Yearly Archives: 2019
Why Are So Many Americans Seeking Medication for Distress?
How do we explain the high demand for mind-numbing chemicals in America? Is it due to the development of new, improved "medications"? Is it due to the invention of new "diagnoses"? Is it due to life here becoming more stressful and traumatic? Or is it something else? Have we become less tolerant of distress?
Criminal Case Spurs a Rethink of Euthanasia for ‘Mental Illness’
From Medscape: The criminal allegations are related to the 2010 death in Belgium of a 38-year-old woman with Asperger syndrome, a mild form of autism.
New Evidence for Brain-Gut Link in Depression and Quality of Life
The first ever population-level study of the brain-gut connection in humans finds evidence for a link between gut bacteria and mental health.
Child Baker Acts On the Rise in FL: Are We Listening?
From the Hernando Sun: Convincing an impressionable 1st grader that she isn’t a bad person while her wrists are clamped together by cold, locked bracelets of metal is difficult. She will always remember this day.
Youth-Nominated Social Support Reduces Mortality for Suicidal Adolescents
The Youth-Nominated Support Team intervention invites adolescents to select adults in their life to receive training on how to support them.
ECT Could Cause Permanent Brain Damage, ‘Should Be Stopped’, Leading Expert Warns
From the Daily Mail: U.K. Health watchdog NICE has announced a review of treatments for depression, which may include an update on guidelines for use of ECT.
Psychiatric Medications: Who Decides?
One “side effect” of meds is that they can reinforce people’s passivity towards their emotions, obscuring an understanding of themselves as having agency, as being the active creators of their lives — including their emotional lives. This has to be on the table in talking with clients about whether they want medications to be part of their development picture.
I Don’t Believe in Autism
The conversation about what truly constitutes “autism” is an ongoing one. Although I resist the label personally, I do not begrudge anyone for identifying as autistic, or seeking out an autism diagnosis. Leaving this discussion within the domain of medicine is limiting. That’s why a new discourse is emerging, not among doctors, but among activists who push for autistic self-advocacy.
Psychiatry, Society and Stigma: Placing the Blame Where It Belongs
I believe that those who understand psychiatry’s self-serving claims and want to be most effective in a campaign of re-education must never lose sight of the critical role of language in the forming of public opinion. Here I will use the example of stigma to illustrate psychiatry's “War of the Words.”
‘I Own You’: Prominent Psychiatrist Accused of Sexually Exploiting Patients
From The Boston Globe: The women say they relocated from other states, at Ablow’s request, to be closer to his Newburyport office where he treated them with infusions of Ketamine.
Psychology Must Become a Sanctuary Discipline to Heal Racial Trauma
Researchers explore pathways of healing racial trauma in Latinx immigrant communities.
Assessing Outcomes at the Alternative to Meds Center: Survey Results Prove Promising
I am often contacted by organizations seeking help with documenting how their efforts make a statistically significant difference when it comes to their clients’ success. Let’s take a look at some of the essential aspects that must be considered for those seeking documentation of evidence-based treatment.
Esketamine Nears FDA Approval, Prompting Both Excitement and Concern
From Lown Institute: Some researchers are concerned that the panel recommendation to approve esketamine represents a further lowering of the bar for clinical evidence.
Psychological Interventions Can Help When Tapering Off Antidepressants
Meta-analysis of antidepressant tapering finds CBT and MBCT can aid in tapering, but limited studies met inclusion criteria.
Nasal Spray for Depression? Not So Fast
Several members of the FDA Advisory Committee perceived this new drug as a potential “game changer” in the way depression is treated. I, however, am NOT one of them. I take my role as the Consumer Representative very seriously and want to make sure that any pharmaceutical drug that the FDA approves shows greater benefit than potential harm.
ERs ‘Flooded’ With ‘Mentally Ill’ Patients With No Place Else to Turn
From CNN: "They strip away your dignity, your clothes, everything, and the doctor comes in and treats you like dirt because you're taking up a bed."
School-Based Program for Anxiety and Depression Shows Promise
Researchers evaluate the impact of a school-based prevention program on anxious and depressive symptoms.
Look to the Medicine Wheel for Mental Health, First Nations Elders Advise
From Medical Xpress: "Traditional teachings have to come back [for us] to know who we are and how to balance ourselves...the mind, the body and the soul [have to] reconnect."
Dialectical Behavior Therapy Reduces Self-Harm and Suicide Attempts
A new meta-analysis finds that DBT reduces self-harm, suicide attempts, and reduces the frequency of psychiatric crisis service utilization.
Attachment Theory: How Your Childhood Affects Your Relationships
From Sprouts Schools: Attachment theory argues that a strong emotional and physical bond to one primary caregiver in our first years of life is critical to our development.
Veterans Are Committing Suicide in VA Parking Lots: Report
From Military Times: Some are worried this is a gruesome form of protest by veterans to highlight how little help they were given in their time of need by the VA system.
New Book Deconstructs Ideology of Cognitive Therapy
CBT forwards a hyper-rational perspective of human suffering that complements a managerialist culture of efficiency and institutionalization in the Western world.
A Clinical Social Worker’s Bane
We have all become assembly line workers in the factory of mental health. At the facility, I put in at least 50 hours and live with a constant dread of not having clicked a button, of not having made another phone call, of overlooking the sadness in someone’s eyes. The risk of burnout or empathy fatigue is high, yet the machine hums along.
Harvard Study Shows the Dangers of Early School Enrollment
From Intellectual Takeout: When children have educational experiences that aren't geared to their developmental level, it causes them feelings of inadequacy, anxiety and confusion.
Alita Taylor – Open Dialogue: Making Meaning
An interview with psychotherapist, trainer and facilitator Alita Taylor who shares her passion for Open Dialogue, explaining why Open Dialogue 'cannot be taught, but needs a teacher'.
