectively judged by whether or not they make the right amount of profit while performing a neurotypical display so as to not make others uncomfortable. To me it seems clear where the suffering is actually stemming from, and it isn’t the person.” emergentdivergence.com/2022/09/14/is-mental-illness-actually-the-brain-trying-to-protect-itself/
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Post by Admin on Jul 28, 2023 23:07:50 GMT
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