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Fighting Forced Treatment in Court: A Victory is to Be Celebrated

Mad in America

Many doctors gradually realize how our health care system does not bring people to health but keeps many in a cycle of chronic disease. As a hospital-based psychiatrist, every day I saw how peoples lives had been ruined by psychiatric drugs. He had nothing to do during the day and ended up sleeping a lot. Across the St.

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Mood Tracking: My System for Reducing Psychiatric Hospitalizations

Mad in America

D uring my first psychiatric hospitalization in 1998, I was strapped down, placed in 4-point restraints, and administered a painful catheter—apparently because I had peed on the floor during the course of my psychotic episode. Captivity By my count (with an assist from my mother) I’ve had 12 psychiatric hospitalizations in my life.

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“There’s No Word for Depression in Zulu”: Inside South Africa’s Mental Health Crisis

Mad in America

R esearch has found South Africa consistently ranks in the bottom three performing countries in terms of global mental health. Photo by tuxone The Mental State of the World Report measures the mental health of internet users only, making it limited in the South African context where close to one-third of the population isnt online.

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How to Learn to Love to Write: A Mental Health Journey

Mad in America

Wake up, school, homework, sleep, repeat. You start believing the voices and get sent into an unlivable mental state. You can’t cry, you can’t sleep, you can’t feel. You’re exhausted, both mentally and physically. You don’t feel safe at home or the hospital. You continue struggling.

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Is Public Psychiatry Responding to the Mental Health Crisis or Just “Treating the Chart?”

Mad in America

He was confused, not fully out of the psychotic episode that had landed him in the hospital weeks before. The topic of mental health is on the public’s mind, whether it’s the popularizing of therapy speak, the increased attention paid to severe mental illness and homelessness, or pop psychology advice on TikTok.

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The Patient-Enemy: How Derrida Helps Explain Psychiatry’s Cruelty and Care

Mad in America

Such patients have enough social and mental quirks to merit permanent custodial care.” I think we can gain some insight from Jacques Derrida’s work on hospitality. Derrida begins his study with an etymological analysis of the word “hospitality.” ” There are many interesting implications of this paper.

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The Path from Trauma to The Power of Nature: An Interview with Banning Lyon

Mad in America

An account of the abuse he suffered after being hospitalized in a psychiatric facility at age 15 and the long journey toward joy and awe that followed, his memoir was published this spring by Penguin Random House. If you don’t mind, if we could start with the chair—with your hospitalization. How did this story start?