Mad in America’s 10 Most Popular Articles in 2023

Here we highlight the top ten of Mad in America’s most read blogs and personal stories of 2023.

 

Universal DBT in Schools Increases Anxiety, Depression, Family Conflict

In October, Peter Simons wrote about research asking if dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) can actually make kids’ mental health worse.

In recent years, teaching kids “emotion regulation” has become an increasingly large part of teachers’ responsibilities. Universal social and emotional learning programs (SEL) have become commonplace. However, a new study based on dialectical behavior therapy (DBT) finds that the intervention can actually make kids’ mental health worse. Kids became more anxious and depressed after receiving it and had more conflict with their parents.

 

New Study Finds Connection Between Childhood Trauma and Psychosis

In December, Ashley Bobak wrote about a new study which sheds new light on the profound impact of childhood trauma in the development of psychotic symptoms, particularly in treatment-resistant cases of schizophrenia.

The relationship between childhood trauma and later development of psychotic symptoms has received increasing attention in recent years. A new study published in Schizophrenia Bulletin Open examines this relationship further, specifically looking at cases of schizophrenia that are treatment-resistant. The authors found a correlation between childhood adversity and psychotic symptoms, especially hallucinations. They recommend that treatment for psychosis, which traditionally has avoided trauma-related work, incorporate approaches that directly address traumatic experiences.

The authors, led by Robert Dudley of the Early Intervention Psychosis Service, NHS Foundation Trust, and University of York, write:

 

Mental Disorder Has Roots in Trauma and Inequality, Not Biology

Allan M. Leventhal, PhD, is the author of Grifting Depression: Psychiatry’s Failure as a Medical Science. In December 2023 he wrote:

Despite the compelling evidence that favors a social/psychological, not a biological/medical approach to understanding and treating mental disorder, the prescription of psychiatric drugs remains psychiatry’s treatment of choice. Mental disorder continues to be viewed by psychiatry, the drug companies, other medical practitioners, the media, and the public as being of biological origin. And in full conformity with this scientifically unsupported belief, the NIMH invests relatively few of its research dollars on studies to expand our knowledge of the psychological causation of mental disorder, instead spending heavily on biological research, which continues to produce very little of value. There is no mystery as to why NIMH’s medical bias is failing to advance mental health care.

 

For Teen Girls, Rare Psychiatric Disorders Spread Like Viruses on Social Media

Writing in November, Peter Simons covered the paper “Social Media as an Incubator of Personality and Behavioral Ppsychopathology: Symptom and Disorder Authenticity or Psychosomatic Social Contagion?”

Researchers argue that a massive sudden spread of unusual psychiatric problems follows the pattern of “psychosomatic social contagion.”

TikTok’s “sick-role subculture” leads to children taking on the characteristics of rare psychiatric diagnoses, according to an article in Comprehensive Psychiatry. Kids—especially teenage girls—are presenting with self-described Tourette’s, eating disorders, autism, and dissociative identity disorder (DID)—but suddenly, and in a way that doesn’t match how these diagnoses have previously been identified.

According to the researchers, identifying with and glamorizing rare disorders has become a way for teenage girls to express extreme negative emotions in a way that, rather than stigmatizing them, makes them feel part of a community and even feel unique and special. The researchers call it “psychosomatic social contagion.”

 

Borderline Personality Disorder “No Longer Has a Place in Clinical Practice”

In June, Micah Ingle wrote that researchers from the UK and New Zealand argue that Borderline Personality Disorder should be abandoned as a diagnostic category.

Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) is a diagnostic category in the DSM-V and ICD-10/11 that has faced constant criticism from various sectors. Critics argue that the term does more harm than good due to the stigma associated with the label and the way it pathologizes responses to trauma.

Researchers have also questioned the scientific validity of BPD since it shares significant overlap with other diagnostic categories. Many suggest that it is time to retire this label.

In a new article, psychiatrists Roger Mulder and Peter Tyrer present a well-informed case against the scientific validity of BPD and highlight the confusion it causes researchers and the clinical harm it causes service users.

