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Bonnie Burstow, PhD, is a faculty member at the University of Toronto, and an antipsychiatry activist. She writes about topics that include institutional ruling, resistance, and social change. On October 7, 2016, the Ontario Institute for Studies in Education (OISE) at the University of Toronto announced that they had established a scholarship for students doing theses in the area of antipsychiatry. The scholarship committee has issued a statement providing details, and requesting donations. Please take a look, and pass the link on to others who might have an interest. ...

My neice living in a townhouse complex - has reached the following stage:- 1-complete isolation from anybody even her sisters. 2-will not acknowledge her illness and will not accept any medication whatsoever. 3-will not allow anybody into her home. 4-all the symptons of Schizoid Personality Disorder 5-threatening to all and considers everyone responsible for her divorce that she went through several years ago. ...

In the late ’90s I experienced some kind of distress of consciousness. My wife took me to the emergency room of a local hospital and I was told I had “bipolar disorder,” an incurable “mental illness” which meant I would have to be on psychiatric drugs the rest of my life. We now know that the idea of chemical imbalances in the brain is a myth (http://www.cepuk.org). This simple story took away my humanity. How? It was a tragedy of errors. Nobody knows how consciousness arises from or is connected to the brain. It is one of the most complicated and fascinating questions of our modern age. (Start with “Conversations on Consciousness” by Susan Blackmore (2005) and go from there.) ...

On July 6, HB 2646 (the Tim Murphy Bill) passed the US House and was sent to the Senate. At the present time, a related bill is working its way through the Senate. This is SB 2680, The Mental Health Reform Act 2016. It is sponsored by Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Patty Murray (D-WA), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Chris Murphy (D-CT), David Vitter (R-LA), and Al Franken (D-MN). The wording of the bill was finalized in March of this year, and it passed out of committee on March 16. ...

Thank you very much for your article in regards to the validity of Bi-polar Disorder. my mother claimed to have that and other mental disorders to qualify for SSDI. Of course she had physicians who were all to eager to verify her “self diagnosis”. They saw a cash cow and I suppose so did she on a lesser scale. She was physically, mentally and verbally abusive to my brothers and me. Every time she would abuse us it was always because she had a “mental illness”. We were just supposed to forgive her and move on. I hate her, I hated her then and I hate her now. She stole my childhood and my brothers childhood away from us. I knew there wasn’t anything wrong with her other than the fact she was an angry person who wanted constant sympathy from others and saw my brothers and me as weapons of mass destruction for our father. I wondered why she had children in the first place if she didn’t like children. However, I digress. The main reason I agree with your article is that she not only wanted mental illness for herself she had my brothers and me diagnosed with mental disorders. Her diagnosis for me was ADHD. Honestly, I never felt that there was anything wrong with me. So she took me from one doctor to another until she found one that would diagnose me with ADHD and prescribe me Ritalin. I hated it. I felt no emotions at all when I took it. No anger but also no joy, No sadness but also no happiness. I felt like a zombie on the inside. It also caused me to have serious sleep disturbances and horrific nightmares. It was supposed to be given to me twice a day during the school year only. However she had me on it three times a day all year long for 7 years and the only thing I got out of it was a physical addiction. I have four children of my own now and withdrawing from that addiction was more physically painful than giving birth to four 10 pound babies combined. I refuse to go to doctors unless very ill or injured and don’t take any prescriptions other than Synthroid for low thyroid hormones. I think another issue with all these “mental Illness” classifications is being used to abuse children through the use of physicians. It is deplorable! ...

On June 9, 2016, the very eminent psychiatrist Allen Frances, MD, published an article on the Huffington Post Blog. The piece was titled Trump Is Breaking Bad, Not Clinically Mad. The gist of the article was that, although the Republican presidential candidate has many flaws, he does not have a mental disorder. Here are some quotes: "Trump obviously does have an outsize, obnoxious personality, but most certainly does not have a Personality Disorder (and there is no evidence that he has now, or ever has had, any other mental disorder)." ...

