Monthly Archives: April 2021

From NBC News: The ban should have meant victory for those fighting the school, but more than a year later, it hasn't actually changed anything.

“You’re so different,” people would say to Betty and me. We joked about the thinly veiled criticism—people thought we were crazy because we were women who consciously defined ourselves and how we wanted to live.

From PIX11: A pilot program that has kept NYPD officers away from many mental health crisis calls in parts of Manhattan will expand to every precinct citywide, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced on Monday.

Peer supervision is often silent and stigmatizing instead of including necessary, robust discussions around relapse.

MIA's Emaline Friedman interviews Hannah Zeavin about what the history of teletherapy reveals about its limitations and radical potential.

From ISPS-US: A review of the science that calls for a radical change or evidence-based paradigm shift in psychiatric care, and pilot projects that tell of a new way.

While professional guidelines recommend antidepressants for back pain, researchers point out the lack of evidence for their usefulness.

From MedPage Today: The Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing Thursday on policing and behavioral health, as calls for defunding the police increase and as people in mental crisis are 16 times more likely to be killed during a police encounter.

On psychiatry’s resistance to admitting to withdrawal effects, as well as the way doctors and scientists are treated when they critique the establishment.

Researchers find a lack of current literature on safe, effective ways to manage antidepressant withdrawal and make suggestions for future research.

From UPI: "The effect across the whole population may be substantial...due to the scale of the pandemic and [the fact] that many of these conditions are chronic," said study co-author Dr. Paul Harrison.

A program offers psychotherapy in exchange for voluntary service in the community. But the act of volunteering itself can have mental health benefits of its own.

From Medscape: Researchers identified 2274 esketamine-related adverse events (AEs) among 962 patients (mean, 2.4 events per person); 389 patients had a serious AE, and there were 22 deaths.

Harmed patients are frequently unable to control the narrative of their own treatment and are subject to gaslighting, dangerous medical advice, and termination.

The court found me “not guilty by reason of insanity” and sentenced me to a 30-day evaluation at a psych facility. A crisis had been averted, and my life could return to normal... oh, how far from the truth that idea was.

From BJGP Life: We now know that antidepressant withdrawal is common and can be severe and long-lasting. These are the papers I suggest busy GPs read to get the best insight into the topic.

From David Antonuccio and Michael Pierce: A new song in support of a young man being repeatedly shocked against his will in Minnesota.

From STAT: Many called the podcast “whitesplaining racism” and said the questioning of whether racism exists in medicine was the ultimate gaslighting of Black physicians and patients.

Many patients end up on terribly harmful drug cocktails they might never escape from. Although it’s hard to believe, it’s getting worse.

I wondered how many others have experienced coercion, abuse, and have had their lived experiences of mental illness used as weapons against them by mental health professionals?

From ABC Australia: Victoria's SafeScript system was rolled out in 2018 to track the use of certain medications and 'enable safer clinical decisions.' But experts fear it may be pushing some patients towards the black market.

Dr. Rucklidge talks about the emerging field of Nutritional Psychiatry, which looks at the relationship between nutrition and brain health and how it may affect children’s moods and behavior.

I now am more conversant with the latest literature on the medications I take than my prescriber is. While I consider his opinion and clinical judgment, I no longer accept every word as the Gospel truth.

From COE Commissioner for Human Rights: While the additional strain generated by the pandemic is new, the mental health situation and lack of services has been a neglected human rights crisis in Europe for a long time.

MIA's Richard Sears interviews psychotherapist Anne Guy about working with clients withdrawing from psychiatric drugs.