Dina’s Blog



Occupy Psychiatry Event – San Francisco,California on 19th May

MindFreedom International, the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights) and the California Client Action Workgroup are organising a protest of  the American Psychiatric Association’s 2013 annual conference in San Francisco, California –an Occupy Psychiatry Event– today (19th May). Read more


Critical reflections on the DSM, Psychiatry’s Holly Bible

I came across this cartoon this morning. The cartoon accompanies critical reflections on the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) in an article that appeared on the Economist (published on 18th May). I thought the cartoon very pertinently portrays the main function performed by psychiatry nowadays, ie labeling (tagging) patients with a diagnosis and overdrugging them with ‘magic bullets’ of varying colour on the basis of the supposed scientific wisdom that the DSM, psychiatry’s Holly Bible, encapsulates. Read more


Treasured objects and tacit acts of resistance in a psychiatric hospital…

Last week I was sent a DVD with all the photos I took when I was attending the photography studio at START, the arts mental health project in Manchester, over 2 years ago. I remember one particular session – back in February 2010 – for which the START photography tutor had asked us to bring objects that we treasured to the studio…

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‘One flew over the cuckoo’s nest’…a brilliant, timeless film

I watched ‘One flew over the cuckoo’s nest’ last night…I first watched the film in the late  1980s when I was at University in Greece…the film came out in 1975 and was an adaptation of a book that was written in the early 1960s…I had forgotten how brilliantly powerful this film is…a timeless indictment of psychiatric oppression and abuse of power… Read more