Truly bizarre account of a man with learning difficulties given ECT, without his consent, 100 times a year for 5 years. Not as an example of reprehensible unethical conduct but as ‘precision medicine’ endorsed by ‘senior’ psychiatrists. Sickening. sciencedirect.com/science/ar…

New Research Challenges the Logic of Coercion in Psychiatry By Richard Sears Recent studies examine long-term harms of psychiatric detention, ward environments as a major driver of coercive interventions, and why some staff support coercive practices. buff.ly/BenbLBR

If you think ECT patients are consenting to their injuries, read on and think again. This scandal will erupt for psychiatry at some point. They've got away with this for far too long.

"How They Rig Clinical Trials and The Price We All Pay For It - A practical guide to spotting doctored research and finding the therapies that actually help" By @MidwesternDoc midwesterndoctor.com/p/how-t…

The brain is not meant to be in a drugged state.

Sharing for awareness. While we may still have a long way to go, and may not agree with everything being said, the media coverage is increasing and more conversations are opening up on this topic and this is a positive thing. stuff.co.nz/wellbeing/360988…

Surviving Psychiatry’s ‘Help’ By G.T.O. buff.ly/Zx2zIq1

This is a response from an anonymous Australian psychiatrist @LnS7juXQs to my post advocating for safe, hyperbolic tapering protocols and sharing my own experiences with antidepressants. It’s individuals like this who bring the entire profession of psychiatry into disrepute, yet they are regularly platformed by other prominent psychiatrists on this platform. I’m obviously blocked despite never having interacted with them, so I can’t reply directly. I’ll word it in a way they may understand better: “9gshGH/6/ghh56GHt.”

I think kaddles speaks for a lot of patients here. A lot of clever psychiatrists on here missing the point because they are blind to the scale of the issue for reasons I outline in this blog. Unfortunately this leads to so many people's lives upended or worse from mostly preventable harm. mhorowitz.substack.com/p/why…

Beyond Medication: What England’s Experience Can Teach Us About Psychosis Care By Alison Brabban For over 20 years, NICE in England has recommended that people experiencing psychosis should be offered psychological therapy—not simply medication alone. buff.ly/RcTw3iG

Thoughtful analysis from Dr Alison Brabban Beyond Medication: What England’s Experience Can Teach Us About Psychosis Care - Mad In America madinamerica.com/2026/06/bey…

How Accurate Are ECT Patient Information Leaflets Provided by Mental Health Services in England and the Royal College of Psychiatrists? An Independent Audit connect.springerpub.com/cont…

(1/?) PSA: hyperbolic tapering isn't about the length of the taper and doesn't automatically mean patients are tapering for years (which is what some psychiatrists are misleadingly claiming in order to scaremonger/rage bait about hyperbolic tapering). It's about how the reductions are made so the size of the reduction gets smaller as the overall dosage nears 0. Here is what NICE (the UK body that develops practice guidelines for UK doctors) said of this in July 2023 (linked below). In this announcement (and in the full NICE guidelines), NICE signposted the Royal College of Psychiatrists' guide to stopping antidepressants that is based on hyperbolic tapering AND gives examples of a shorter hyperbolic taper and a longer, more conservative one. Psychiatrists who are saying hyperbolic tapering automatically means years-long tapers are being ignorant or deliberately dishonest. In their desperation to protect their field's reputation, somehow some of them manage to be a combination of both. No excuse for UK psychiatrists in particular not knowing about this or misrepresenting it:

oops meant to link this stuff.co.nz/wellbeing/360988…

(1/2) A psychiatric clinic in New Zealand is running an advert in a major NZ media outlet talking about antidepressant withdrawal to draw attention to what it calls "medication optimisation" and its wider services. Makes me wonder if this clinic is reading the room... "Stopping antidepressants too quickly can lead to withdrawal symptoms such as anxiety, insomnia, dizziness, nausea, and mood swings. Clinical guidance recommends a gradual reduction to minimise these issues, mainly because withdrawal can be mistaken for a return of the original condition***. Without proper support, individuals may become stuck: unable to stop, unsure whether they are experiencing withdrawal or relapse, or returning to medication."

They’ll leave you on for life without questioning why you’re even on it, but god forbid you ask to come off slowly, to let the taper be patient-led & symptom dependent, to keep current level of functioning and suddenly we are the crazy ones. 😳

Like you, @Valarie_gw, I am extremely grateful a neuroanestesiologist is willing to step up and acknowledge ECT's risk of serious injury. Without safety testing and dosing consensus protocols to ensure reliable replication of positive outcomes, it's risks far exceed it's benefits making modern ECT unethical. At the very top of every patient information leaflet it should acknowledge the following: "the best way to administer ECT with regard to optimizing therapeutic benefit and simultaneously minimising cognitive side-effects is not known." -Dr. Declan McLoughlin, MECTA/SigmaStim ECT device rep and psychiatrist. According to the late Richard Abrams (CoFounder of Somatics, LLC who makes the Thymatron Devices) ECT's standard clinical guidelines regarding theraputic seizures lasting at least 30 seconds: "plucked it out of the air, as far as I know. There was no research data that I was aware of at the time ... [determined by Dr. Kalinosky], not research based but rather-clinically based..." All of that established in 1940's by doctors who knew nothing about the histopathology of electrical injury and certainly without knowing what we know in 2026 about "euphoria"/adrenaline rush caused by trauma brain injury or the consequences of repetitive traumatic brain injury. Medical tradition ≠ Evidence-Based medicine. @ReadReadj @Mad_In_America #AuditECT

When facts are uncomfortable, some people attack the messenger instead of addressing the evidence. Calling a physician "overly dramatic" does not answer concerns about patient harm. It only avoids the discussion. Ernest Hemingway, after ECT, asked: "What is the sense of ruining my head and erasing my memory, which is my capital, and putting me out of business?" Patients deserve to be heard. "Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored." — Aldous Huxley Dismissing concerns as "overly dramatic" is not science. Evidence deserves evidence. Questions deserve answers. Patients deserv respect. #PatientSafety #MedicalEthics #ECT #InformedConsent

Attack the messenger when you can't dispute what i’m actually saying. It’s the same tired old playbook that prominent psychiatrists have used to silence people for decades. We are sick to death of it and you are displaying it right here for everyone to see. I took the opportunity to listen to your recent space on critical psychiatry, have been open and honest with you about my personal health, read your recent articles, analysed and proposed schedules for a hypothetical patient, acknowledged my own biases, responded to you for most of the day even though I’m very sick from protracted withdrawal, acknowledged that I respected your clinical practice (aside from the linear tapering), acknowledged that I believe you genuinely want to help your patients and yet you try to smear me and don’t answer a straight forward question with a “I’m sorry I don’t wish to answer that.” It’s exhausting 😔

It's laughable the lengths some people like Tyler Black will go to when they have a perfectly reasonable stance explained to them, & they have no reasonable way of arguing with it. A pathetic display of petulance results which is very illuminating. Full marks for persisting Sam.