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Searching for the “Psychiatric Yeti”: Schizophrenia Is Not Genetic

Mad in America

T he decades-long attempt to locate the gene or genes for schizophrenia has failed, according to a new article in Psychiatric Research by prominent schizophrenia researcher E. This paper is surprising since Torrey has long argued that schizophrenia is a brain disease to be treated biomedically. Fuller Torrey.

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Accounting for Mental Disorder: Time for a Paradigm Shift

Mad in America

S ince the onset of the pandemic, misery and mental disorder have increased, raising considerable concern about mental health. A well-substantiated body of scientific research argues for rejecting psychiatry’s biological/medical paradigm for mental health and mental disorder and replacing it with a social/psychological paradigm.

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Who Do We Leave Behind When We Ignore the Body? Why Critical Neuroscientists and Mad Activists Must Work Together

Mad in America

A recent Neuroscience News article is titled “ Bipolar disorder can be detected with blood test. ” Some neuroscientists argue that we should rather focus our efforts on the upstream social and structural factors, such as trauma and inequity , that create the conditions for mental health concerns to arise.

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The New WHO and UN Guidance: Psychiatry Must Entirely Change

Mad in America

A fter years of work involving hundreds of people in dozens of countries, the World Health Organisation (WHO) and the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) have released their joint production, Mental Health, Human Rights and Legislation: Guidance and Practice ( WHO/OHCHR , 2023, referred to as the Guidance.

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On Not Becoming David Foster Wallace

Mad in America

I didn’t know Wallace was a poster boy for antidepressant withdrawal because I didn’t know that antidepressant withdrawal was common, or that I would be experiencing it myself and understanding firsthand the hellish bodily and mental feelings that make one long for death, for everything to stop.

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Depression: Psychiatry’s Discredited Theories and Drugs Versus a Sane Model and Approach

Mad in America

P sychiatry’s serotonin-imbalance theory of depression, long discarded by researchers, was finally flushed down the toilet by psychiatry and the mainstream media in 2022. And psychiatrists’ primary treatments for depression—their so-called “antidepressants”—are now circling the drain. 2) What approach to depression makes sense? Genes and depression?

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Schizoaffective Disorder: Understanding the Incidence, Causes, Diagnosis, and Treatment

Now Psych

While the exact cause is still not clear, most experts point to a combination of genetics, brain chemistry and structure, and environment. Stressful events like trauma and substance abuse can trigger onset of or make symptoms worse in people who might be vulnerable. How Common is Schizoaffective Disorder?