Hi, I have a story to tell, I don’t care if you like it I only need to tell it… First let me tell you a little bit about me, I am 13, my real name is not Kykie, I am a girl of course, and I am mentally messed up, or so I’ve been told. I guess the first bad thing that happened, happened when I was only four, a guy my family loved and trusted, a guy I loved and trusted started sexually assaulting me (I think that’s what they ended up charging him for), this continued up until I was about 11. Nobody noticed… Probably because nobody wanted it to be true. I wasn’t the only one that got touched by him so did my two cousins but he did the most with me, he even kissed me and told me he loved me… Honestly I thought I loved him too, I liked everything he did even when I knew it was wrong I still liked it, I actually wanted more. One night when he kissed me, I was he one that kissed him again and again. Even though my cousins told me multiple times he was bad news I didn’t listen. When the police came around because someone finally noticed I didn’t tell them everything he did… I didn’t want too, I still wanted more from him I thought he was still a good guy. I still remember what he did, setting me on his lap and touching me, even though I knew it was wrong I never refused I never even wanted him to stop… Two weeks after his arrest there was a death in the family we all knew it was coming, stage 4 brain cancer. Then nothing everything was quiet everyone treated me like a porcelain doll, fragile. Honestly, my past didn’t and doesn’t affect me but everyone else thinks it does, probably because to everyone that knows about this I act like an actual victim, like he scared me, and hurt me, like I thought everything was bad but really he never once frightened me. Then after everything settled my brother started acting out. He stared out with just smoking a little but of pot and drinking every once in a while but then everything turned around. My brother started getting aggressive getting into bad fights with my dad and attacking my mom, even hurting my siblings and me I was his first target. He stole my whole life savings from me, almost 900 dollars, that’s when I didn’t trust him anymore he did that and then I knew he doesn’t care about his family anymore, he was 15 and only cared about himself and his friends. Somewhere in that time I started cutting, and messing around with guy after guy. I didn’t actually sleep with anyone until I was about to turn 13 this year, but before I started sleeping around a bit I was doing other sexual stuff. I know it’s gross because I am so young but I felt like that was all I could do it was like it was wired into my brain, plus I have always felt older than I actually am. And to guys I was an easy target I cut, I was depressed, still am just not as bad. When I cut though I actually feel better and some people understand that and some don’t. My current boyfriend has been my longest relationship, we’ve been together for 2 months and I haven’t really done anything with him, especially since we are in different states, which is hard but we can make it. I think the reason I messed around with guys so much was I wanted to feel wanted even if it was bad, and I felt like that is what I need to do. So I told guys I was 15 or 16 and then it took off from there. My depression sky rocketed, I have attempted suicide 25 times and got caught once on an OD. I was sent to inpatient and stayed for 2 weeks, almost got sent to residential, but instead I stayed the maximum amount at inpatient and then they released me. I was put into therapy and I had to see a psychiatrist, who gave me depression meds, strong ones too. I decided to quit going and quit taking my medications cold turkey which had horrible side affects but I got over it. I’ve felt better recently I have been put into high-school AP classes after testing out for it,my brother is in drug and alcohol rehab (court ordered after not doing his probation), my boyfriend has helped A LOT (He also used to cut so kinda had an idea on how I felt), yet sometimes at least once or twice a day I still think just one cut won’t hurt, or if I was dead who would really care but in the end everyone dies might as well attempt to live miserable moments and make up for all of the stupid stuff I have done. So I guess that’s pretty much the parts of my life everyone actually finds somewhat interesting and I guess that’s what everyone sees me as… I mean they can only judge me for what they know which isn’t a lot so… ...

INTRODUCTION On Wednesday, July 6, the US House of Representatives passed a watered down version of HB 2646, the so-called Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act. The bill, which is now a House Resolution, is usually referred to as the Tim Murphy bill, after its principle author, Representative Tim Murphy, PhD, who is also a clinical psychologist. The bill passed the house with a noteworthy tally of 422-2, with nine abstentions. ...

[Note: In this post, “APA” refers to the American Psychological Association] There is an article in the current (July/August) issue of The National Psychologist titled “Iowa becomes 4th state to approve RxP”. The author is James Bradshaw, Associate Editor. RxP is a commonly used abbreviation for prescription authority for psychologists. Here are some quotes from the article, interspersed with my comments. "Iowa Gov. Terry E. Brandstad has signed a law granting prescription authority to properly trained psychologists, making Iowa the fourth state where psychologists can prescribe drugs from a psychotropic formulary." ...

I am an inmate of St. Joseph’s Psychiatric Hospital, Hamilton, Ontario. Although I am still trapped in the intricate web of the forensic “mental health” system, I consider myself a psychiatric survivor. After all, I’ve made it this far, but I realize that more time is needed before I’m finally able to extricate myself from the forces of psychiatric oppression. Before entering the system, I knew virtually nothing about the philosophy and practice of psychiatry. After about a year and a half of being subjected to an endless, humiliating barrage of psychological and physical abuse, I have come to loathe and despise this pernicious and evil form of pseudoscience. ...