article thumbnail

Power, Privilege & Controlling the Narrative: Vested Interests in ‘Mental Health’

Mad in America

It was written by David Hansen, a crisis worker at a person-centred, survivor-led mental health crisis service. I have tasked myself with mapping out my understanding of how therapy and mental health relate to politics. Mental health is also political. Is therapy political? Is therapy political?

article thumbnail

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 decided to agree with the medical model, that it was a genetic disease that could be treated with a medication, like diabetes. Being a brain doctor, he focused on the headaches. I was angry.

Insiders

Sign Up for our Newsletter

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

article thumbnail

ETHICS AND PSYCHOANALYTIC RESEARCH: THREE IDENTICAL STRANGERS

National Association for the Advancement of Psycho

Neubauer were conducting a study of identical twins and, in these three brothers case, triplets who would be separated at birth to determine whether genetics or environment was more important. The biological mother was Jewish, diagnosed with severe mental illness, schizophrenia. Viola Bernard and Peter B.

article thumbnail

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.

article thumbnail

Criticisms That Establishment Psychiatry Can and Cannot Tolerate

Mad in America

Establishment psychiatry does acknowledge that emotional suffering and behavioral disturbanceswhat it calls mental illnesseshave biological-psychological-social roots. medical schools. Worldwide, there are parallels to U.S. Iatrogenesis , which is defined as illness or injury caused by medical treatment.

article thumbnail

Why Failed Psychiatry Lives On: Its Industrial Complex, Politics, & Technology Worship

Mad in America

Thomas Insel, director of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) from 2002-2015, acknowledged in 2011, “Whatever we’ve been doing for five de­cades, it ain’t working. adults now takes an antidepressant”; however, Time continued, “Mental health is getting worse by multiple metrics.

article thumbnail

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.