Monthly Archives: December 2017
New Review Suggests Higher Recovery and Remission Rates for Psychosis
Meta-analysis gives updated recovery and remission rates for persons identified as having a first-episode psychosis and those diagnosed with schizophrenia.
Florida’s “Free Kill” Law – A Death Trap for the State’s Populace and Visitors
Florida’s Wrongful Death Act essentially denies residents and visitors alike the right to live once they enter a hospital. The law has been dubbed “Free Kill” because while it can cost money to correct mistakes, keep hospitals safely staffed and update equipment, it is free to kill.
Micronutrients for ADHD Symptoms in Children
Over and over again, we have shown that additional nutrients positively affect behaviour and mental states. This research offers further evidence that children with ADHD, mood dysregulation and symptoms of aggression should be given the opportunity to try micronutrient treatment FIRST.
BPS Opposition to Benefit Sanctions is Debated
From The British Psychological Society:Â The BPS has published a letter calling on the government to suspend the benefits sanction system, as sanctions may harm...
The Great Psychoanalysts 2: Melanie Klein
This piece for The Philosophers' Mail profiles Melanie Klein, a Viennese psychoanalyst best known for applying the principles of Freudian psychoanalysis to children. Klein's work primarily focused...
Researchers Push for Transparency of Mental Health Outcome Data
A new analysis of UK mental health data suggests the way organizations deliver mental health services can alter patient outcomes.
People Are Dying Prematurely Due to Polypharmacy
Our son, Mark, is an example of the deadly effects of polypharmacy. He died at the young age of 46 and his death was caused by toxicity/cardiac failure from two of the five medications he was taking, at higher than recommended doses, as prescribed by his psychiatrist.
The Other Foucault
From The Nation: In two new books, Foucault: The Birth of Power and Foucault's Last Decade, Stuart Elden investigates some of the unexplored aspects of Michel Foucault's...
A Response to Columnist Dr. Greg Smith at the Aiken Standard
In this five-part series for the Benzodiazepine Information Coalition, Nicole L. critiques a recent article by Dr. Greg Smith that was highly laudatory of benzodiazepines. Click...
Critical Influence of Nutrition on Psychosocial Wellbeing in Childhood
The bidirectional relationship between diet and nutrition and social, emotional, and educational factors among European youth.
The Upcoming MDMA Research Will Transform Mental Health Care
If MDMA can effectively treat and perhaps even cure PTSD it will create clear documentation that the core premises of the chemical imbalance theory are dead wrong. It is ironic and only fitting that a chemical molecule will finally bury the chemical imbalance theory and allow us to move on.
Changing Law That Lets Mentally Ill Stay on the Streets
From the San Francisco Chronicle: San Francisco city officials are hoping to change the law that allows homeless individuals with mental health diagnoses to stay on...
It’s Time for Full Legal Equality for People With Diagnoses
In this piece for the National Survivor User Network, Liz Sayce argues that people with mental health conditions will continue to stay silent about their...
Reducing Antipsychotic Use May Improve Health for People with Mental Health Diagnoses
A new study offers radical solutions for improving the cardiovascular health of people with mental health diagnoses: reducing antipsychotic prescriptions..
Researchers Call for Structural Competency in Psychiatry
Structural competency in psychiatry emphasizes the social factors shaping patient presentations and encourages physician advocacy.
When Legal Drugs Harm and Illegal Drugs Help
From Scientific American: In a day and age when people are increasingly becoming addicted to prescription drugs, and increasingly helped by the therapeutic effects of illicit...
Whistleblower Files Lawsuit Against AstraZeneca
From the Chicago Tribune: Former drug sales representative Allison Zayas became a whistleblower against her old company, AstraZeneca, after learning that a combination of Seroquel...
This Is Why Your Mental Health Can Get Worse Around Christmas
In this piece for HuffPost UK, Sophie Gallagher highlights some of the common factors that harm people's mental health during the holiday season, including financial stress, loneliness,...
Dickens’ Christmas Carol: A Psychiatric Primer of Character and Redemption
Scrooge’s character was forged from his own emotional pain. Indeed, we can change the course of our lives through facing and mourning that pain. Want, deprivation and cruelty create the evils of the world. Mourning and trust, in the context of love, are its antidotes.Â
This Mental Health Doc-Opera is Exactly What We Need
From HuffPost: Mental health activist and filmmaker Ken Paul Rosenthal has teamed up with the musician Madigan Shive to create a musical documentary called Whisper Rapture:...
Professor Sir Robin Murray: Reframing Psychotic Illness
An interview with Sir Robin Murray, who is a Professor of Psychiatric Research at the Institute of Psychiatry. He is perhaps best known for helping to establish the neurodevelopmental hypothesis of schizophrenia, and for his work on the environmental risk factors relating to schizophrenia.
Phil Borges: Is Madness a Breakdown or Initiation into a Spiritual Calling?
Is madness breakdown or initiation into a spiritual calling? Crazywise is a new documentary film that explores the meaning of psychosis from the perspective of traditional cultures and shamanism, following the stories of people struggling with extreme ...
When Minds Crack, The Light Might Get In: A Spiritual Perspective on Madness
You can’t go back to mundane ways of seeing the world after very dark things happen. Trauma cracks open a hole in our lives and in our minds, throwing us into the zone where we face the big spiritual questions. Bad ideas can get in when things open up like that. But it’s also possible that something new and positive can get in.
Can Science Explain the Human Mind?
From NPR: A forthcoming series of studies in the journal Psychological Science explores people's beliefs about which mental phenomena can and cannot be explained by science.
"Importantly,...
Mental Health Seclusion Rates Increase
From Stuff: More than 800 New Zealand mental health patients were held in seclusion at some point last year, representing a six percent increase in...
