A couple of days ago (on October 11, 2026) - I crossed the 4 million reads mark on this blog. That means I got 1 million reads in just the past 7 months. I posted one of those dashboards above that shows a monthly read rate of 90-100K per month. When I crossed the 3 million mark 7 months ago, I clarified with Google that this figure was real and not an artifact. My concern at the time was that there was a wide adoption of VPNs and that was leading to lower page read numbers than total reads. Looking at the total number of posts it could also be a scaling effect. When there are close to 1,000 posts, even small numbers of reads per post can lead to aggregate large numbers. In the general scheme of things, I don't know if the number of reads for this blog is good, mediocre, or poor. I just thought it would be a good idea to let people know if they are reading these posts - they are not alone.
I am very pleased that people are reading what I write. I think it is unique because I consciously try to present real information in the least provocative way - even when dealing with provocative topics. It is very disappointing to see psychiatry portrayed in an unrealistic light and I hope to be able to continue to interject realism. Part of my process is to avoid reading blogs or essays that I think are intentionally provocative for a couple of reasons. First, I immediately get the point and I don't need a long explanation about how all psychiatrists (or schools of psychiatry) are wrong about something. Secondly, I don't want to give this blog the appearance of either simply being reactive to others or getting my ideas from other sources. Third, these are almost always old or in some cases very old arguments that have been refuted and now are simply being repeated. Fourth, it invariably involves rhetoric often disguised as philosophy that seems to leave a lot of people spellbound. I am not spellbound by either rhetoric or philosophy and am amazed about what gets published in psychiatric journals.
I also hope to continue to improve upon my writing and what I cover on this blog. I think the blog contains information that you will not see anywhere else. I will be working on ways to present more of it. Just recently I altered the code on my template so that all of the images will extend across the entire frame on my posts. That has generally worked well, but in some cases the final image looks blurred. You can get around that by clicking on the image and seeing it displayed in its original size. I have not had time to look at all of the images with the new code, but if there are images that seem indecipherable let me know and I will see if I can correct them.
In the meantime my usual qualifiers are the same. This blog is and always will be free. You do not have to subscribe or send me any information but I greatly appreciate the 264 followers that have varying degrees of anonymity. Feel free to suggest topics and leave comments. I am open to suggestions for collaboration. I am a very good collaborator and have a broad knowledge of medical, psychiatric, and biological research.
My plan for the coming years is to try to come up with an interesting post at the rate of one post per week. I am more productive in some months compared with others, but so far have been keeping up with that schedule. So apart from the numbers, I hope that you find what I am writing interesting and a solid way to move away from the old arguments about psychiatry.
George Dawson, MD, DFAPA
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