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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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Beyond the Pill Paradigm: Reclaiming Humanity in Mental Health Care

Mad in America

I n the clean hallways of today’s mental health centers, a quiet change is taking shape. You won’t see big protests or new laws, but more people are starting to see that the main way we treat mental healthfocusing on chemical imbalances and managing medshasn’t helped many folks who need real healing.

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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? Of course it is.

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Peer Support and Resistance: Becky Brasfield’s Vision for Mental Health Justice

Mad in America

B ecky Brasfield has emerged as a formidable advocate for change in the complex landscape of mental health care.A She has been a fellow with both the IL Care and HSRI Behavioral Health Policy programs and was appointed Commissioner of the Southeast Expanded Mental Health Services Program.

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One Person’s Journey from Celebrity Medical Model Advocate to Skeptic: An Interview with Rose Cartwright

Mad in America

Pure portrayed Rose’s autobiographical account of finding that she had OCD, a “mental illness”, and the breakthrough that this medical framework provided her. In this interview, Cartwright charts her journey of painful and lonely disillusionment with the “mental illness” framework. Listen to the audio of the interview here.

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Depression: Psychiatry’s Discredited Theories and Drugs Versus a Sane Model and Approach

Mad in America

P sychiatry’s serotonin-imbalance theory of depression, long discarded by researchers, was finally flushed down the toilet by psychiatry and the mainstream media in 2022. And psychiatrists’ primary treatments for depression—their so-called “antidepressants”—are now circling the drain. 2) What approach to depression makes sense? Genes and depression?

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A Bicultural Māori/European Vision for a Truly Healing Hospital

Mad in America

M any people are traumatised rather than healed by their interaction with mainstream mental health services, especially their admission to a psychiatric inpatient unit. Concurrently, many mental health professionals carry a burden of their own trauma and are not healthy individuals. What do we mean by healing?