Bruce Levine
Medical Nemesis: The Cycle of Physician-Caused Anger, Despair and Death
Regaining power over our own health—power that has been taken from us by uncaring bureaucracies and arrogant authorities—was the goal of Ivan Illich’s 1976 book Medical Nemesis, which detailed an epidemic of physician-caused death and illness. Unfortunately, this epidemic continues, and so does an epidemic of physician-caused anger, despair and crazy-appearing behaviors. It is today […]
What the US Government Knows About Suicide and Depression That We Are Not Being Told—Which Just Might Repoliticize Us
For nearly two decades, Big Pharma commercials have falsely told Americans that mental illness is associated with a chemical brain imbalance, but the truth is that depression and suicidality are associated with poverty, unemployment, and mass incarceration. And the truth is that American society has now become so especially oppressive for young people that an […]
The Politics of Suicide and Depression
In November of 2014, the U.S. government’s Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) issued a press release titled “Nearly One in Five Adult Americans Experienced Mental Illness in 2013.” This brief press release provides a snapshot of the number of Americans who are suicidal, depressed, and mentally ill, and it bemoans how many […]
How 7 Historic Figures Crushed by Depression Eased Their Suffering
What did Abraham Lincoln, Georgia O’Keeffe, William James, Sigmund Freud, William Tecumseh Sherman, Franz Kafka, and the Buddha have in common? According to their biographers, all suffered from depression. And they utilized antidotes—some of them forgotten in the modern age— that helped them overcome and transform their depression without doctors.
3 Troubling Reasons Psychiatry Retains Power Despite Lost Scientific Credibility
“What’s a guy gotta do around here to lose a little credibility?” asked ProPublica reporter Jesse Eisinger in a 2012 piece about top Wall Street executives who created the financial meltdown but who remain top Wall Street executives, continue to sit on corporate and nonprofit boards, serve as regulators, and whose opinions are sought out […]
Why Psychiatry Holds Enormous Power in Society Despite Losing Scientific Credibility
“What’s a guy gotta do around here to lose a little credibility?” asked ProPublica reporter Jesse Eisinger in a 2012 piece about top Wall Street executives who created the financial meltdown but who remain top Wall Street executives, continue to sit on corporate and nonprofit boards, serve as regulators, and whose opinions are sought out […]
Why an Assassinated Psychologist – Ignored by US Psychologists – Is Being Honored
On November 16, 1989 in El Salvador, liberation psychologist Ignacio Martin-Baró was murdered by a Salvadoran government’s “counter-insurgency unit” created at the U.S. Army’s School of the Americas. This year, 25 years after his assassination, peace and justice activists around the world will honor Martin-Baró. Embarrassingly, the vast majority of U.S. psychologists and psychiatrists know […]
Why Assassinated Psychologist—Ignored by U.S. Psychologists—is Being Honored
On November 16, 1989 in El Salvador, liberation psychologist Ignacio Martin-Baró, together with five colleagues, their housekeeper and her teenage daughter, were forced into a courtyard on the campus of Universidad Centroamericana José Simeón Cañas, where they were then murdered by the Salvadoran government’s elite Atlacatl Battalion, a “counter-insurgency unit” created at the U.S. Army’s […]
Unique Upcoming Film Festival Organized by Mad in America
Mad in America’s International Film Festival will encourage us to think anew about the nature of what is commonly called “mental illness” and its treatments. The festival will run from October 9-12, 2014, in Arlington, Massachusetts (Boston vicinity). I have had a chance to preview some of the festival films, including Nick and Zack Young’s […]
Truths and Falsehoods About Ralph Nader’s New Book
Have progressives made a mistake lumping all conservatives together and fueling their political energies into hating them? Or are there what Ralph Nader calls “anti-corporatist conservatives,” who loathe undeclared, endless wars as much as progressives? And should progressives seek alliances with these anti-corporatist conservatives to oppose unnecessary wars, corporate welfare, NSA violations of our privacy, and […]
