Yearly Archives: 2019
FDA Enforcement Actions Plummet Under Trump
From Science: 'Warning letters'âa key tool for keeping dangerous or ineffective drugs, devices and tainted foods off the marketâhave fallen by a third since Trump took office.
Talking About Psych Diagnoses and Drugs: A Primer for Parents & Professionals
It is important to tell parents the truth about what can and cannot be known about their child. In this way, people come to appreciate that labels and treatments offered by psychiatric professionals are far from being grounded in hard science.
System Change Toward a Green Movement in Mental Health
As a counter narrative, I believe that understanding system change and reform in mental health with a "green" lens makes use of a powerful theme which is increasingly accepted â and it lays out a road map to make innovative programs and initiatives the new norm for system-wide responses to mental health challenges.
Lack of Clear Guidelines Prevent Clinicians from Reducing Antipsychotics
A recently published study from noted critical psychiatry expert Joanna Moncrieff explored the barriers that prevent clinicians from helping service users in discontinuing or...
Why We Need an Empathy Revolution
From Mindful: By understanding how empathy works and can be augmented in ourselves and our children, we have one of the key tools to cultural transformation.
Benzodiazepine Awareness 2019
A special set of interviews for W-BAD 2019. We speak with Project Manager for W-BAD Rocks of Kindness, Janelle. We also chat with physician and Director of the Benzodiazepine Information Coalition Christy Huff MD and we hear from Stephen Wright MD, addiction specialist and medical consultant to the Alliance for Benzodiazepine Best Practices.
Discontinuation of Antipsychotics Improves Cognitive Functioning
A study, recently published in Psychological Medicine, examined the cognitive functioning of individuals with schizophrenia who discontinued antipsychotics, and those who maintained their antipsychotic...
Equal Legal Capacity or ‘Supported Decision-Making’?
At a recent conference on legal capacity, I was struck by the failure of another invited expert to adhere to the paradigm of supported decision-making as articulated by the CRPD Committee. We still need to work to ensure that this paradigm is well understood and appreciated, despite the progress made in national reforms.
Fake Scottish Psychiatrist May Have Prescribed ECT
From The Scotsman: Zholia Alemi worked in the NHS for 22 years despite having no qualifications. Some of her patients were sectioned or 'groomed' to gain access to their finances.
Psych Survivor Mel Starkman Turned His Experiences Into Poetry, Activism
From The Globe and Mail: Until his death, Mel fought against harsh psychiatric treatments. In many ways he saw the cracks in our midst, especially the ones right in front of us.
Antidepressant Use More Than Doubles Risk of Suicide Attempts
Throughout the past two decades, studies have warned of increased suicide rates in those taking antidepressants, especially in children and adolescents. Researchers also documented...
Musician Feared Antidepressant Was ‘Poisoning’ Him, Inquest Told
From Belfast Telegraph: "He said: 'This drug is poisoning me. It's giving me problems I never had before.' He's handing them the diagnosis on a plate, and the system is not listening," said Professor David Healey.
Understanding Behavioral Challenges as Survival Instincts
From Mona Delahooke, PhD: The popular strategy of simply trying to alter behaviors fails to acknowledge the importance of loving engagement with adults as the foundation of treatment.
Multnomah Co. to Create Alternative to Jail, ERs for ‘Mentally Ill’ Homeless
From The Oregonian/OregonLive: "If youâre at a point where you donât know where to turn, donât have a place to go, experiencing mental health issues, youâre living on the street, where right now can you go?"
On Cognitive Liberty: A Principle to Rally Behind
The concept of cognitive liberty is valuableâone might even say necessaryâprecisely because it goes to the core of what we are as human beings. Correspondingly, it unmasks psychiatry for the profound human rights violator that it is. It reveals such transgression as the essence of what psychiatry is actually all about.
Being-Towards-Suicide
Is it not the very capacity for suicide that makes us human? This capacity, this freedom, of autonomyâs jurisdiction to extend to the outermost seconds of life, namely death, is an innate part of humanity and thus consciousness. Accepting death as a possibility embraces the finitude of our existence.
Time for Mental Health Professionals to Speak Truth to Power
From Dr. Terry Lynch/Mental Health Academy: It is no longer acceptable for mental health professionals to do nothing in the face of a mental health paradigm that is built upon misinformation and false claims.
Why Mad in Italy?
The Italian mental health system, like the majority of them around the world, struggles with accepting a model based on principles of Recovery, which highlights individual and communal mental health needs, social determinants of emotional distress, integration of physical and psychological care and quality of life.
âIf the Land Is Sick, You Are Sickâ: An Aboriginal Approach to Mental Health
From Mosaic: The traditional expertâpatient relationship of psychological treatment has often been seen by Aboriginal people as being based on that of the colonial master and the colonised.
Prepared, Yet Unprepared: My Involuntary Hospitalization Adventure
Overall I learned a great deal during my hospital adventure. The whole experience seemed like a comedy of errors. For me the only people there who were truly out of touch with reality were staff members. All of the patients were very present, albeit in some distress. The reasons for their distress were not unreasonable.
Traffic Pollution Linked to Anxiety and Depression in Childhood
New research explores the impact of exposure to traffic-related air pollution on levels of anxious and depressive symptoms in childhood.
âWe Have to Speak OutâŠand Be Heardâ: Life After Sexual Abuse
From The Guardian: Is society doing enough for adult survivors, who, too often, are overlooked, pathologised and criminalised?
Researchers Propose âMetaphor Analysisâ for Understanding the Experiences of People who Hear Voices
A new study, published in the journal Psychosis: Psychological, Social and Integrative Approaches, explores ways that metaphor operates in the lived-experiences of individuals who...
The Creation of a Conceptual Alternative to the DSM: An Interview with Dr. Lucy...
MIA's Zenobia Morrill interviews Lucy Johnstone about the reaction to the Power Threat Meaning Framework, her life influences, and her hopes for the future.
Inside an Online Charter School: Labeling Kids “Disabled” for Profit
Iâd thought this teaching job would be my chance to make positive changes in childrenâs lives. But most of the recommendations in students' IEPs were related not to reading, writing, and ârithmetic but to behavior control and obedience to adults. And the school seemed to be working very hard to prove that the kids were disabled and to get them certified as such.
