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Heritability Explains Less About Mental Disorders Than You Think

Mad in America

However, mental disorders are not concrete things that can be found with a brain scanner or treated with medication like a bacterial infection with antibiotics. Much has already been written about these points, for example in my book on mental health and substance use (open access). Bipolar disorder 413,000 64 4.6

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Psychology, Personhood, and the Crisis of Neoliberalism: Jeff Sugarman on Theoretical and Critical Psychology

Mad in America

Sugarman has spent decades critically interrogating the ways mainstream psychology reflects and reinforces the ideologies of neoliberalism , shaping how we understand identity, mental health, and human development. Take multiple personality disorder , for example. The transcript below has been edited for length and clarity.

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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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Human

Mad in America

They advised me that if I followed their recommended protocols of therapy and pharmacology, I would inevitably be led, like an obedient Kool-Aid sheep, to better emotional, psychological, and physical health. I was considered ‘mentally unstable’ because an unqualified crisis line volunteer disclosed false information to the police.

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We Can’t Help People With Trauma If We Can’t Say Trauma

Mad in America

Common causes include poverty, racism, bullying, neglect, physical and sexual abuse, domestic violence, gun violence, natural disasters, and, like Cary, accidents and medical trauma. The same has happened with other words that have been de-closeted, such as depression, anxiety, and OCD. This is very common.