Mental Health: Misnomer & Metaphor

Societies need to have one illness which becomes identified with evil, and attaches blame to its victims. — Susan Sontag, Illness as Metaphor, 1978   (Editor’s note: This blog is an excerpt from Jack Carney’s book Nation of Killers: Guns, Violence, White...

We Shall Overcome: Remembering Pete Seeger

A great American passed away the other day. Ordinarily, I never indulge in such chauvinism, but how else can you describe Pete Seeger? Who else has contributed as much to the country’s emotional and spiritual well-being? I haven’t posted to this site for more than two...

The Shoes Keep on Dropping… What Next?

(I had planned to post this article on Mad In America on June 26th to acknowledge International Day in Solidarity with Victims of Torture. My computer crashed … better late than never.) “There must have been a moment, at the beginning, where we could have said — no....

Next Steps: More Lessons Learned From the DSM-5 Boycott

If there is no struggle, there is no progress.                                                                                                    –     Frederick Douglass You never know what you’re going to accomplish when you start something. Which is why you start...

Occupy APA in San Francisco: Joined in Spirit

Tomorrow, May 18, the American Psychiatric Association kicks off its 166th annual conference. That same day, its new DSM-5 will be officially published. Given the occurrences of the past couple of weeks, which I’ll review briefly below, some members of the APA might...