ECT Survivors Take On the FDA
In December, the FDA proposed down-classifying the device used in electroshock treatment (ECT), which would loosen regulations and potentially make ECT more widely available...
Facebook’s AI Suicide Prevention Tool Raises Concerns
From The Daily Dot: Last week, Facebook announced a global rollout of their new suicide prevention algorithm, which aims to identify users deemed at risk...
“Biomarker Porn” and the “Hotness” of Telomeres
-James Coyne argues that many of the studies finding associations between trauma and telomere lengths are misleading.
Screenings Alone Won’t Prevent ACEs—We Must Address Community Trauma
From California Health Report: Traumatized communities experience a breakdown in connection and trust, which gives rise to hopelessness and makes ACEs more likely to occur.
“These Are the World’s 10 Top-Selling Pharmaceutical Drugs”
Abilify, the antipsychotic developed by the Japanese Otsuka Group, is listed as the number four top-selling pharmaceutical, according to the influence.
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Being Empathetic is Good, but it can Hurt Your Health
From The Washington Post: Research shows that while empathy is an essential ingredient for building relationships, feeling overwhelmed by others' emotions can lead to health...
The Way Out Of Burnout
In this piece for 1843, a psychoanalyst explains why for people feeling “burnt out,” simply trying to relax doesn’t always work.
"Burnout involves the loss of the...
“Committed: Stories about Stays in Psychiatric Hospitals”
-Longreads has posted links to online stories about being committed to psychiatric hospitals.
Nail Biting may be OCD in DSM-5
Along with hair-pulling and skin-picking, nail biting is under consideration to be included as an OCD-spectrum disorder in the the DSM-5. "The beauty is that...
“Rush to Prescribe: Study Questions Speed in Giving Antidepressants to Grieving Parents”
MedicalXpress and Science 2.0 interview MiA blogger Jeffrey Lacasse about his recent paper, "Prescribing of Psychiatric Medication to Bereaved Parents Following Perinatal/Neonatal Death: An Observational Study."
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Temperamentally Blessed
From Aeon: The finding that only one in five people avoid any kind of mental health problems or psychiatric diagnoses through their lives has prompted...
Psychiatry’s Intellectual Crisis: Giovanni Fava, MD
From Psychiatric Times/Conversations in Critical Psychiatry: "Psychiatry is going through an intellectual crisis [that] is shared by other areas of clinical medicine and stems from a narrow concept of science."
Amid COVID, People Involuntarily Confined in Psych Hospitals Must Be Released
From Truthout Holding people in congregate environments dramatically increases risk of coronavirus-related illness up to and including death.
‘Warmlines’ Helping to Fill a Gap in Mental Health Care
From the San Francisco Chronicle: Unlike a hotline for those in immediate crisis, warmlines provide early intervention with emotional support that can prevent a crisis — and a more costly 911 call or emergency-room visit.
“Taking Media Out of Social Occasions”
“Social media’s link to jealousy and depression is well-chronicled,” Kara Baskin writes in the Boston Globe, “and the recent holidays — when all sorts of unsavory emotions bubble forth anyway — amplify it.”
“Federal Judge Declines to Toss Paxil Suicide Case, Setting GSK up for September Trial”
Wendy Dolin sued GSK after her husband committed suicide after taking a generic version of Paxil. The US District Court has declined GSK’s motions...
Malady Mongers: How Drug Companies Sell Treatments By Inventing Diseases
From Huffington Post: The pharmaceutical industry’s image has been significantly damaged in recent years as the public discovered the role its aggressive marketing played...
States Considering Statute of Limitations Reform for Childhood Sexual Assault
From WNYC Studios: States around the country are considering extending statutes of limitations for crimes like these, which have historically been very short.
What Your Therapist Doesn’t Know
From The Atlantic: Using data and analytics to measure the effectiveness of psychotherapy for individual clients can engender openness in the therapist-client relationship and improve mental...
Not Your Great-Grandfather’s Psychoanalysis
From the Monitor on Psychology: One of the greatest misconceptions about psychoanalytic and psychodynamic therapy is that it has remained unchanged since Freud introduced it. In...
“Legal Marijuana, Antidepressants, and the Danger of not Listening”
Dr. Claudia Gold of Boston.com comments on the recent research finding that "thoughts of suicide, sexual difficulties and emotional numbness as a result of anti-depressants...
“America is Obsessed with Happiness — and it’s Making Us Miserable”
“But the more conversations I have about happiness, and the more I absorb the idea that there’s a glittering happy ever after out there...
“The Myth of Human Adult Neurogenesis?”
Neuroskeptic discusses a recent paper claiming that there is very little evidence for adult neurogenesis – the ongoing creation of new neurons. “The authors...
All Tip, No Iceberg: A New Way to Think About Mental Illness
From The Conversation: The search for a single, identifiable cause underlying each mental disorder has yielded very few useful results. New research suggests that a network...
The Club Where You Bare Your Soul to Strangers
From The Atlantic: A new movement called Authentic Relating is hosting events across the country where people participate in exercises and games to learn the...
