Monday, 20, January, 2025

Fernando de Freitas: A “Dear Friend” Who Was a Warrior for Radical Change

Written by Robert Whitaker and posted to Mad in America on February 3, 2023 Over the past decade, the call for radical change in psychiatry...

Announcing Oral History Collection on Mental Health Activists in Manitoba

Stories are us.  Finding ourselves in history, we figure out who we are and where we belong and how what we do fits with...

Kassi’s Mom

Thank you for having me. I walk around angry, jaded and bitter. I am not religious but I have begged bargained and negotiated with...

Freedom To Be – Herstory Writing Workshop

Freedom To Be A 15-week Herstory Writing Workshop for those harmed by being labelled BPD, hosted by Rebecca Donaldson & The Herstory Writing Network. When: Sundays,...

Rethinking Psychiatry …. Robert Whitaker Speaks in Montreal

Robert Whitaker, founder and president of Mad in America, gave a public lecture at Concordia University on November 10th. 'Rethinking Psychiatry: How the Failure to...

Responses to the ‘No Chemical Imbalance Study’: A Long-awaited Watershed Moment?

Initial reactions to the 20 July publication of the Moncrieff et al. study have included widespread media coverage in some places, and the metaphorical...

Loss, Grief, and Betrayal: Psychiatric Survivors Reflect on the Impact of New Serotonin Study

Loss, grief, and a sense of betrayal are felt deeply by many who have been affected by the myth of the chemical imbalance—a myth...

No evidence of a chemical imbalance in depression

The serotonin theory of depression: a systematic umbrella review of the evidence. Joanna Moncrieff and 5 colleagues undertook a systematic umbrella review of evidence aimed...

Queer and Trans Madness: Struggles for Social Justice

This book puts Mad Studies and activism in conversation with queer and trans activism and resistance. When I first came across what would eventually...

The Ethics of Psychiatry

A government cannot legitimately own its citizens' bodies. Yet, under British Columbia’s (BC) Mental Health Act the BC government, not to mention governments around...

Bell Let’s Talk: Are These “New Conversations” Helpful?

January 26th is Bell Let’s Talk Day. From the Bell Let’s Talk website: "In September 2010, Bell Let’s Talk began a new conversation about Canada’s...

BC Government’s Quest to Halt Charter Challenge to BC’s Unconstitutional Mental Health Act Continues...

From the Community Legal Assistance Society of BC:  "Today, the government of British Columbia is continuing its five-year campaign to prevent the courts from...

When Tapering Antidepressants, is Going Slow Always the Best Strategy?

I start this blog with an apology. There may be people reading who, like myself, look back with frustration and despair that they cannot...

How are we doing?

We’re 21 months and counting into this global pandemic. And just when we think we’re getting close to the end, this wicked virus dumps...

On “knowing,” activism and writing: Remembering Graeme Bacque

  We owe a debt of gratitude to activists who over the years have written, recorded, created art and cultural work that exemplifies how, when,...

Is psychiatry such a fragile house of cards?

On October 9, 2021 an opinion piece was published in the Globe and Mail entitled ‘Woke’ psychiatrists have lost sight of the biological causes...
Report

“Detained: Rights of children and youth under the Mental Health Act”

On Jan. 19, 2021, B.C.’s Representative for Children and Youth published a scathing report on the rights of children and youth under the Mental...

RIP: Ed White – Advocate, Researcher and Supporter

To read the original of this post click here to go to the Mad in the UK site By James Moore -17/10/2021 It is with great...

World Mental Health Day – Sunday, October 10, 2021

Today - Sunday, October 10th - is World Mental Health Day. According to the World Health Organization, "The overall objective of World Mental Health Day...

Mental Health Advocacy and Activism: Perspectives on Systems and Social Transformation

About this event This is an online event. You can register here. Note: You can register for free with the code "Freebie." Co-sponsored by Mad in America...

“Cured”

Bruce Levine reviews “Cured,” a PBS Independent Lens documentary about gay liberation from psychiatry to be broadcast on October 11, 2021.  Levine writes: "Cured is...

23rd Annual ISEPP Conference October 9-10, 2021

Notice of the 23rd Annual ISEPP Conference "The Destructive Propaganda of the Mental Health Industry: How Did We Get Here? Where Are We Going?" on...

“Asylum”

This story, published in Aeon, about a hospital at Saint-Alban-sur-Limagnole, in southern France during WWII, has some lessons for us today. According to author...

AFN NATIONAL CHIEF ROSEANNE ARCHIBALD ACKNOWLEDGES NATIONAL DAY FOR TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION

https://www.afn.ca/afn-national-chief-roseanne-archibald-acknowledges-national-day-for-truth-and-reconciliation/ (Ottawa, ON) – Today, Assembly of First Nations (AFN) National Chief RoseAnne Archibald acknowledges the importance of Orange Shirt Day, urging all Canadians to...

Honoring Jane Whittington: 1950-2021

It’s with great sadness that I am writing of the sudden and unexpected passing of my former husband and best friend Jane. Many of...

Mental Health Advocacy and Activism: Perspectives from Living Experience-Based Practices

From Mad in America Continuing Education Thursday, September 23rd, 2021. 1pm Eastern, 12pm Central, 11am Mountain, 10 am Pacific Participants will be introduced to highlights of...

Remembering Don Weitz, 1930-2021

My hero, mentor, and very dear friend Don Weitz died comfortably, in his home, on the afternoon of September 1, attended by his loving...

Electroconvulsive Therapy …. What does Canada have to say?

Electroconvulsive Therapy, also known as ECT, shock therapy, and electroshock, is a psychiatric treatment that uses electricity to induce a seizure in the person...

The Need for Deinstitutionalization

Irit Shimrat All provincial and territorial legislation allowing psychiatric hospitalization and community treatment or outpatient committal orders must be abolished. People who behave strangely routinely get...

Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal Exploring Issues, Challenges, and Opportunities: #4 – The psychiatric drugging of...

Mad in America, the Council for Evidence-based Psychiatry, International Institute for Psychiatric Drug Withdrawal and A Disorder 4 Everyone are pleased to announce a series...