Recent News Archives
Pennsylvania Court to Hear Appeal of Dismissed Risperdal Lawsuit
May 16, 2012
In 2002, Pennsylvania state investigator Allen Jones discovered improprieties that lead to a succession of multi-billion dollar awards and settlements against Johnson & Johnson for fraudulent marketing of Risperdal. Before the recent spate of awards, the case that had arisen …
Full Article
Categorized in: Antipsychotics, In the News, Industry News, News Archives, Psychiatric Drugs
Fewer Involuntary Admissions by Psychiatrists than Physicians
May 16, 2012
In October of 2006 Switzerland enacted a law requiring a certified psychiatrist – rather than a physician or resident – to compel an involuntary hospital admission. In a review of 2,227 hospitalizations for 1,584 patients before and after the law’s …
Full Article
Categorized in: Disorders, In the News, Industry News, News Archives, Research
Behavioral Therapy (Including Parents) More Effective for ADHD than Drugs
May 16, 2012
Stimulant medication does not improve the academic performance or test scores of the 9% of all children in the U.S. diagnosed with ADHD, according to research reviewed in Scientific American. Rather, study habits rather than medication differentiated high- and low-performing students …
Full Article
Categorized in: ADHD, Adult, All pediatric disorders, Anxiety, Children and Adolescents, Disorders, Disorders, Drugs, In the News, Industry News, News Archives, Non-Drug Approaches, Psychotherapy, Recovery/Empowerment
Nonwhites Twice as Likely to Receive Injectable Antipsychotics
May 16, 2012
Research published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry shows that of all 901 patients diagnosed with schizophrenia from July 2009 to June 2010 at a community mental health center, white patients were half as likely (OR = .52) than nonwhites to …
Full Article
Categorized in: Antipsychotics, Drugs, In the News, Industry News, News Archives, Psychiatric Drugs, Research
DSM-5 Adds “Behavior” to List of Addictions
May 16, 2012
The APA convention last week included a debate about the addition of “Behavioral Addiction – Not Otherwise Specificed” to the new edition of the DSM. The new category could be used to diagnose as illnesses addictions to shopping, sex, the …
Full Article
Categorized in: Addiction, Adult, Disorders, Disorders, In the News, Industry News, News Archives
Pain Predicts Psychopathology
May 16, 2012
Researchers from Italy, Hungary, and the U.S. investigated the extent that the subjective experience of pain in 575 psychiatric outpatients (without comorbid physical diagnoses) is associated with psychopathology. They found that higher perception of pain severity was a predictor of …
Full Article
Categorized in: Adult, Disorders, Disorders, In the News, Mind/Body, News Archives, Non-Drug Approaches, Research, Trauma/Distress
Lowering the Threshold for Bipolar: “More Harm Than Good”
May 15, 2012
Researchers publishing in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry argue that broadening the diagnostic criteria for bipolar disorder would result in a greater increase in “false positives” than in “true” diagnoses, while there are no controlled studies demonstrating the efficacy of …
Full Article
Categorized in: Adult, Bipolar, Disorders, Disorders, In the News, Mood Stabilizers, News Archives, Psychiatric Drugs, Research
Motherhood in Illness & Recovery
May 15, 2012
Researchers in Norway, publishing in the International Journal of Mental Health Nursing, explore the experiences of being a mother with mental illness; “their way of struggling to become good enough mothers, managing to become the mother they longed to be, …
Full Article
Categorized in: Community, Disorders, In the News, News Archives, Non-Drug Approaches, Recovery/Empowerment, Research
Policy and Staffing are Key to Reducing Seclusion Rates
May 15, 2012
Dutch researchers examined the belief among psychiatric ward staff that patient characteristics explained the different rates of seclusion observed between facilities. They conclude that ward size interacting with patient characteristics partially explained the variance, but that ward policies and the …
Full Article
Categorized in: In the News, Industry News, News Archives, Research
Former Member Protests APA on Fox News
May 15, 2012
Dr. Keith Ablow, who resigned from the APA in protest “some time ago,” criticizes the unscientific and arbitrary process by which diagnoses are generated for the APA’s “big seller (and huge profit center)” the DSM. “This would be really funny, …
Full Article
Categorized in: Disorders, DSM, In the News, Industry News, News Archives
Differentiation of SSRI and Benzo Dependence/Withdrawal “Not Rational”
May 15, 2012
Researchers from the Cochrane Center and University of Copenhagen in Denmark, publishing in the May issue of Addiction, “explore the rationale for claiming that benzodiazepines cause dependence while selective serotonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRIs) do not.” They find that the two …
Full Article
Categorized in: Antidepressants, Benzodiazepines, Drugs, In the News, Industry News, Medication Tapering/Withdrawal, News Archives, Psychiatric Drugs, Research
Utah Supreme Court Allows Lawsuit for Psychotropic-Induced Murder
May 15, 2012
Ruling that health care providers, while important, “are not entitled to an elevated status in tort law that would categorically immunize them from liability when their negligent prescriptions cause physician injury to nonpatients,” the Utah Supreme Court overruled a lower …
Full Article
Categorized in: Antidepressants, Antipsychotics, Benzodiazepines, Drugs, In the News, Industry News, Mood Stabilizers, News Archives, Psychiatric Drugs, Stimulants
Generalized Anxiety Disorder Does Not Meet Criteria for a Disorder
May 13, 2012
Researchers in Italy found that of 105 subjects who met criteria for the DSM diagnosis of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD), only 18 had no other comorbid disorder. Almost no symptoms were specific to GAD, and most were prevalent in all …
Full Article
Categorized in: Adult, Anxiety, Disorders, Disorders, DSM, In the News, News Archives, Non-Drug Approaches, Research, Trauma/Distress
Psychotropics Contribute to Suicides Among Military Children
May 13, 2012
The Marine Corps Times writes of a dramatic increase in prescriptions of psychiatric medication for children of active-duty military personnell during their parents’ deployment and re-integration; a trend seen as contributing to a rise of suicides among military children. “The …
Full Article
Categorized in: Antidepressants, Anxiety, Children and Adolescents, Depression, Disorders, Disorders, Drugs, In the News, News Archives, Psychiatric Drugs
Does Everyone Have a Mental Illness?
