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

Mad in America

In the article, Torrey reviews the history of the Human Genome Project, their hopes for identifying the genetic basis for schizophrenia, and how those hopes have been dashed by the complete failure to find anything of the sort. Yet laypeople, and many mental health professionals, still believe that schizophrenia is a genetic disorder.

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My Chronic Illness Was Misdiagnosed as ‘Mental Illness’

Mad in America

I was in the hospital with an undiagnosable physical illness that presented with multiple, some would say peculiar, symptoms. I probably would have died in the psych hospital because they refused to let me go to the medical hospital for a feeding tube. I had no history whatsoever of mental health issues or mental illness.

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Mad in America’s 10 Most Popular Articles in 2024

Mad in America

Searching for the Psychiatric Yeti: Schizophrenia Is Not Genetic In January, Peter Simons wrote that the 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. Nor have any new treatments become available from this research.

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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. In short, ten years ago the WHO called for a paradigm shift in mental health care. In short, ten years ago the WHO called for a paradigm shift in mental health care.

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What Is Beyond a Diagnosis?

Mad in America

I was now terrified to leave my home and so it had taken several panic attacks just to get to the hospital. My mental health went down fast this time. All those symptoms came back and worse until I was unable to get out of my bedroom, stuck in a world of mental terror. They beat me so hard I ‘knew’ I was going to die.

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The Clinical, Social, and Cultural Harm of an Iatrogenic Psychiatry

Mad in America

Iatrogenesis is social when medicine as an institution and a bureaucracy creates ill-health by increasing stress; by subverting autonomy and community support; and by depoliticizing sources of illness. For Illich, the iatrogenesis of modern medicine is clinical when harm to individuals results specifically from medical treatment.

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Letting Go of Lithium

Mad in America

My sister took antidepressants and my family has a lot of mental health issues, so based on that, I was thrown into the same category. I felt like I had taken a magical pill to cure whatever might have been wrong with me… until I crashed, became paranoid and landed in the hospital. And they did.