Sandy Ernest Allen
RESOURCES
Here are some recommended organizations and media to do with mental health/illness / madness etc. If you don't see something here, chances are I do know about it but I am choosing to not recommend it. The majority of the media we encounter about "mental health" is lacking in scientific basis and also overlooks the humanity of those labeled deviant. This is not a small error. For many more of my thoughts about the media's errors when it comes to mental health, please read my long essay published on Mad in America.
My essay about Britney Spears for The Cut also is worth a read if you want a quick primer on the overall situation. And of course I recommend, to anybody really, my own book! And my own podcast, which will teach you about all this but also make you laugh.
Organizations / Websites
Especially if you know someone in crisis or are generally invested in these questions because of yourself or a loved one, here are a few good places to start:
Mad in America – largest media organization covering these issues
Wildflower Alliance – large alternative mental health care provider in Western Massachusetts. Their website has many excellent resources and during COVID many support groups are online.
Hearing Voices Network USA – non-judgmental, peer support groups for people who hear voices, see visions or have other "unusual or extreme" experiences; learn more and find a group in your area.
Intervoice – To locate Hearing Voices groups outside the US
MindFreedom – survivor-founded organization devoted to liberation and justice
Peer Respites – alternatives to psychiatric hospitalization
International Cultic Studies Association (ICSA) – resources on cults and other high control groups, including situations of domestic abuse
Of particular interest for professionals:
The International Society for Psychological and Social Approaches to Psychosis (ISPS)
International Society for Ethical Psychology and Psychiatry (ISEPP)
Podcasts
How to Survive the End of the World
Generation Cult – focus on high-control groups and exit from such systems
The Cure for Chronic Pain – deep exploration of role of emotion and trauma in bodily ailments, including chronic pain
Where Should We Begin? with Esther Perel
Books
Here is a piece I wrote for Electric Literature with some additional book recommendations.
Novels
Freshwater by Akwaeke Emezi
I Never Promised You a Rose Garden by Joanne Greenberg
Memoirs
On Our Own: Patient-Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System by Judi Chamberlin
The Loony-Bin Trip by Kate Millett
The Collected Schizophrenias by Esmé Weijun Wang
Other Nonfiction, by topic
Many of these books cover many topics but I've tried to categorize them here
Care Farms
Farming for Health: Green-Care Farming Across Europe and the United States of America edited by Jan Hassink and Majken van Dijk (compilation of academic papers from a variety of disciplines documenting and analyzing this model)
Electroshock / ECT
Doctors of Deception: What They Don’t Want You To Know about Shock Treatment by Linda Andre
The Electroshock Quotionary compiled by Leonard Roy Frank (download for free)
The History of Shock Treatment edited by Leonard Roy Frank
Hearing Voices Movement
Living with Voices: 50 Stories of Recovery by Dr. Marius Romme, Dr. Sandra Escher, Jacqui Dillon, Dr. Dirk Corstens, Prof. Mervyn Morris, eds.
Young People Hearing Voices by Dr. Sandra Escher and Dr. Marius Romme
Mad Pride / Psychiatric Patient Civil Rights
On Our Own: Patient-Controlled Alternatives to the Mental Health System by Judi Chamberlin
The Spiritual Gift of Madness: The Failure of Psychiatry and the Rise of the Mad Pride Movement by Dr. Seth Farber
We've Been Too Patient: Voices from Radical Mental Health L. D. Green, Kelechi Ubozoh, eds.
Outside Mental Health: Voices and Visions of Madness by Will Hall
Talking Back to Psychiatry by Dr. Linda J. Morrison (sociological study of the movement)
Alternatives Beyond Psychiatry by Dr. Peter Stastny and Peter Lehmann, eds.
Peer Respites
(alternatives to psychiatric hospitalization)
Peer Respite Handbook: A Guide to Understanding, Building and Supporting Peer Respites by Sera Davidow
Soteria: Through Madness to Deliverance by Deborah C. Fort, Dr. Loren Mosher, and Voyce Hendrix
Psychiatry / Psychiatric Drugs
Harm Reduction Guide to Coming off of Psychiatric Drugs (available for free online)
Psychiatry and the Business of Madness: An Ethical and Epistemological Accounting by Dr. Bonnie Burstow
The Bitterest Pills: The Troubling Story of Antipsychotic Drugs by Dr. Joanna Moncrieff
The Myth of the Chemical Cure: A Critique of Psychiatric Drug Treatment by Dr. Joanna Moncrieff
Mad in America: Bad Science, Bad Medicine, and the Enduring Mistreatment of the Mentally Ill by Robert Whitaker
Anatomy of an Epidemic: Magic Bullets, Psychiatric Drugs, and the Astonishing Rise of Mental Illness in America by Robert Whitaker
Psychiatry Under the Influence: Institutional Corruption, Social Injury, and Prescriptions for Reform by Robert Whitaker and Dr. Lisa Cosgrove
Schizophrenia
(see also: Hearing Voices movement)
Rethinking Madness: Towards a Paradigm Shift in Our Treatment of Psychosis by Dr. Paris Williams
Self-Care
Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
Do What You Want: A Zine about Mental Wellbeing by Ruby Tandoh and Leah Pritchard
The Body is Not an Apology: The Power of Radical Self-Love by Sonya Renee Taylor
Shame
The Power of Vulnerability (audiobook) by Dr. Brené Brown (and all her other books)
Suicide (alternatives to)
Hello, Cruel World: 101 Alternatives to Suicide for Teens, Freaks and Other Outlaws by Kate Bornstein
Things To Do Instead of Killing Yourself (comic) by Tara Booth and Jon-Michael Frank
Trauma
The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Dr. Bessel van der Kolk
The Mindbody Prescription by Dr. John Sarno