I am life. I am psychedelic. I am kaleidoscopic. I am conscious. I am aware. I am silence. I am chaos. The term bipolar *disorder* attempts to diminish. Two poles? In a world of endless spectrums all interlacing into oneness? What nonsense. The term bipolar is attached to people like me. We frighten those "treating" us. We are sensitive, open, people in need of shamanic-like guidance.
Finding our own personal sovereignty towards an egalitarian society full of sovereign beings is what healing is all about. Authority over others is violence.
All human beings need such support from the moment we are born. As we grow up we start giving it to ourselves and those around us too if we are pursuing health and well-being.
By Brent Potter, PhD -- I am grateful to be alive during to see the apex and decline of evidence-based psychotherapy and psychiatry. Honestly, I didn’t think that I’d see anything like it in my lifetime. It was looking pretty daunting for a while, but we’re not only making substantial progress, but winning. -- Please don’t mistake me—we have plenty more to do. We’re not in the clear yet, but we’re light years ahead of where we were roughly 20 years ago. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
By Robert Whitaker When I was researching Anatomy of an Epidemic and sought to track the number of people receiving a disability payment between 1987 and 2007 due to “mental illness,” I was frustrated by the lack of diagnostic clarity in the data. The Social Security Administration would list, in its annual reports on the... Continue Reading →
by Ron Unger
When people are seeing the world really different than we do, it’s often reassuring to think that there must be something wrong with them – because if they are completely wrong, or ill, then we don’t have to rethink our own sense of reality, we can instead be confident about that own understandings encompass all that we need to know. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
By Lucy Johnstone: A revolution is underway in mental health. If the authors of the diagnostic manuals are admitting that psychiatric diagnoses are not supported by evidence, then no one should be forced to accept them. If many mental health workers are openly questioning diagnosis and saying we need a different and better system, then service users and carers should be allowed to do so too. This book is about choice. It is about giving people the information to make up their own minds, and exploring alternatives for those who wish to do so. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
Influential “thought leader” psychiatrists and major psychiatry institutions, by their own recent admissions, have been repeatedly wrong about illness/disorder validity, biochemical causes, and drug treatments; and also, in several cases, have been discovered to be on the take from drug companies—yet continue to be taken seriously by the mainstream media.
While Big Pharma financial backing is one reason that psychiatry is able to retain its clout, this is not the only reason. More insidiously, psychiatry retains influence because of the needs of the larger power structure that rules us. And perhaps most troubling, psychiatry retains influence because of us—and our increasing fears that have resulted in our expanding needs for coercion. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
Someone on Twitter challenged Kelly Brogan MD and I about her article about SSRIs yesterday. She said that she and I were "ranting"
All my work is now motivated by the fact that I’ve worked with and corresponded with thousands of people who have been gravely harmed by psychiatry. The denial of the great potential for harm in psychiatry must end. The harming of so many innocent and vulnerable people must end. I’m happy to keep helping people find other ways until no one is being harmed any longer....what follows too are some of my tweets in response to this woman … [click on title to read and view more]
By Jacqueline Gunn, PsyD and Brent Potter, PhD - Authors, Borderline Personality Disorder: New Perspectives on a Stigmatizing and Overused Diagnosis (Praeger, November 2014) When you are reading our book, be prepared to challenge your view of what is called “borderline personality disorder” and even the way you see all so-called psychiatric ‘disorders’. This is what we have done as co-authors. We sound a little strong at times, but we really believe in what we are presenting. We take you through exactly why we take this approach, give you historical context and also explain some experiences with real people who are suffering.
Everything that happens in our lives (and all our encounters with psychiatry) are SITUATIONAL. Always. There is no such thing as a clinical depression without a "situation." That is a ludicrous and destructive fantasy. The same is true for anyone with any diagnosis. Schizophrenia, bipolar, anxiety, OCD. We all have stories and context. Diagnosis try to strip that away from us. The fact is EVERY single person with a diagnosis has an individual, unique story and context. Everything matters. Diagnosis (as currently most frequently used) are reductionistic lies that try to remove us from the fabric of our lives. … [click on title for the rest of the post]
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