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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. Fuller Torrey. Nor have any new treatments become available from this research.”

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Mental Disorder Has Roots in Trauma and Inequality, Not Biology

Mad in America

Moreover, in stark contrast to the discoveries by medical researchers of biological causation for many physical illnesses, psychiatric researchers have failed to find physiological or genetic causation for the most diagnosed mental disorders—the anxiety disorders and depression—negating the rationale for the prescription of these drugs.

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The Anatomy of Anxiety: An Interview With Ellen Vora

Mad in America

She’s the author of The Anatomy of Anxiety and takes a functional medicine approach to mental health. Sometimes, we think we’re experiencing deep mental health issues when we’re actually dealing with inflammation, chronic sleep deprivation, or blood sugar fluctuations. Listen to the audio of the interview here.

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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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What I Wish I’d Asked Dr. Gabor Maté When I Had the Chance

Mad in America

A few months ago, I attended a live Zoom event on Guidely with Dr. Gabor Maté, author of The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing in a Toxic Culture. He was talking about being abandoned for a month at the age of one because his mother was protecting his life during the Nazi occupation of Hungary. Is that even possible?

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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

The prevailing logic goes: if we can validate biometric tests that are clinically predictive of mental health concerns like in other medical fields, we can more precisely, effectively, and without (solely) subjective clinical observation, treat the malady. Should we give up the search for biomarkers altogether?

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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.