May 13, 2012
Psychiatrist and author Allen J. Frances, former chair of the DSM-IV task force, outlines why he thinks the DSM-V will lead to millions of people being mislabeled with mental disorders in his lecture “Diagnostic Inflation: Does Everyone Have a Mental …
Full Article
Categorized in: Disorders, DSM, In the News, Industry News, News Archives, Resources, Rethinking Psychiatry/Medical Model, Videos
Motherhood: Pride & Recovery
May 13, 2012
Researchers at the Rockland Psychiatric Center in New York found that of the 39% of female inpatients who were mothers, the majority reported having maintained custody of their minor children and expressed great pride at being primary caretakers. The researchers …
Full Article
Categorized in: Community, Disorders, In the News, Industry News, News Archives, Non-Drug Approaches, Recovery/Empowerment, Research
Former DSM Chair: DSM-5 “A Disaster,” Calls for APA Monopoly to End
May 13, 2012
Former DSM task force chairman Allen Frances reviews the rise of the DSM, crossing over from a research instrument to to a popular bestseller and leading to “faddish over-diagnosis of autism, attention deficit disorders and bipolar disorder in children … …
Full Article
Categorized in: Disorders, DSM, In the News, Industry News, News Archives
Attachment & Psychosis: Implications for Therapeutic Alliance
May 10, 2012
In what they say is the first study to investigate relationships between emotion regulation, attachment and the therapeutic alliance, researchers in Northwest England recruited 49 persons with diagnoses of schizophrenia and assessed the quality of alliance with therapists, psychotic symptoms, positive …
Full Article
Categorized in: Adult, Community, Disorders, Disorders, In the News, Mind/Body, News Archives, Non-Drug Approaches, Recovery/Empowerment, Research, Schizophrenia/Psychotic Disorders, Trauma/Distress
APA Proposes Alternative to Juvenile Bipolar
May 10, 2012
In response to pressure over the 40-fold increase of bipolar diagnoses in children, many of which are being reviewed and dropped in retrospect, the APA has proposed a new, potentially more transient “disruptive mood dysregulation disorder” that would apply to …
Full Article
Categorized in: Adult, Anxiety, Anxiety, Bipolar, Bipolar, Children and Adolescents, Depression, Depression, Disorders, Disorders, Drugs, In the News, News Archives, Non-Drug Approaches, Trauma/Distress
Call For DSM-5 Reform Continues
May 10, 2012
Over 13,000 mental health professionals have signed an open letter from The Society for Humanistic Psychology (Div. 32 of the APA) to the DSM-5 Task Force, outlining the society’s concerns about the new manual’s development, and calling for the process …
Full Article
Categorized in: Disorders, DSM, In the News, Industry News, News Archives
Loneliness and Mental Illness
May 10, 2012
Based on interviews with 7,461 adults randomly selected from the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey in England, researchers found that interventions addressing maladaptive social cognition were more beneficial as an intervention for loneliness than increasing social support and opportunities for social …
Full Article
Categorized in: Adult, Anxiety, Community, Depression, Disorders, Disorders, In the News, News Archives, Non-Drug Approaches, Recovery/Empowerment, Research, Schizophrenia/Psychotic Disorders
Involuntary Treatment Burdened by Lack of Evidence
May 10, 2012
A review of Cochrane data finds a lack of evidence for the effectiveness of involuntary treatment; and an ethos of tradition rather than standards. Differences in criteria for involuntary admission, the study says, lead to differences in prognoses. The small …
Full Article
Categorized in: In the News, Industry News, News Archives, Research
Disconnect Between Antipsychotic Prescribing and Metabolic Screening
May 10, 2012
Despite American Diabetes Association and APA recommendations of glucose and lipid testing for all patients started on antipsychotics, there is a disconnect between prescribing of antipsychotics and metabolic screening with most psychiatrists and physicians agreeing that psychiatrists should not treat …
Full Article
Categorized in: Antipsychotics, Disorders, Drugs, In the News, Industry News, News Archives, Psychiatric Drugs, Research
Army to Study Use of Off-Label Meds for PTSD
May 9, 2012
The Army will launch a major research initiative next year on the effectiveness of commonly prescribed medication for PTSD. Speaking at the APA meeting in Philadelphia on Monday, Army Maj. Gary Wynn of Walter Reed and Col. David Benedik, associate …
Full Article
Categorized in: Adult, Antidepressants, Antipsychotics, Anxiety, Disorders, Drugs, In the News, Industry News, News Archives, Psychiatric Drugs, Research
DSM-5 Field Trials Fail to Compare New Diagnostic Criteria with DSM-IV Criteria
May 8, 2012
Field trials for the DSM-5 fail to explicitly compare new proposed diagnostic criteria with those in the DSM-IV, a step that would be too costly and time-consuming according to vice-chair of the task force Darrel Regier. “You just don’t do …
Full Article
Categorized in: DSM, In the News, Industry News, News Archives, Research