Rob Wipond's Blog, page 3
December 4, 2023
Crisis hotlines, like Canada’s new 988, promise confidentiality. So why do so many trace calls and texts?
This article was previously published in the Globe and Mail .
Crisis hotlines, like Canada’s new 988, promise confidentiality. So why do so many trace calls and texts?*
Rob Wipond is an investigative journalist and author of Your Consent Is Not Required: The Rise in Psychiatric Detentions, Forced Treatment, and Abusive Guardianships.
*
A teen recently called a self-described “anonymous and confidential” crisis hotline to talk about his feelings – then, minutes after the call ended, police arrive...
October 8, 2023
Rob Presents Seminar for Georgetown University Health & the Public Interest
I presented a talk on involuntary psychiatric treatment and discussed the issues with students as part of Georgetown University’s fascinating Health and the Public Interest series. Click here to watch it on YouTube.
The post Rob Presents Seminar for Georgetown University Health & the Public Interest appeared first on Rob Wipond.
Psychiatrist Awais Aftab and Rob Discuss Forced Treatment
Psychiatrist Awais Aftab read my book Your Consent Is Not Required and reviewed it for his “Psychiatry at the Margins” substack series, and then he and I engaged in an email discussion about different perspectives on forcing psychiatric interventions on people. Click to read part one and part two of our exchange.
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Rob Interviewed for New Podcast & Video Series “Reimagine Mental Health”
Psychiatric survivor and yoga teacher Emmy Chahal and family member and advocate Kyle Fawkes interviewed me for their new “Reimagine Mental Health” podcast and video series. Listen to the first two podcasts in the series to learn more about their stories, and click here to watch the interview with me on YouTube or here to listen to the audio version.
The post Rob Interviewed for New Podcast & Video Series “Reimagine Mental Health” appeared first on Rob Wipond.
Rob Interviewed on Medicating Normal
Nicole Lamberson interviewed me for the podcast and video series from the folks who made the film “Medicating Normal.” Watch it here.
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August 21, 2023
Busting the Deinstitutionalization Myth: We Actually Have More Beds Than Ever Before
Many people who know almost nothing else about the mental health system can nevertheless recount the story of the “failure” of “deinstitutionalization” in America. The story is repeated so often that it’s widely accepted as if it were a famously indisputable math formula:
Large state hospital asylums started closing decades ago, but promised community beds and services never came. As ...
July 18, 2023
California’s “Inside the Issues” with Alex Cohen Brings Rob Aboard
Alex Cohen interviewed me for her show “Inside the Issues” about my book Your Consent Is Not Required and efforts in California to expand forced psychiatric treatment laws. Click here to watch the show, with the interview beginning at about 33:00 minutes.
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July 10, 2023
The best books for understanding contemporary involuntary commitment and forced psychiatric treatment
Shepherd is an intriguing website, where “8,000+ authors have shared five of their favorite books around a topic, theme, or mood.” It’s a fascinating way to get a little more insight into authors as they describe their own books, as well as get very personal, expert book recommendations from them. I’m a bit reluctant to use a term like “best”–especially when I know all too well how many great books I couldn’t include–so I might have instead called mine a list of “books that, placed together, cr...
Psychiatric Detentions Rise 120% in First Year of 988
As contacts to the new 988 hotline number have risen, so have call tracing and police interventions, and 81,000 Americans in the past ten months have been subjected to coercive pressure or covert call tracing followed by unrequested visits from police and ambulance and psychiatric detentions. .
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June 20, 2023
Globe and Mail Op-ed: Forced Psychiatry is Expanding – at Society’s Peril
Despite the caricatures of people with mental illness, there is little evidence ‘involuntary care’ works.
Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper published my opinion article; click here to read Forced Psychiatry is Expanding — at Society’s Peril. (You might have to clear your browser cache memory to see the free version.)
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