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Mood Tracking: My System for Reducing Psychiatric Hospitalizations

Mad in America

D uring my first psychiatric hospitalization in 1998, I was strapped down, placed in 4-point restraints, and administered a painful catheter—apparently because I had peed on the floor during the course of my psychotic episode. Captivity By my count (with an assist from my mother) I’ve had 12 psychiatric hospitalizations in my life.

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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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Call for Intervention in Case of Boy Left in Windowless Irish Hospital Room for 56 Days

Mad in America

From RTÉ : “[Irish] Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has been urged to intervene in the case of a 14-year-old boy who has been left in a windowless room off a hospital emergency department in Co Kerry for the last 56 days. He has been existing for 56 days in a windowless room off the emergency department in a hospital in Kerry.

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Prescription Drugs Are the Leading Cause of Death

Mad in America

3,4 This estimate was derived from a 1998 meta-analysis of 39 US studies where monitors recorded all adverse drug reactions that occurred while the patients were in hospital, or which were the reason for hospital admission. If we apply this estimate to USA, we get 315,000 annual drug deaths in hospitals. times as many.

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Dramatic Rise in Police Interventions on 988 Callers

Mad in America

However, none of this is stemming the stream of 988 callers who receive unasked for, unwanted, or unexpected visits from police and emergency medical services (EMS)—and then get taken, with or without consent, to hospitals or crisis centers for mental health evaluations. Where’s the accountability?” A therapist recommended 988.

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The Death of Joey Marino

Mad in America

In 2022 he put himself in the hospital to try to get help. From January 2022 to the end of February he was in the hospital in Mississippi until a friend picked him up and brought him back to Los Angeles to get treatment. The doctor at the hospital wanted Joey to do a spinal tap to see if there was something else going on.

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

Mad in America

In 2022 South Africa took the second-lowest position, with the UK ranking worst. The most recent local national survey , published in 2022, concluded that 25% of South African adults were likely depressed and that close to one-fifth suffered from anxiety. The UK and South Africa shared lowest place in the 2021 report.