No One Cares About Crazy People is Pulitzer Prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author Ron Powers’ exploration of his two sons’ journeys with schizophrenia, combined with a sweeping social history of mental health care and attitudes towards those with mental illness. He skillfully interweaves these separate threads, drawing the reader along from the early …
I wrote this to share with my psychiatrist, and I thought I’d share it with all of you, too. Thanks to Kat for the “dickless prick” phrasing. I thought we had established my background, but it seems like we/you need a bit of a refresher, so here we go. I used to be a pharmacist. …
The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE), a non-departmental public body of England’s Department of Health, provides evidence-based guidance on the treatment of medical conditions. Every so often, they update their guidelines, and new depression guidelines are expected to be released in May 2022. This post will take a look at the draft …
The UK’s New NICE Depression Guidelines in Development Read More »
A fellow blogger asked this question recently, and it’s taken me a while to pull this post together because there just isn’t a simple answer as to why psych medications stop working out of the blue sometimes. There are various possibilities, but there’s also a hefty dose of science just doesn’t know yet. How the …
Why Do Psych Medications Stop Working Sometimes? Read More »
Have you ever wondered why antidepressant side effects seem to be worse at the beginning, or why it takes so long for them to actually start doing what you expect of them? There is actually some rhyme and reason for it, so let’s talk about it. Let’s talk serotonin People with depression don’t have enough …
Antidepressant Side Effects & Delayed Therapeutic Effect Read More »
There’s a lot of stigma around taking psych meds to treat mental illness. Meds certainly aren’t right for every person or every condition, but they’re a good tool to have available as part of the mental illness toolbox. For all the social kerfuffle over meds, they are just a tool. Getting well (or getting by) …
Taking Psych Meds: I’ll Tell You Mine if You Tell Me Yours Read More »
I first heard of the Open Dialogue approach in the book My Beautiful Psychosis by Emma Goude. It’s an alternative way of managing psychosis, and I wanted to explore it further. What Open Dialogue is Open Dialogue was first conceived in the Western Lapland province of Finland in the early 1980s. It emphasizes listening with …
Nobody’s Normal: How Culture Created the Stigma of Mental Illness is written by Roy Richard Grinker, an anthropology professor at The George Washington University. Autism and cross-cultural psychiatry are listed as areas of expertise on his faculty page. He’s the father of an autistic daughter, who he refers to a number of times throughout the …
For anyone who needs to take medications for a chronic condition like mental illness, dealing with side effects may end up being part of the reality of taking meds. The pros should always be outweighing the cons, but the right balance can be hard to find. No side effects is possible All medications have potential …
Mental illness is fairly unique in that laws allow for treatment to be imposed involuntarily. I’m not against involuntary psychiatric treatment entirely, and it can play an important role, but there are some things that can and should be done better. When involuntary treatment is necessary Working as a nurse in community mental health, there …
The Problem with Involuntary Psychiatric Treatment Read More »
