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Pigs in the Hospital: The Collapse of Venezuela’s Mental Health System

Mad in America

I n preparation for a course on clinical community psychology at my home university in Caracas, Venezuela, I stumbled upon a tweet from an anonymous student complaining about a family of pigs that had occupied the psychiatric hospitalization ward where he was supposed to develop his clinical training. His explanation left me distraught.

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A Remarkable Feat: A Psychiatric Patient Changed the Law on Restraints

Mad in America

He was admitted to hospital several times and spoke openly about his experiences with the aim of improving the treatment that people with autism receive when they meet the psychiatric system. Silas also got the ministry to commit to making an effort to improve the treatment of people with autism. This should be done in all countries.

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How We Started the Bay Area Hearing Voices Network

Mad in America

He was escorted him out of the clinic, handcuffed to a gurney in an ambulance, and taken to our county’s mental hospital. When I was finally permitted to see him three days later, he was lying on the ground in the hospital’s rec room, alone, shaking from the side effects of the Haldol they had given him.

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“There’s No Word for Depression in Zulu”: Inside South Africa’s Mental Health Crisis

Mad in America

LANGA TOWNSHIP, SOUTH AFRICA – JANUARY 28, 2014 – Schoolchildren poses for a photograph along a roadway in Langa, South Africa, a township located on the outskirts of Cape Town. Her mother Patricia has been diagnosed with bipolar I and is currently in hospital. My mom takes handfuls of pills, she tells me.

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My Red October – An Army Veteran’s Crucible to Recovery

Mad in America

It all started in 2014, less than a year after my honorable discharge from the Army, and shortly after returning home from Afghanistan, where I’d served as an Apache helicopter mechanic. The nightmare that was my inpatient hospitalization, combined with my newly developed distrust of those around me, exacerbated my previous traumas.

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Giving Caregivers a Platform: Meagan, Mother of Matt

Mad in America

For a period of four years, from 2014 through 2018 during his decline and overwhelm, Matt was prescribed five different antidepressants layered on top of one another without tapering, which ignited a cycle of adverse reactions. We learned that hospital detox programs do not safely taper benzos, but Matt was desperate and decided to apply.

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Accounting for Mental Disorder: Time for a Paradigm Shift

Mad in America

Thomas Insel, after retiring from his dozen years as director of the NIMH, spending 20 billion dollars on biological research, admitted that he had not been able to improve psychiatric treatment outcomes, reduce hospitalizations, or reduce suicide.