Yearly Archives: 2019
Civil Commitment for Addiction Treatment Led to Loved One’s Suicide, Family Says
From WBUR: "It was the worst experience of my life. Here I was — not having committed any crime — in the hole and being harassed by really dangerous people."
“I Love My Diagnosis”: The Benefits of Mental Illness
What inherent benefits may exist for identifying oneself as mentally ill? Many patients actually hope for a diagnosis. Once granted that special status, they then inform everyone around them—friends, family, the HR department—so that everyone can get on board and act accordingly, altering any expectations they might otherwise have for this person.
International Research Team Proposes a New Taxonomy of Mental Disorders
New data interpreted to suggest a hierarchical, dimensional system of mental disorders will aid future research efforts and improve mental health care.
The Effects of Antidepressant Exposure Across Generations: An Interview with Dr. Vance Trudeau
Dr. Vance Trudeau discusses his study's finding that antidepressants may have far-reaching, adverse effects that last up to three generations.
‘Fight or Flight’ and the Dangers of Consuming All the Bad News in the...
From ABC/Hack: What happens when we take a brain and nervous system evolved for running away from cheetahs, and give it a big glowing screen showing all the bad news in the world?
No Brain Connectivity Differences Between Autism, ADHD, and “Typical Development”
Neuroscience researchers find no differences in brain connectivity between children with diagnoses of autism, ADHD, and those with no diagnoses.
Lasting Damage from Prescribed Drugs
There is a large-scale failure to appreciate the risks involved in taking drugs that alter brain function on a long-term basis. The fact that it has taken single-minded and dedicated campaigners, many of them users of the drugs concerned, to bring these effects to the attention of the scientific and professional community is shameful.
Study Linking Autism to ‘Male Brain’ Retracted, Replaced
From Medscape Psychiatry: The article, published in April 2017 in JAMA Psychiatry and since cited in fourteen other papers, contained "serious errors," writes lead author Christine Ecker.
Debate Ensues Over Rights-Based Approach to Mental Health
Debate ensues as scholars and policymakers discuss how to bring a rights-based approach to mental health policy.
Ambushed by Antidepressants for 30 Years
They helped me function for a while, but the debilitating side effects of antidepressants held me prisoner. I'm still having a hard time understanding how this could have happened. It's been suggested to me by a therapist that what I'm going through now is another kind of PTSD: the ongoing trauma of realizing what antidepressants did to me for 30 years.
Social Farming Ireland Shown to Have Positive Outcomes for Mental Health
From AgriLand: Social farming is ideally placed to contribute to people’s recovery, providing opportunities to re-engage with life, with nature and with other people.
A Faux Test for a Faux Disease Promoted by Real Psychiatrists
Influential psychiatrists recently called on the NHS to make a faux schizophrenia test available to patients and their families. What is most astounding about this is the complete lack of pretense. "We are so certain of our power and righteousness that we are going to tell you to your face that we are lying, and yet, we will still get our way."
Is NY’s Mental-Health System Listening to the Peers Who’ve Lived It?
From City Limits: The current state of affairs is a far cry from the intended purpose of peers, which was as a corrective for the chauvinism of clinicians.
There is More to Mindfulness than the Brain
According to Lifshitz and Thompson, mindfulness is best understood as “complex orchestration of cognitive skills embodied in a particular social context.”
“Breakthrough” Treatment for Postpartum Depression: Game Changer or Misguided Magic Bullet?
Ultimately, the FDA Advisory Committee recommended approval of brexanolone by a 17-1 member vote. I was the only NO vote. I voted NO because as the sole Consumer Representative on the committee I didn’t believe the company had demonstrated that the potential benefits outweighed the potential for harm.
Democracy Dies in Darkness
From the Journal of the Norwegian Medical Association: A democratic problem arises when politicians abdicate public debate in favour of expertocracy in matters related to health.
When Does it Help to Have Background Information in Child-Centered Play Therapy?
Knowing the client’s history can help foster genuine empathic responding, a key component to child-centered play therapy.
She Wanted to Be the Perfect Mom, Then Landed in a Psychiatric Unit
From WJCT: Right now, UNC is the only hospital in the country that has a designated psych unit just for pregnant women and new moms.
Introducing Multi-Lens Therapy
How can we restore something as essential to the healing and helping process as knowing what is going on? If your client has an actual biological problem, he needs one sort of help. If he hates his job, he needs another sort of help. It is absurd (and not okay) that a helper would look only at putative “symptoms” and not at what’s going on.
Psychiatry’s Incurable Hubris
From The Atlantic: The protracted attempt to usher psychiatry into medicine’s modern era is the subject of Anne Harrington’s Mind Fixers: Psychiatry’s Troubled Search for the Biology of Mental Illness.
Adderall Use Associated with Increased Risk of Psychosis
Twice as many teenagers with ADHD experienced severe psychosis when taking Adderall, as compared to Ritalin, according to a new study.
I Spent 16 Months of My Childhood Locked in a Warehouse
From HuffPost: The warehouse was occupied by a "tough love" drug rehab program called Straight Inc., which the ACLU branded "a concentration camp for throwaway teens."
Combining Mirtazapine with Existing SSRI or SNRI Does Not Improve Depressive Symptoms
Study finds combining mirtazapine with an SSRI or SNRI is not clinically effective for improving depression in primary care patients who remained depressed after taking an SSRI or SNRI.
I Believe There’s a Gene for Psychosis… And We All Have It!
Without a capacity for delusional thinking, official religions likely couldn’t have thrived, and civilizations couldn’t have developed and flourished. So I conclude that the formula of two parts rationality plus one part delusionality was essential in helping man to ultimately outcompete all other species.
Postpartum Depression: Is Brexanolone the Answer?
After three randomized trials inclusive of only 247 women, and with side effects that include loss of consciousness, brexanolone has been approved for the treatment of postpartum depression. Because of the drug’s risk profile, women must receive the 60-hour infusion under medical supervision and “cannot function as her child(ren)’s primary caregiver.”
