Are the Young People That Shrinks Label as Disruptive Really Anarchists with a Healthy Resistance to Oppressive Authority?
Many young people diagnosed with mental disorders are essentially anarchists with the bad luck of being misidentified by mental health professionals who: (1) are ignorant of the social philosophy of anarchism, (2) embrace, often without political consciousness, it’s opposite ideology of hierarchism, and (3) confuse the signs of anarchism with symptoms of mental illness. The […]
The Green Shadow Cabinet and a Mental Health Declaration of Independence
The Green Shadow Cabinet, launched in spring 2013, is led by 2012 Green Party presidential nominee Jill Stein. Its purpose is to provide an ongoing opposition and alternative voice to the dysfunctional U.S. government—and to demonstrate what a government of, by, and for the people (rather than of, by, and for, giant corporations) looks like. […]
What’s Behind ‘Substantial Increases’ in Suicide Rate for Middle-Aged Americans? Bad Economy Is Likely Culprit
The U.S Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), on May 3, 2013, reported that “recent evidence suggests that there have been substantial increases in suicide rates among middle-aged adults in the United States.” CDC analyzed National Vital Statistics System mortality data from 1999–2010, and found that the suicide rate among Americans aged 35–64 years […]
‘Gloom and Sadness’: How Abraham Lincoln’s Depression Got Him Elected
Abraham Lincoln is routinely ranked by historians as our greatest president. There have been roughly 16,000 books written about him, including Joshua Wolf Shenk’s Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness. What’s perhaps most interesting about Lincoln’s struggle with depression is that it’s tied to the stigma about mental illness that […]
Grief, Tantrums and a Bad Memory Could Equal ‘Crazy’ Soon
When the new DSM-5 manual is released, some common—and normal—emotions may be labeled mental disorders. That would likely mean many more people taking medication too.
Want to Ensure There’s Not Another Adam Lanza? Look at the ‘Lost Boys’ Around You
Following the shootings in Newtown and other recent mass shootings, the White House issued the following announcement: “The Administration is proposing steps to identify mental health issues early and help individuals get the treatment they need before these dangerous situations develop.” But as a clinical psychologist, I have to ask whether earlier mental health treatment […]
Imperialist Psychiatrists, Psychopathic Corporatists—But I Repeat Myself
Journalist/humorist Jon Ronson’s TED talk “Strange Answers To The Psychopath Test” addresses the DSM, diseasing normality, faking mental illness, and the psychopathy of former CEO “Chainsaw” Al Dunlap. The Huffington Post, for their TED Weekends section, asked me for a reaction to Ronson’s talk—but then refused to print my blog because, a Huffington Post staffer […]
The Systemic Crushing of Young Nonconformists and Anti-Authoritarians
“To be a hero,” says Philip Zimbardo in his talk The Psychology of Evil, “you have to learn to be a deviant, because you’re always going against the conformity of the group.” That’s true, and I think Zimbardo would agree that the heroism required to battle for liberty and justice in the face of tyranny […]
Why the Newest Psychiatric Diagnostic Bible Will Be a Boon for Big Pharma
After the American Psychiatric Association (APA) approved the latest version of its diagnostic bible, the DSM-5, psychiatrist Allen Frances, the former chair of the DSM-4 taskforce and currently professor emeritus at Duke, announced, “This is the saddest moment in my 45-year career of practicing, studying and teaching psychiatry” (“A Tense Compromise on Defining Disorders”). The […]
What Happened After a Nation Methodically Murdered Its Schizophrenics? Rethinking Mental Illness and Its Heritability
If a nation murdered and sterilized an estimated 73% to 100% of its diagnosed schizophrenics, yet a generation later that nation had a higher rate of incidence of new cases of schizophrenia than did surrounding nations, shouldn’t we have questions about the claim by the mental health establishment that schizophrenia is highly heritable? Moreover, since […]
