Mad in America

JANUARY 16, 2024

S ince the onset of the pandemic, misery and mental disorder have increased, raising considerable concern about mental health. It has become obvious that we need to be better at addressing issues related to our psychological well-being. 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.

Genetics and mental health 145

Genetics and mental health Trauma and the brain Anxiety disorders Construction 145

Harmony United Psychiatric Care

JANUARY 18, 2024

What is Mental Misattribution?

Education 52

Education 52

Santa Barbara Sanctuary Centers

JANUARY 16, 2024

Last months groundbreaking ceremony marked Sanctuary Centers initiation of its forthcoming new building. To witness the launch of this transformative community benefit project was, of course, a thrilling moment. The project, which will provide 34 units of new housing along with co-located medical, dental, and behavioral health clinics, represents a milestone moment in the nonprofits 50-year history of addressing the holistic needs of individuals experiencing mental illness.

Nonprofits 52

Nonprofits 52

Mad in America

JANUARY 18, 2024

From CounterPunch : “Researchers have long known that any single antidepressant drug is little more effective than a placebo in the majority of trials, shown to be less effective than a placebo in some studies, and generally found to be ‘ clinically negligible’ with respect to depression remission, while often resulting in severe adverse effects; for example, resulting in a higher percentage of sexual dysfunction than depression remission.

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Mad in America

JANUARY 19, 2024

From The New York Times : “Employee mental health services have become a billion-dollar industry. New hires, once they have found the restrooms and enrolled in 401(k) plans, are presented with a panoply of digital wellness solutions, mindfulness seminars, massage classes, resilience workshops, coaching sessions and sleep apps. These programs are a point of pride for forward-thinking human resource departments, evidence that employers care about their workers.

Sleep and mental health 109

Sleep and mental health 109

Mad in America

JANUARY 17, 2024

M ark Freeman is a renowned author and a pioneering voice in the emerging field of the psychological humanities. He serves as Distinguished Professor of Ethics and Society in the Department of Psychology at the College of the Holy Cross. His body of work, including the critically acclaimed Toward the Psychological Humanities: A Modest Manifesto for the Future of Psychology (Routledge, 2023), offers a profound reimagining of psychology, interweaving it with the arts and humanities to better under

Self-awareness 109

Self-awareness Construction Education 109

Mad in America

JANUARY 18, 2024

O ne of the issues that frequently come up in these pages, and in other places where institutional approaches to ‘mental health difficulties’ are discussed, is the discrimination (or stigmatisation) suffered by people identified as ‘mentally unsound’. Beyond individual accounts there are heaps of formal research data that point to damaging effects upon family life and access to housing, and upon friendships, intimate relationships and attitudes to childcare.

Self-awareness 104

Self-awareness Construction Technology Pharmaceuticals 104

Mad in America

JANUARY 19, 2024

I had researched a great deal on the origins of psychosis, in a need to understand my own, but the majority of what I came across in the mainstream was all theory-based via invisible writers, many long dead. A lot of what was written was by men, and the language quite intellectual and dry. I wanted to hear from people with experiences not theories. I knew of someone who worked in the local mental health system.

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Mad in America

JANUARY 16, 2024

From alice-miller.com : “The longest journey of my life was the journey to my own self. I do not know whether I am an exception in this matter, or whether there are other people who have experienced the same thing. It is certainly not a universal experience: fortunately, there are people who from the moment of their birth were lucky enough to be accepted by their parents for what they were, with all their feelings and needs.

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Mad in America

JANUARY 15, 2024

From Mifrasim Institute for Psychotherapy Research and Teaching : A recent conference in Israel explored medication-free alternatives for psychotic disorders, and how attitudes and patterns of medication use are related to different aspects of the identity and domains of recovery. The topics covered in the series of talks included: Lived experience expertise in research collaborations Identity development in people with ‘smi’; Implications for daily functioning and exploring the effe

Identity development 100

Identity development 100

Mad in America

JANUARY 17, 2024

From Mother Jones : “In March 1911, the segregated Crownsville asylum opened outside Baltimore, Maryland, admitting only Black patients. It was the first to house Black people in the state, but when they arrived, their main role wasn’t to get support—it was to build the asylum. The combination of ableism and sanism —harmful beliefs about the nature and treatment of ‘mental illness’—with anti-Black racism in the Jim Crow South all but ensured that Black patients were treated

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Mad in America

JANUARY 13, 2024

S emi-retired pop star Britney Spears is almost as famous for her 13+-year conservatorship —during which all personal, professional, and medical decisions were under legal control of her father—as for her music. So as a longtime reporter on her case , I was eager to read her autobiography, pointedly titled The Woman in Me. Since she was once deemed too “mentally ill” to run her own life, it’s a civil- and disability-rights landmark that the Grammy-winning performer is finally willing and able to

Trauma and the brain 145

Trauma and the brain Legal Aging and mental health Family dynamics 145