 

DOOCE: A Case Study on the Failure of Psychiatry

In May 2023, J.A. Carter-Winward wrote about Heather Armstrong, who rose to fame as a Utah-based “mommy” blogger who wrote about parenting, life, and depression.

The tragedy of Heather Armstrong’s death is that no one really knows why she took her own life, but I believe I do, and the drug manufacturers agree with me. The same medications were given to me to create “hope,” but, instead, they perched me on that precarious “suicide” ledge more often than I care to remember. Armstrong’s book, The Valedictorian of Being Dead, stands, not as a postscript of the power of emotional states, but as a posthumous testimony of the total failure of American psychiatry.

Heather Armstrong’s life was taken by psychiatry, our society’s blind and mindless capitulation to psychiatry, and our unwillingness to scrutinize their methods of madness, which lead to worse mental health, worse physical health, worse outcomes, and loss. Tragedy and loss.

Our hearts and condolences go out to Heather’s children, family, and loved ones. My hope is that they learn the truth of why she felt compelled to raise that white flag before anyone else is trapped in the same morass as Heather was—the medicalized model of mental health “care.”

 

Phenomenological Research on Depression Reveals Depths Beyond Diagnosis

From December 2023, by Kevin Gallagher.

Researchers challenge the conventional diagnostic frameworks for depression, advocating for a phenomenological approach that delves deeper into the lived experiences of individuals with depression.

A new study reveals reveals the limitations of current diagnostic methods and research approaches for depression.

Researchers Oskar Otto Frohn and Kristian Moltke Martiny from The Enactlab in Copenhagen argue that current methods often overlook the nuanced experiential aspects of depression, which are crucial for understanding and treating this complex experience. They propose that a phenomenological approach, which focuses on the individuals’s subjective experiences, offers a more comprehensive understanding of depression, thereby enhancing both diagnostic accuracy and therapeutic efficacy.

 

Psychiatrists Call for Transition to Social Rather Than Biological Treatments

Also from December 2023, by Kevin Gallagher.

With that statement, Helena Hansen, Kevin J. Gutierrez, and Saudi Garcia opened their recent article, “Rethinking Psychiatry: Solutions for a Sociogenic Crisis,” recently published in the journal Daedalus. Their work highlights the theories of Frantz Fanon, who believed psychiatric disorders had a social etiology (cause) and, therefore, the solutions to psychiatric suffering must be social in nature as well.

 

Letting Go of Lithium

In November, Elisabeth Walter wrote about her journey off lithium.

“I never wanted to take psych drugs. I took them because I was desperate to get out of pain, but not the kind of pain most people associate with psych meds. I had headaches, brain fog, and fatigue. I developed asthma and chronic sinus infections. I visited doctor after doctor until I eventually met with a neurologist. Being a brain doctor, he focused on the headaches. Without a diagnosis, he suggested Paxil, considering I was 17 and that I felt sad sometimes. My sister took antidepressants and my family has a lot of mental health issues, so based on that, I was thrown into the same category.

I took the drug as prescribed and felt amazing. I had more confidence, more energy, and I felt like I was on top of the world within two weeks. I started talking fast, coming up with ideas and creative projects and I stopped sleeping. Everything felt good and connected, and I had theories about the world I never could have come up with otherwise. I felt like I had taken a magical pill to cure whatever might have been wrong with me… until I crashed, became paranoid and landed in the hospital.”

 

ADHD Drugs Linked to Cardiovascular Disease

In October, Richard Sears wrote about a new study published in JAMA Psychiatry finding that long-term use of ADHD drugs is linked to an increased risk of cardiovascular disease.

According to the current research, led by Le Zhang of the Karolinska Institutet in Sweden, service users are at a 4% greater risk of cardiovascular disease (CVD) for each year of ADHD drug use. The largest increase in risk for cardiovascular disease occurs in the first three years of ADHD drug use. Children and adults see a similar pattern of risk when these drugs are used long-term. The authors write: