I wanted to tell you how much I admired your cover article in the October 21 Boston Phoenix ("Voices Carry"). It's one of the most intelligent, thoughtful, and compassionate pieces on mental illness I've read in a long time.
I'm a medical resident with no personal history of psych issues (beyond the obvious standard it takes to get this far in medicine), but a longstanding interest in anti-psychiatry and interrogating/opposing the dominant model of mental illness, its diagnosis, and treatment. I hadn't known about the Hearing Voices Network, and was really moved to read about it. Your analysis of the current, intrinsically contradictory state of thought about the nature/causes of mental illness is dead on, and your presentation of Marty manages to be both unflinchingly candid and empowering without either fetishizing or sanctifying her. It's really an excellent piece of work.
I heard a few years ago about a nascent movement in the UK (they're so far ahead of us!) that applied harm-reduction theory to self-harm behaviors like cutting, and your article reminded me of it. I've always meant to chase it down; it's such a splendid and radical application of an already-amazing model.
Congratulations on a beautifully written intervention.
JESSE SOODALTER
PROVIDENCE, RI
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- We hear that
I just finished reading your article, "Voices Carry" (October 21). Thank you so much for writing about this very important topic.
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This is corporate pork on steroids, for energy we don't even need.
- Open your mind
I simply love bass — there is nothing wrong with that.
- Occupy, more occupy, even more occupy
I just read your article about the Occupy New Hampshire primary event ("A Wedding and Four Funerals," January 13).
- Letters to the Boston editors, February 17, 2012
Regarding your recent "House of Incorrections" story (Talking Politics, February 3), I think it would be more believable if some criminal-justice experts were quoted.
- Sorry state, changing times
You can't expect a university that helped to fund a speaker who downplays the Holocaust and mocks Jewish students before and during his speech to denounce something they have zero relation to.
- Letters to the Boston editors, March 23, 2012
The hypocrisy from the left is breathtaking.
- More teaching points
The Boston Teachers Union (BTU) is not obscene (see "Q: Who Hates School Reform?" Editorial, March 23).
- With friends like these ...
It's almost laughable that people get so upset about electronic privacy when the government can search your car, containers, and property outside your home without a search warrant.
- For your consideration
I'm curious about the inconsistency of the 2012 Boston Phoenix ballot for Best Trivia Night.
- Father knows best
Thanks for your "I was a teenage Gramlich" article (April 6). Ned Gramlich was my father.
- Less
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Letters
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